I watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday. I am not a fan of Batman, but I had heard from Zizek that there were some faux-progressive undertones in the movie, so I was interested to see how Hollywood's distortion of our current social situation played out in this $300 million propaganda piece. I lazily wrote some notes while watching the thing and they somehow took the form of a plot summary. Here it is:
Torturing hostages is exciting.
The butler demeans his staff.
Occupy Wall Street is embodied in the jewel thief femme fatal.
Morgan Freeman plays a wise black man.
Villiains occupy Wall Street holding stock traders at gun point.
The jewel thief is Catwoman.
Blade Runner scenes are shown when the bat airplane machine flies through the urban night.
The villain is from a "distant land". He tortures people.
Batman is a high-tech pacifist.
The butler is always crying.
Billionaires Bruce Wayne (Batman) has a machine that creates an unlimited amount of energy for a "sustainable future".
American Billionaire funds the villains because he stands to profit.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a rogue cop.
Batman is suicidal.
Villains aim to torture and destroy Gotham and usher in a "new era in Western Civilization".
Villain Bane mocks the national anthem.
The villains call themselves liberators for the people.
Bane represents the Arab terrorist and the anti-capitalist rolled into one.
Bane is scary and ruthless so we aren't supposed to want him to win.
Batman is essentially the status quo defender, which is no wonder since he is a billionaire.
Bane incites a peoples' revolution against the police and the rich.
Liam Neeson, Batman, and Bane are all members of the League of Shadows.
Bane is a Darth Vader MMA UFC fighter.
Batman dies (but not really) and is reincarnated as Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
