What Would Batman Do?

The Wall Street Journal just published an article titled, “What Bush and Batman Have in Common,” citing similarities between the recent big screen version of the Dark Knight and still-president George Bush Jr. Now, I don’t really intend to discuss politics in this blog (Obama ‘08! Woo-hoo!), but the article in question definitely maintains a conservative bias. I will dispute certain aspects of the article not as a godless-gay-married-baby-killing-Daily-Show-watching-Frenchman (insert pink emoticon), but as the world’s most reliable source on all things Batman. Below is the complete article from The Wall Street Journal’s website.

What Bush and Batman Have in Common

By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”

Warner Bros. Pictures

There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

“The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror — films like “In The Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” — which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself: Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They’re wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don’t always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them — when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

When heroes arise who take on those difficult duties themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, “He has to run away — because we have to chase him.”

That’s real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised — then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that’s when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

So, Mr. Klavan’s main argument seems to lie in the fact that both characters fight for what they believe in no matter what others may think of them. That’s a pretty broad characteristic; after all, how many other superheroes fight for the common good while being mocked by the public? How many senators, and talk show hosts, and religious leaders do the very same thing only to gain the scorn of the American majority?

Klavan is correct when he states that both W. Bush and B. Wayne believe that end justifies the means. Just as the still-president tears up portions of the Constitution that don’t sit well, The Caped Crusader knows that every now and then you have to hang a dirty cop over the side of a building to get some answers. But the difference is, and this is the big difference, Batman never ever kills. Batman believes that underneath the masks and makeup and torn psyches, everyone is a human being, everyone is capable of redemption. While Bush Jr. throws out words like “evil” and “unforgivable,” The Knower of All Things knows better. He knows that everyone is capable of redemption, because he too wants to be redeemed for his sometimes questionable actions.

The best example of the contrast between the Dark Knight and the Decider can be seen in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. In this bible, Batman is indirectly at odds with the president of the United States (a cowboy version of Ronald Reagan), who is determined to win his war against the Soviets. He cares little for the American lives lost and forces Superman, the symbol of all things good and great about our nation, to fight against the red menace. It’s really the greatest comic book printed to date.

Yes, Bush and Batman do things that people don’t always agree with. But besides that, well, their names both start with “B.” But perhaps Andrew Klavan is only familiar with the Batman portrayed in the trailers he sees during commercial breaks for The O’Reilly Factor. Or perhaps a better name for this article could have been “What Michael Moore and Batman Have in Common.” (insert chubby emoticon with glasses and a hat)

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