As a young boy touchingly sings “The Star Spangled Banner” at that most American of events, a football game, the new trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” cuts to scenes of impending mayhem and violence as Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) menacingly whispers the following into Bruce Wayne/Batman’s (Christian Bale) ear:
You think this is going to last… There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends had better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.
That not only sounds like a threat (notice how Wayne backs away in shock) but an awful lot like the direction in which Barack Obama is taking his re-election campaign. Obama is all about Occupy Wall Street, class war and envy, and pitting the haves against bitter and, at times, violent have nots.
Is that what “The Dark Knight Rises” is about?
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In 2008, Nolan’s blockbuster and unqualified masterpiece, “The Dark Knight,” was openly embraced by conservatives who saw the film as a thinly veiled, intelligent, and very welcome allegory sympathetic towards America’s and George W. Bush’s role in the War on Terror.
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.
Though Nolan wisely refuses to comment one way or another on the political subtext of his creation (another sign he is a true artist) and will likely take the same course here, unless a curve ball is waiting in the wings, one has to wonder if the above trailer isn’t about explaining the motives of film’s … villain.
Obviously, Catwoman is famous for working both sides of the law, so many surprises surely await, but with a July 20 release date, “The Dark Knight Rises” could prove to be the most timely of blockbusters as it will hit thousands of theatres less than five months before the 2012 presidential election and only a few weeks before the campaign really starts to heat up in earnest after Labor Day.
Is Nolan, whose “Dark Knight” embraced the Bush doctrine regarding terrorism, about to slam Barack Obama and OWS in the biggest movie event of the summer?
If so, cue the crybaby elites in the entertainment media. Just as the spoiled, entitled left is completely unable to deal with one conservative-leaning cable news channel in an ocean of MSM leftism, just the hint that “Dark Knight Rises” might not be everything they claim to embrace — rebellious, anti-establishment, iconoclastic, a finger in the eye of those who hold power — is sure to get their 1% left-wing teeth gnashing.
Christian Toto contributed to this report.
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