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Smoke billows out from a Manhattan skyscraper, damaged by a fiery explosion. This could easily be a scene from 9/11, however we see Batman looking grimly on as a poster advertises the film will be released soon. Clearly this film plays on the fears of terrorism. As depicted in The Dark Knight, the Joker plays the terrorist, while Gotham’s leadership struggles to contain him. The film departs from the superhero ideals of pure good versus pure evil, showing a murky world where moral decisions have to be made in order to stop evil. Because of this, The Dark Knight seems to be an allegory for the War on Terrorism. This paper will look at how the Joker represents terrorism, while Batman represents George Bush and his administration’s War on Terror.
The Dark Knight opens with a predictable bank robbery. Masked robbers enter a bank, fire a few shots, and try to crack a safe. During the sequence a few of the thugs are discussing who exactly the Joker is. Because of the tilted camera angles something seems askew. Later the Joker kills all his assistant robbers, likely in an effort to protect himself. According to a report from the Defense Technical Information Center, terrorist leadership often tricks fanatics into suicide attacks because it too leaves little evidence they can be tied too (Miyasato). Ostensibly the Joker killed his fellow robbers for similar reasons.
In one act of random violence the Joker kidnaps a Batman look-a-like – a man he knows is not his real archenemy – and proceeds to execute him in a gory manner. He then releases this video to a TV station. This seems like al-Qaida’s video of the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl. The terrorists too knew Pearl was not their military opponent, however they still killed him. ...
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The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is a superhero epic of a scope hard to explain in a few short paragraphs. It is the third film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. This film takes place over the course several months, primarily in the fictional Gotham City, an American city which had until recently been rife with crime and corruption which had made great progress in these areas due to the events in the previous films. The protagonist is Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), the eponymous Dark Knight, who has retired his Batman alter ego after taking the fall for the crimes of Harvey Dent at the close of The Dark Knight.
The terms "hero" and "villain" are as distinct as the terms "good" and "evil." They are mutually exclusive; the hero is courageous, popular, strong, morally, and willing to save the people at whatever cost, while the villain is despicable, hated, and heinous to his core. However, when we turn away from the archetypal world of comic books, this distinction is no longer as clear. When we look at real human beings we do not see a hero as a hero or a villain as a villain, but rather individuals composed of varying degrees of both extremes. No hero is perfect, and no villain is completely heinous. The most recent film adaptation of the DC Comic series Batman presents this truth of human nature. The Dark Knight Rises effectively communicates the