Chop Bouie

the “why” of batman

Before I even start this, I want to offer a quick apology to all my readers who thought they signed up for recipes. I’ve been on an extended business trip, and haven’t had a chance to cook. I’ll be back next week though, and will return with more pictures/things to eat, so stay tuned!

By way of Erik Kain comes this analysis of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight from Taylor Marvin, who presents the film as a parable of what happens when the state loses its monopoly on the use of force. Aside from some digressions and analogies to counterinsurgency—which aren’t particularly illuminating—the argument is that Batman and the Joker exist forces that destabilize Gotham through the illegitimate use of force.

Kain adds to this with the observation—drawn from Batman Begins—that Gotham was already unstable, as evidenced by the city’s rampant corruption. Far from destabilizing Gotham, Batman is a product of the city’s lawlessness. As Kain puts it:

The central thesis, as I see it, is that Batman would be unnecessary if good people not wearing masks would actually stand up and recapture their own self-determination. A vigilante is not necessary for this at all. Batman is the option of last resort.

On this, I think Marvin and Kain are right. As depicted by Christopher Nolan, Batman is something of an emergency intervention for Gotham. His job, as Bruce Wayne[1] describes in the first film, is to stand as a symbol of hope to the citzens of Gotham. He will stop the worst of the worst, and provide a space for honest citizens to reclaim and reform their institutions. The central tragedy of The Dark Knight, for instance, is that the par excellence of that ideal—Harvey Dent—was himself corrupted by the forces he sought to stop.

It should be said that this is the only way to understand Batman’s refusal to kill. For as much as he breaks the government’s monopoly on force, Bruce Wayne doesn’t want to supplant the institutions of Gotham, he wants to aid them. Killing a villain like the Joker solves the short-term problem of a murderous psychopath, but does immense damage to the long-term goal—by executing criminals, Batman flaunts the law in its entirety, and completely undermines the legitimacy of Gotham and its institutions.

Indeed, Batman: The Animated Series illustrates this fact at the end of its opening sequence:

With all of that said, I have a few quibbles. First, I’m not on board with Marvin’s take on Bruce Wayne’s psychology (as presented by Nolan). To wit:

Similarly, unlike previous visions of Batman Nolan’s Bruce Wayne doesn’t fight crime out of civic duty; he does because he a deeply damaged individual incapable of dealing with loss and forming real relationships.

The obvious counters to this are Alfred, Rachel, and (to a lesser extent) Lucius Fox. These are all people with whom Wayne has formed meaningful relationships that aren’t instrumental to his purposes as Batman. More importantly, this take on Wayne’s character ignores the entire prologue of Batman Begins, where Nolan presents Thomas Wayne as an aspirational figure to his son. Chris Sims and David Uzumeri explain the signifiance of this in their review of Begins:

Chris: Ducard and Ra’s ask Bruce what it is that he’s seeking, and he says that he wants not vengeance, but “a means to fight injustice.” This is a crucially important moment for the Batman that Nolan and Goyer are creating here, and their understanding of how he works. As we find out, Bruce Wayne doesn’t want revenge, because he’s already moved past that desire.

David: Batman doesn’t want to make Joe Chill pay, he wants to make future Joe Chills not kill people. To this movie’s credit, though, it shows Bruce’s desire for it. It doesn’t pretend that he’s some saint who just never wanted revenge, it shows the moment he transcended that relatively base human desire. [Emphasis mine]

Thomas Wayne was a philanthropist who sought to improve Gotham and the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. This, more than anything else, is why Bruce Wayne donned the mantle of Batman. It’s not that he’s “incapable of dealing with loss and forming real relationships,” it’s that he wants to build a Gotham where his childhood loss is never felt by anyone, ever again.

Put another way—as we see with Ducard in the first film—vengence will only take you so far. You need a positive goal to keep striving. Bruce wants a better Gotham, which is why he’s willing to endure the hatred of his home if that’s what it takes to build the city into something durable.

[End nerd transmission]