Do the citizens of Gotham think of Bane as great revolutionary?

[Let's Get Free]

Do the citizens of Gotham view Bane as a great revolutionary?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Well, he did take down the police, break the bridges so that the army would not come in, and gave the people power over the city.
Does that not count as revolutionary because he did not do class analysis?

[Let's Get Free]

Well, he did take down the police, break the bridges so that the army would not come in, and gave the people power over the city.
Does that not count as revolutionary because he did not do class analysis?

He was more of a populist than anything. And it was him and his mercenaries who took control over the city, not the people.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I guess he's what most people think that Mao did in China. So I suppose the proper line would be that he was a progressive underground bourgeois revolutionary that managed to develop the lumpen where the legal bourgeois couldn't. You know perhaps we ought to make a class analysis of inner city relations.

[Rafiq]

If anything he was a Jacobin. But the great Christopher Nolan, the scum who he is, demonstrated what a piece of shit he was, by revealing Bane was actually part of a secret society hell bent on destroying Gotham. Sounds a lot like the conservative conspiracy theories about the French revolution. What a reactionary fucking movie.

[Avanti]

i don't really like bane

he was just a pawn

for the league of shadows

i very much prefer the joker

saying that

amazing film

bane did not have

majority support

but i would have

supported him

[l'Enfermé]

Bane - the american Makhno :D

[Avanti]

i like

the biblical

interpretation

of the film

bane is the beast

of the revelation

batman is christ

cat-woman is judas/humanity

saying that

the film is reactionary propaganda

but good propaganda

i am sure lots and lots

of kids

who watched the film

wanted to be bane

[TheRedAnarchist23]

He was more of a populist than anything. And it was him and his mercenaries who took control over the city, not the people.

The movie was very vague about the whole situation.

[Pirate Utopian]

TDKR was a cluttered mess of a film. I didnt care about anything that happened in it.
A damn shame because I loved the other Nolan Batman movies.

[Let's Get Free]

Bane - the american Makhno :D

I'd say he more resembles a very authoritarian communist who tries to conduct a revolution from above with a Peoples Army and the rest of the population are just supposed to follow their lead.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd say he more resembles a very authoritarian communist who tries to conduct a revolution from above with a Peoples Army and the rest of the population are just supposed to follow their lead.Yeah, like Makhno.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The Joker is the petty-bourgeois id run wild. Batman is the petty-bourgeois superego... and a fascist - at least in Frank Miller's hands.

[Avanti]

The Joker is the petty-bourgeois id run wild. Batman is the petty-bourgeois superego... and a fascist - at least in Frank Miller's hands.

the joker is

atomization and nihilism

his only agenda

is chaos

[GoddessCleoLover]

That is the Heath Ledger Joker. The Jack Nicholson Joker was totally petit-bourgeois. The Heath Ledger Joker is petit-bourgeois too, he just disguises it better. At the end of the day, the main motivation of The Joker is to become Gotham's crimelord and force the other crooks to pay up to him in exchange for eliminating The Batman.

[Avanti]

not really

that was his justification

to get mob resources

for creating chaos

like when i was the leader

of a small gang

in the late 1990s

the knifer, abdi, pekka, gustavo and mohamed

and me

"the dreadlord"

they abandoned me

after our seventh heist

we broke into a school

i had told them i knew where the kids

saved their money for their summer trip

but it was a lie

all i wanted to do

was to burn down the school

and i did that too

one of those cocksuckers

turned me in

[Rafiq]

That is the Heath Ledger Joker. The Jack Nicholson Joker was totally petit-bourgeois. The Heath Ledger Joker is petit-bourgeois too, he just disguises it better. At the end of the day, the main motivation of The Joker is to become Gotham's crimelord and force the other crooks to pay up to him in exchange for eliminating The Batman.

How exactly is he petite-bourgeois?

[GoddessCleoLover]

You got me, Rafiq. Could be lumpen proletarian or even big bourgeoisie. He isn't a proletarian revolutionary, is he?

[p0is0n]

I fucking loved the scene where bane's army expropriated the rich and put them before a people's tribunal.

[Let's Get Free]

I fucking loved the scene where bane's army expropriated the rich and put them before a people's tribunal.

Well, it was more of a mob court, but I did like the scene where Bane whips his supporters into a populist frenzy.

[GoddessCleoLover]

No shit. Is this from the latest Batman/Dark Night movie? I read read Frank Miller's stuff more than twenty years ago, but IIRC Miller is kinda reactionary so he probably has a right-wing take on the Bane "revolution". I would surmise that the movie follows Miller's interpretation. Can't imagine Hollywood favorably portraying people's tribunals.

[Jimmie Higgins]

the joker is

atomization and nihilism

his only agenda

is chaos
Yeah like I said, petty bourgoeois.


How exactly is he petite-bourgeois?

He's the unrestrained id of professionals who see their induvidual mental labor as being crushed by the system. It's his skills at being a criminal which motivate him, not aquisition for the sake of aquisition which he sees as polluting his craft. He hates both the masses and the crime bosses and sees them both as a barrier to his unrestrained will.

Bruce Wane may be bourgois, but Batman is a just different petty-bourgeois fantasy than the Joker. Both vigillante fantasies and detective fiction tend to reflect this outlook - the will of special induviduals who professionally fight social "disorder". Noir tends to cut against that because it shows induviduals who are playthings of larger forces - the better Batman stories often deal with the contradictions of Batman having an unwinable crusade.

Lex Luthor is the bourgeois villian, of course. Superman the reformist.

Spiderman is the proletarian superhero - ok, probably not, but that was my favorite comic when I was younger so I'll ignore a critical reading and see what I want in that character instead.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Another excellent post by Jimmie Higgins.

[Philosophos]

Well, he did take down the police, break the bridges so that the army would not come in, and gave the people power over the city.
Does that not count as revolutionary because he did not do class analysis?

You have to admit that he would be more convincing with a Marxist beard... Beards are always revolutionary for some reason

[Jimmie Higgins]

No shit. Is this from the latest Batman/Dark Night movie? I read read Frank Miller's stuff more than twenty years ago, but IIRC Miller is kinda reactionary so he probably has a right-wing take on the Bane "revolution". I would surmise that the movie follows Miller's interpretation. Can't imagine Hollywood favorably portraying people's tribunals.Yeah without the "rule of law" you get score-settling and irrational rulings and show trials (basically what happens in that scene in the movie) - it's what they usually warn about regarding revolutions and "mob rule", all other power is illegitimate.

Frank Miller is pretty bad. For people who remember "the Dark Knight Returns": is Batman portrayed as a fascist - and in a good light? He is constantly called "fascist" by the liberal talking heads that Miller mocks in the Gotham media and then with the Mutant's gang, Batman convinces them to follow him and they become "the Sons of Batman" who violently enforce order on the streets against "chaos". I don't remember the details and I read it before I was radical so I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. I just didn't like it at the time because it was really hyped as "one of the best comic series" but I thought it was macho Dirty Harry-type shit. Maybe I was just agest and didn't like old grouchy Batman.:lol:

[GoddessCleoLover]

Frank Miller has a certain talent, but it is definitely twisted and his flirting with fascism is odious.

[l'Enfermé]

I'd say he more resembles a very authoritarian communist who tries to conduct a revolution from above with a Peoples Army and the rest of the population are just supposed to follow their lead.
So, like Makhno and his "voluntary"(;)) army?

[statichaos]

Spiderman is the proletarian superhero - ok, probably not, but that was my favorite comic when I was younger so I'll ignore a critical reading and see what I want in that character instead.

Interesting, since his co-creator Steve Ditko is one of the biggest Ayn Rand fanboys in the field.

[GPDP]

Was anyone actually convinced by Bane's bullshit? I don't know how people are coming to the conclusions that they are in this thread, even prior to the "big reveal". Even from the point of view of the citizens of Gotham in the movie, I don't know how anyone could've possibly taken Bane's speech seriously. I took it that he was being facetious with his little "populist" stunt in the stadium, and that it was him just being theatrical. But here I'm getting responses that he was a Jacobin, or an authoritarian communist, or something.

It was clear from the very beginning that Bane was just a thug who wanted to fuck Gotham's shit. When they reveal him to have been part of the League of Shadows, all it confirms is that his ultimate goal is its total destruction. You didn't even need to know the entirety of the ploy to figure it out. So yeah, I don't know why people are taking his faux-populism at face value.

I dunno, judging from this thread I guess you were meant to take it seriously up until his true intentions were fully unraveled later in the movie, and somehow it all went way over my head and I figured it out way beforehand.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Was anyone actually convinced by Bane's bullshit? I don't know how people are coming to the conclusions that they are in this thread, even prior to the "big reveal". Even from the point of view of the citizens of Gotham in the movie, I don't know how anyone could've possibly taken Bane's speech seriously. I took it that he was being facetious with his little "populist" stunt in the stadium, and that it was him just being theatrical. But here I'm getting responses that he was a Jacobin, or an authoritarian communist, or something.

It was clear from the very beginning that Bane was just a thug who wanted to fuck Gotham's shit. When they reveal him to have been part of the League of Shadows, all it confirms is that his ultimate goal is its total destruction. You didn't even need to know the entirety of the ploy to figure it out. So yeah, I don't know why people are taking his faux-populism at face value.

I dunno, judging from this thread I guess you were meant to take it seriously up until his true intentions were fully unraveled later in the movie, and somehow it all went way over my head and I figured it out way beforehand.Yeah I thought even without being left or even supportive of the idea of popular revolt at all they could have handled this in a much more interesting way.

The worst part was that the opening of the prisons was like, "OK, give me a gun I'm going to start making chaos" - that was the worst of the right-wing propaganda - as if US prisons are what are keeping "order" and as soon as someone walks out they have rape and robbery on the mind.

Anyway, I think it would have been more relevant and interesting if they had kept Bane the same, but actually changed their presentation of life in Gotham so that his call actually did have a kind of appeal. Apparently everyone in prison was evil, but what if some people were merely "caught-up" by the heavy-handed policing of the "Dent Act" and so there was some resonance and nuance to opening up the prisons. What if the city wasn't all stable but was still and urban shit-hole like all other presentations of Gotham and so people thought, "Hmm, Bane - well maybe he can do what this corrupt city government hasn't been able to do and create a better order".

It could have been a little more interesting and pointed, even if it ultimately confirmed the conservative assumptions that the actual movie presented. It would have pulled as some anxieties about "authority" and raised questions about why people in real life do sometimes enthusiastically support populist (right or left) demagoguery.

I enjoyed the first two Batman movies, but the hype really annoyed me. I think popular critics tend to mistake/conflate cynicism and "complex" or "deep". I thought the "real life" aspects of these movies were totally shallow, while some of the action set-pieces were nicely done (Joker's Bank Robbery for example). In an interview, Nolan said that he didn't "take political sides" but draws from political controversies and puts them into the movie to create a bigger emotional impact (of course the co-writer of the movies and Frank Miller who was a big inspiration for this batman iteration are both Occupy-hating, anti-humanity, right-wingers) so at best his movies can only be politically shallow.


Interesting, since his co-creator Steve Ditko is one of the biggest Ayn Rand fanboys in the field.True, but he did a lot of work for Marvel, but ultimately these comics had a kind of soft left-populism derived from the similar values in the Sci-fi and pulp inspirations for many of these kinds of later superhero stories.

Also from things I've read Ditko hated Stan Lee's insistence that Peter Parker be an average working class kid common-man type. He wanted Parker to be a super-genius (held back by the mediocrity of those around him no doubt.:lol:)

[Let's Get Free]

I think Bane is a reactionary in disguise. He doesn't even really care about the revolution that he pretends to lead, his only goal is to blow up Gotham City to fulfill the wishes of his old master Ra’s al Ghul. The revolution is just a way to toy with the people by giving them false hope before their ultimate destruction.

[GPDP]

I think Bane is a reactionary in disguise. He doesn't even really care about the revolution that he pretends to lead, his only goal is to blow up Gotham City to fulfill the wishes of his old master Ra’s al Ghul. The revolution is just a way to toy with the people by giving them false hope before their ultimate destruction.

Uh, yeah, I thought this was supposed to be the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the get-go, which is why I'm so perplexed to see others actually took his demagoguery seriously until it was revealed it was all a ruse.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I think some of y'all are putting a little too much thought into a Hollywood film. No matter how entertaining or well made a Hollywood film is (and I thought The Dark Knight Rises was a 5 star Hollywood film), it's never going to be anything but bourgeois.

[#FF0000]

a lotta dumb navel gazing going on in here.

also everyone read GDPD's post twice so it sinks in

[GPDP]

a lotta dumb navel gazing going on in here.

also everyone read GDPD's post twice so it sinks in

That's GPDP to you, good sir.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think some of y'all are putting a little too much thought into a Hollywood film. No matter how entertaining or well made a Hollywood film is (and I thought The Dark Knight Rises was a 5 star Hollywood film), it's never going to be anything but bourgeois.Of course - and most cultural commodities of any kind are likely to reflect the petty-bourgois outlooks of the creative professionals behind the product (hell, how many Stephen King novels are about popular fiction writers? What kinds of jobs do protagonists have in Hollywood movies: doctor, cop, archetect, shop-owner, journalist, lawyer or film maker:rolleyes:).

But cultural production also reflects the tension between the professional creators and their corporate or market masters, and often are impacted by larger changes in popular consiousness - so there's a lot of differnet ways to look at these things. And it's fun.

Anyway political critique and liking something don't need to overlap when it comes to pop-culture. No matter how revolutionary early Jazz was, I still won't listen to it - no matter how much "Lord of the Rings" reflects some conservative if not reactionary ideas about the world, there's nothing wrong with people enjoying it and loving the adventure and world-creation.