The Dark Knights’ Returns!
By
Nicholas Sheffo
When the
impressive Iron Man became the big
surprise hit of the early Summer, everyone (read “expert”) was spewing about
how Marvel Comics was ahead of DC Comics on the big screen as if it had always
been that way, conveniently forgetting that it took Blade back in 1998 for Marvel to have any live action feature film
that worked at all. Sure, Superman Returns barely broke even and
no one really celebrates it and in its wake, Warner and DC Comics panicked, putting
every live action project on hold… except one.
Before
Bryan Singer’s Superman venture turned out not to be the Superhero homerun his
first two X-Men films did, the next
Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman film was not going to have The Joker, but after Singer’s film hit a sour
note, that changed. In one of the
greatest, saddest changes of gear in cinema history, Heath Ledger was hired and
now, we all know the incredible on-screen results and terrible off-screen end
to a young actor tired of easy paychecks for bad films, wanting to take risks
and make a name for himself as more than just a pretty face.
Even
before his passing, there was no doubt that The Dark Knight would be a very big film. Like any good studio at its best, Warner
Bros. took the project seriously and once again was all-out in backing the film
and well over $400 Million with a take heading towards Titanic proportions, rave reviews, huge positive fan response and
shockingly positive general audience response, the film has made all-time
filmmaking history and those “experts” are no longer making stupid Marvel/DC
comparisons.
The fact
of the matter is, those companies (and a few others no longer with us) made
what has been loosely called the Superhero genre, one which remains the most
successful in the history of comic book publishing, even with all the classic
comedy, horror, war, science-fiction and even soap opera titles. DC invented it, Timely, Fawcett and Street
& Smith added to it, Marvel further innovated it and now we have the market
we have, yet a new ignorance has emerged and it is no surprise that it is often
from those same “experts” who embarrass themselves the more they speak.
This
time, it has been about the politics of both Iron Man and Dark Knight,
but with one fascinating common denominator: trying to “explain” the politics
of both. Why? Because their success is profound in context
to what is happening in the U.S. in particular and manage to get their
audiences to address what the media is trying to ignore in the country: bad
economy, suspicious war actions, condescending propaganda, a culture of
secretive government, paranoia-induced spying without limits and a fight over
The American Dream that goes from gutted S&Ls to gutted pension funds and
the suspicious housing crisis.
In the
case of Iron Man, there were those
touting that it has totally avoided politics and was somehow apolitical by
setting the abuse of the weapons of mass destruction Tony Stark made “from Iraq
to Afghanistan” as if they were several planets away. It is either a sense of being naïve, ignorant
or outright hatred of the reader and the public to make any such claim for one
simple basic reason. There is no such thing as a film without a
political point of view, as they all have them no matter what, with any such
claim a joke or attempt to inoculate the point of view the given film has.
With Dark Knight even more successful and
much harder to ignore, those who decided to take it on ideologically once again
fell right on their faces. Why? The answer is not so simple, but we can start
with the interesting analogy between what Bruce Wayne does and the second Bush
Administration claims to be doing on one level.
The Mystery-genre writer Andrew Klavan took it on it an article about
the film being an outright analogy of the current administrations actions in
spying on people illegally and/or with few limits and The Joker as a
terrorist. It is a weak analogy and
quickly becomes laughable when testing it in real life, but also shows someone
who should have thought before they spoke.
Fortunately,
Variety Magazine writer Brian Lowry went after him and others who suddenly
thought they were Pop Culture experts when they are clueless on these issues;
ones they obviously could have cared less about to begin with. There is also the over-reliance on the idea
that cinema and film is a basic reflection of a society instead of a complex
one, which tripped up Klavan the way it tripped up much the way former
Salon.com writer Ed Gonzales did when he accused Star Wars: Episode Three: Revenge Of The Sith of being anti-Bush II
propaganda when instead, it was from a screenplay finished years (or decades)
before the man ever entered politics no matter what changes were made. Any early-1980s fan of the films knew where the
storyline was going and it was no big CIA secret.
Klavan
decided go the opposite way, claiming it was possibly an endorsement of Bush II
policy, showing how little he takes commercial, Action or Superhero films
seriously and makes the fatal flaw of thinking all such films are comic,
shallow or disposable. In both cases,
the premise is that the films would be disposable and if they are even coming
close to being about something, it is shallow and “easy” to figure out. The huge failures in both cases prove
otherwise.
As for
Klavan, it is a “mystery” that he has a writing career of any sort after that
one, even missing that Batman has always been considered a detective and wrote
the books that inspired horrid films like Don’t
Say A Word (which he co-produced) and One
Missed Call, plus the lesser Clint Eastwood film True Crime. Maybe he should
spend this “amazing” energy worry about his non-hits before attacking someone
else’s. I guess we should listen to the
old public service announcement that told us to read the books, don’t wait for
the movies.
Before
concluding, here are the links to the two Dark
Knight articles noted:
Wall
Street Journal/Andrew Klavan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121694247343482821.html?mod=opinion_main
Variety/Brian
Lowry
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117989929.html?categoryid=1682&cs=1&nid=3
So what
does the success of Iron Man and Dark Knight really tell us and spell
out? For one thing, to end the goofy
Presidential analog, both films are about heroes who are powerful, successful
members of both the U.S. Capitalist Elite and Power Elite with old-money family
histories based on the things that make the U.S. great, like technological
innovation, financial success and companies with a share-the-wealth philosophy
that is what some would term “mid-Capitalism” while the Bush II administration (practicing
incompatible to The American dream Late Capitalism) hates science, has a war on
it (unless it is weapons that kill) including the support of yesteryear
technology (the combustion engine) and an end to innovation and scientific
models (from evolution to genetic engineering to anything that helps the public
at large) making he and his administration the total opposite of the title
characters of their respective films.
Also, they are willing to risk their lives while the vast majority of
the Bush II people are lazy and have never seen real combat of any kind, going
around as if the world owes them something.
Then
there is responsibility, something both learn in the origins of their rise as
heroes versus the most irresponsible administration (pretty much) of all
time. Tony Stark realizes his weapons
are killing innocent people and does something about it while Bruce Wayne is
already doing what he can do to save Gotham City from being (continuing to be)
a living hell and is hands-on with his U.S. Government project to make sure his
work is not abused like Stark’s was when Stark was complacent.
In using
that technology, Wayne/Batman and Lucius Fox abuse power to save the city from
The Joker, but the big difference is that we can actually trust them and unlike their governmental counterparts who must follow the law (no matter how often
they feel they don’t need to, imperial presidency, fascist leanings, arrogance,
or otherwise), have vigilante leeway that should never be given to anyone in any government, all the way to a series
like 24.
After 8 –
28 years of lies and worse, people are finally waking up to the profound
implications of how we got to where we are with gas price scams, Enron-style
energy manipulation long after their demise, CEOs being paid insane tens to
hundreds of millions for failure and other aforementioned disasters. While the heroes in the film are about hard
work, earning what they have and doing what has to be done for the better, with
the best interests of the future in mind.
They are also proof that people believe the American dream is more than
just a myth and they are correct.
But still
the ignorance of Pop Culture and seeing the Superhero genre as a joke prevail
and will for a long time. It has not
helped that the studios prefer humorous, childish, lite version of such films
if such version of those films will bring in big bucks, but something has
changed this Summer of 2008. The more
serious graphic novel edge that began with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and was soon realized in the first two Robocop films (1987, 1990) have finally
caught up with the Superhero genre in the mainstream. You can even have humor without it being
stupid.
There
will always be Superhero product for young audiences and rightly so because it
is for everyone, but the mainstream has always
been afraid of comic books because it is an artform they never understood,
could control or admit to the power of.
Now, that is more undeniable than ever and the strong denial is
amazingly still there, remaining there because some people think they are above certain ideas or people, so expect
more ignorance. Unless Hollywood has a
campaign against these more potent, mature and serious entries in the genre,
which has replaced outright action films as their biggest money makers, we will
see more such works and the 21st Century may finally be the period
where the comic book is seen as the artform it has always been.
Of
course, it is easy take its financial success (all the way to rare collectibles
and the rarest comics) and try to write it off as limited to fans, a overhyped
market and nostalgia, but that is clearly not the case. It is in the interest of the studios to
support the films that will do the best, but the assumed audience for these
films and this genre (and yes, it is a genre) is children with massive energy,
as well as persons still considered disposable by society except for their
exploitation and the money that can be taken from them, including (but not
just) “geeks” and “losers” with unspoken but extremely heavy connotation of
homophobia and amazing hatred of the mentally ill.
However,
the world (film, comics and real life) is changing and while there are more
than a few (including those very close to power in this country) who will
continue to embracer and stick to that sick view of the Superhero genre
audience, they’ll continue to smile, laugh, hoot and holler about it all
celebrating their “happiness” while laughing at the expense of others. Soon however, they will be snapping out of
their haze of hatred and without being able to do anything about it, will come
to the grim realization that for all of them, the party is over.
