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| I can't believe people still use this thing, lol | | |
| Posted from my facebook note.
The recent Batman movie is probably the best thing that has hit the
screens in years. There's no denying that fact. You can't deny the raw
sales figures, the endless streams of praise from friends and family
(most of whom have watched it 2+ times, helping the former), and its
own artistic merit. It's just undeniably a great movie, which is
something that hasn't and can't be said about anything for quite a
while. And I agree, which is what troubles me.
I should be someone who hates the Dark Knight, and if you're not fan of
the Bush Administration, you should be too. The situation in Batman is
President Bush’s wet dream: there exist dangerous criminals that are so
dangerous and so irrational that they can’t be dealt with by normal,
legal means. Not that the public wants to anyway, seeing the brutality
of this enemy. So every branch of the government: the courts, the
mayor, the police – all hand their powers over to a masked vigilante
named Batman, entrusting him with all resources and hope that he might
finish the job.
To achieve his purposes, Batman siphons company funds toward paying for
luxury dinners, fundraising events, and his menagerie of gadgetry. He
even uses his own company funds and resources to tap into the cellular
network of every Gotham citizen, creating a wiretapped network that
even the NSA would be jealous of. Batman then forms secret deals and
plots with the city’s law enforcement agencies, away from public
scrutiny, hoping that these plans will result in the capture of the
Joker. I say hope, because at the end, after one dead girlfriend and
one scorched district attorney, not to mention scores of dead
innocents, is running away from the people he swore to protect, while
his real enemy is still at large.
In a time when the war and the administration is so unpopular, it is
surprising that a movie like Batman, the undertones of which so closely
mirrors everything we loathe about our government, is enjoying such
popularity. Wouldn’t cheering on Batman be like hating freedom?
If Batman is an example of a thinly-veiled attempt at justifying
America’s war on terror, then it is interesting to note the recent
films criticizing America’s war on terror have done horrible at the box
offices. Rendition, Redacted, are both movies that you probably don’t
even remember because they did so badly at the box offices. But those
were two movies that highlighted the ambiguity of international
warfare, where one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist, and
in the middle of this, there will be collateral damage and innocents
will suffer and die. Real-life situations are a bit more nuanced than
superhero flicks, and as such, they make for terrible entertainment on
the silver screen.
Yet Batman, though its message is conservative, the medium which
carries that message undermines the message itself. Batman is, after
all, a movie about a comic hero (read: manufactured from our own
imagination) whose virtues we would not readily expect to crystallize
in everyday life. Put simply, one goes into the Dark Knight expecting
fantasy, and fantasy is what they get. It is a sort of escape, an ideal
which we recognize to be desirable but unreachable. The conservatives,
then, are pursuing a foreign policy which makes sense only in fantasy.
Which is why I think the movie is so beautiful. It refuses to be the
spokesperson for either left or right wing politics. The morality
present in Batman isn’t just based on simple conservative values like
absolutely morality, loyalty, deferment of the good, and a crusader
attitude of fighting for the unqualified good. Nor is it liberal, which
prizes healthy skepticism, self-criticism, and a certain degree of
epistemic humility.
I absolutely loved the last scene of Batman, where he displays that a
hero is not always an objective ideal that at times can present a moral
challenge to the protected, but the constructions of a hero are subject
on the crowd’s whims. If we need Batman to fight crime, he will fight
crime. If we need someone to blame, we will blame him. That Batman is
willing to be whoever he needs to be - the lonely prophet, the ignoble
warrior, the repository of morality, the scapegoat – is what separates
him from the Bush administration. Bruce Wayne is humble enough (and
financially secure enough that he doesn’t have to worry about Congress)
to realize that his persona as the masked crusader is always in the
service of the people. If they need a hero, he will be that hero. But
if they need a villain, he will be that villain. He can sacrifice
himself on whatever altar that is necessary to preserve the masses’
feelings of innocence and moral purity, even while those same masses
will never be willing to join in on the same fight that Batman is
engaged in.
We all think that we know right from wrong. Of course, there is no
disagreement that free speech is better than censorship, that peace is
better than war, and that love is better than hate. That kind of thing
seems to be common sense. But then again, we also don’t seriously
consider situations where love requires us to hate, that peace may
require war, and that our freedom of speech always require some form of
censorship. We revel in our unflinching moral compass, passing judgment
on those whose power makes their choices moral ambivalent.
The end of The Dark Knight is more of a judgment on the people that
Batman protects than on Batman himself. We, the masses, need moral
scapegoats to protect our sense of innocence. Let’s not forget the
Batman in our lives.
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| I just finished another school year! Yay! This blog has seen the neglect resulting from weeks and months of work overload. But I have not been vegging out - here are some of the best articles/stories I've read over the last couple of weeks. I'll try to give you a brief synopsis of each:
Scriptural Guidelines for Assessing Revival
An Assemblies of God thinktank discusses what the Bible qualifies as "revival". I think it's a helpful document in that it's not opposed to revival (heck, it's even from AoG), but it does have a few words of caution that I think are relevant especially for the recent revival stuff happening in SoCal.
Beliefnet has been running a series of Blogalogues - debates on controversial topics in the Christian life. What separates this from any other debate is that they've picked some of the top thinkers to discuss these topics: NT Wright, Jim Wallis, Rausenbusch, Bill Hybel, Orson Scott Card... the list goes on and on.
Check it out here. Look for the debate topics on the right hand panel.
So I've been busy trying to keep my head above the water with all the news, schoolwork, fellowship and church stuff. It's looking like a good summer already, and it's only been the first day!
I will be updating with summer plans soon. Stay tuned :]
| | |
| I just finished another school year! Yay! This blog has seen the
neglect resulting from weeks and months of work overload. But I have
not been vegging out - here are some of the best articles/stories I've
read over the last couple of weeks. I'll try to give you a brief
synopsis of each:
Scriptural Guidelines for Assessing Revival
An Assemblies of God thinktank discusses what the Bible qualifies as
"revival". I think it's a helpful document in that it's not opposed to
revival (heck, it's even from AoG), but it does have a few words of
caution that I think are relevant especially for the recent revival
stuff happening in SoCal.
Beliefnet has been running a series of Blogalogues - debates on
controversial topics in the Christian life. What separates this from
any other debate is that they've picked some of the top thinkers to
discuss these topics: NT Wright, Jim Wallis, Rausenbusch, Bill Hybel, Orson Scott Card... the list goes on and on.
Check it out here. Look for the debate topics on the right hand panel.
So I've been busy trying to keep my head above the water with all the
news, schoolwork, fellowship and church stuff. It's looking like a good
summer already, and it's only been the first day!
I will be updating with summer plans soon. Stay tuned :]
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