The Incredibly Fucked Up Classism of The Dark Knight Rises

I saw The Dark Knight Rises last night (and stayed up far, far beyond my bedtime, so if this is muddled I'm going to blame mild sleep deprivation and not my own flawed analytic skills, mmk?) and good God, someone has the most fucked-up sense of class consciousness ever.

Honestly, that was the over-arching thought in my mind as I left the theater. I initially assigned this incredibly convoluted, nonsensical world view to Christopher Nolan, and I still think that it's largely him, but he is working with characters and stories written by other people, so it might not be entirely his fault that nothing makes a whole lot of sense.

There's a fascinating little vignette near the end of the film as lightly (nightsticks, the occasional handgun) armed cops that have been being held underground for months escape and march through the streets to confront legions of heavily (automatic rifles and machine guns) armed revolutionaries that have all the power. The sense of existential vertigo is startling and almost nausea-inducing if you've been paying attention to the news. Who has power? Who should have power? How do you take power and keep it without becoming the thing you took it from? The symbolism is both stark and gradient.

This movie is both cartoonishly comic and simplistic, and simultaneously jumping on the trend of heroes as anti-heroes, or at least complex beings living in unbearable tension. Character sketches of the four main characters, with particular emphasis on class, go something like this:

Billionaire playboy/superhero.
Billionaire female investor/CEO.
Working-class female cat burglar.
Escaped male convict.

What's fascinating in Nolan's universe is the interplay of these four main characters. Both the big hero AND the big bad are wealthy elites. Both of their sidekicks are decidely neither wealthy nor elite. Both the big hero and the big bad espouse "helping humanity" rhetoric. Neither one of them does nearly as much good as they could if they weren't so fucking self-absorbed.

(Don't argue with me. Batman is a megalomaniac. I mean, it's cool to watch him play vigilante, but he is absolutely an incurable narcissist.)

So, the world is threatened and destroyed by two people of the same class. Both have help from the underclass. And really, that's where the characterizations get interesting. Before I get to gushing about the incredibly fascinating, human portrait that is Selina Kyle (and you can call me a whatever-you-want, but she was absolutely the best/most interesting part of this movie, I don't care what sort of purist opinion you've got because I've never read a comic book in my life), a few notes on Bane.

An escaped convict that we find out lost his face after protecting a six-year-old girl born in a prison, he's set up for most of the movie as the villain. It's only at the end that we find out, despite his self-consciously pseudo-Stalinist rhetoric, that he's actually been acting on behalf of that wealthy lady investor, who turns out to be the kid he saved from some hell-hole prison. So, at sort of the last possible second you realize most of his rhetoric was empty (and there are some truly hilarious/cringe-inducing/exasperating visuals, including a scene straight out of Marat's French Revolution with Cillian Murphy inexplicably holding court atop a pile of desks; the gold-velvet upholstered Regency wing chair made me sigh/sob/choke all at once) and so maybe you don't have to be terrified of people advocating for a world in which the few do not live large on the blood and tears of the many.

But, most people won't think that far, and clearly the savior is a billionaire and the villain cloaks himself in "people's revolutionary" garments and then proceeds to pretty much destroy everything, so that's the message most will take. Sigh. Christopher Nolan, fuck you.

Still, the actual villain is herself an elite and monied woman. And Bane did, years ago, save her from a pretty desperate fate at the cost of his face. He clearly does believe quite strongly in the idea of caring for others, no matter the cost. He just goes about it in spectacularly bad fashion, acting out of an implied love for the (beautiful, innocent) girl (who is very beautiful but not at all very innocent) who leads him astray. (I am not going to begin a feminist critique of this movie until I've seen it several more times.) Human beings make mistakes; maybe that's why we should be trying to make sure no one human being has the power to make mistakes that will destroy everything? Just a thought. Although I can't say definitively that it's one Nolan had. But maybe he did. Who knows. Anyway, it's just pop-culture, right?

But Selina Kyle. Selina Kyle is a goldmine of nuanced super-hero characterization. She wants social and cultural change. She can taste it. She is acutely aware that the world she lives in is stacked against people like her. And she steals. The implicit suggestion of her as a Robin Hood figure (steals expensive things from fabulously wealthy people, but lives in a small apartment in a crappy part of time; has a big-sister relationship with a young woman) is touching, but she consistently deflects it. She's equally repulsed by the wealth of Wayne's world and attracted to it. In that sense, she's a good allegory for most of us in relation to our economics: horrified at and covetous of excess.

In the final analysis, she (literally) saves Batman's life because she can't just abandon him. Clearly, there's sexual and romantic tension there (but I'm not writing a feminist critique until I've seen it WAY MORE TIMES) but I like to think at least some of that is her own morality. She believes in helping her fellow beings, so she helps, at risk and cost. And in the end, when she's being inexplicably squired around Italy in luxury by Bruce who was suppposed to have lost all his money, what came to my mind was a bitter comment she directed at him an hour earlier in the film: "You people don't even go broke like the rest of us." Maybe she's betraying her ideals, maybe she sold out, as was suggested to me in a rather incoherent phone call as I walked home from the theater at 2 am, but she, like Bane, is human, and makes mistakes, and if we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt about his motivations for being such an evil monster, she certainly gets the same consideration considering she hasn't actually done anything on his level of maliciousness. Yet. That yet is implied, of course: once you're living the high life it's hard to disentangle yourself from its siren song. As long as temptation exists, you have to fight it.

What is undoubtedly most fascinating about this film as a dissertation on class and class consciousness is the interplay of these four characters: the ways in which they are the same and the ways they are different, the way those similarities and differences were grafted on by external conditions or consciously chosen. Bane and Selena could maybe have, with different choices, ended up in each other's shoes; so, for that matter, could Wayne and Tate.

And that's why, despite all the heavy-handed, trite, simplistic SUPERHERO COMIC OMG shit, it actually is a pretty complex movie. If you're bothering to think about it. Or, overthinking it, as I'm sure I am. Then again, the real world is pretty simple on the surface, too, which is why so many people are convinced they have it figured out: they just ignore the pieces that don't fit.

"I Don't Want To Go Out Alone Anymore."

I find myself increasingly unable to handle "creepy" men.

Several weeks back (a few months, even? I'm so bad with time.) I was at a favorite bar for a show. Three bands on the ticket, two I knew sandwiching one I'd never heard before. A lovely acquaintance is in the band that was to play last. In between sets, I stepped outside to have a smoke. I do that. When I re-entered the bar between the second and third sets, I stepped up to order another beer. There were two men who had clearly been drinking for some time slumped into their bar stools next to me.

The man immediately to my left gave me a sidelong glance, as people do, and then started up a conversation, as people do. I go places alone often; I often get in conversations with strangers. It's one of my favorite things about going places alone, actually. Anyway, this guy started up with he'd never been to this particular establishment before, I told him it was one of my favorites because of its excellence as a live-music venue.

And from there, the conversation degenerated rapidly. He started asking me what "kind" of music.

"All kinds!" I said "Everything from folk-pop to hip hop to the noisiest noise rock you can imagine. Tonight there are three bands, all with heavy folksy vibes."

"Would I like it?" he asked me.

I hesitated. I had no idea. "Well, do you like folksy or bluesy music?" I asked him.

"Would I like the band?" he badgered me.

I tried to explain to him that there was no way I could answer that, given that I had no idea what kind of music he liked, but I was really into all three bands on the ticket and I definitely recommended checking it out.

He then proceeded to call me a "dumb bitch," say I was "stuck up," and mutter loudly about how women were all awful to the buddy sitting on his other side, while glancing at me every five seconds to make sure I knew he was talking about me.

I was so freaked out I left. I never saw the last band, the one my lovely acquaintance is in.

Last night, I was a bit blue: out-of-sorts, restless, unable to bring the snarls of my various thoughts into anything like a smooth-flowing order or even a neatly knotted braid. No, everything was willy-nilly. It's Summerfest in Milwaukee, so after the toddler was passed out cold, I kissed my mother and hopped on my bike and pedalled down. Death Cab for Cutie live? That will totally make me feel better, I told myself.

So there I was, hanging around the very edge of the back of the crowd, half-watching for a friend who was on his way down, half watching the screen, when a hand grabbed my ass. I jumped. A very large, very sweaty, very drunk man was behind me.

I scowled at him, moved to the other side of the table I was standing next to, and tried to forget it.

The next time I looked around, the man was planted on a table across from me, staring.

I was so freaked out, I left. The friend I had been waiting for turned up about ten minutes later and couldn't find me. I only saw about 40 minutes of Death Cab's set.

That's twice this year that I've been driven from something I really wanted to be at by creepy, inappropriate men. Ten years ago, even five years ago, I think I wouldn't have left either circumstance. I'm not sure if this is progress, or regress.

On the one hand, it's possible that ten years ago (or five years ago) I wouldn't have been aware just how creepy and inappropriate and downright awful these kinds of things were. I might have just brushed it off as drunkenness or a bad night. If I'm more aware now, that's progress. On the other hand, this "increased awareness" might be just increased fear. I'm allowing fear of worst-case to rule my own behavior in ways that I would have been utterly defiant of ten or five years ago. If I'm reverting to fear-based reactions, that's regress.

I've been thinking about this since I left the festival grounds last night. And I come, inexorably, to the conclusion that I'm reacting to increased fear. Five or ten years ago, I was at least somewhat secure in the belief that even *if* the worst case scenario happened, things would be done about it. Perpetrators would be brought to justice, courtroom drama would ensue, I would cry prettily. (I can't actually cry prettily, for the record: my face turns the color of boiled tomatoes and my eyes swell shut and my nose runs.)

I have spent too much time reading true horror stories, and seeing the non-cosequences of violence against women and rape to be secure in that belief anymore. Today, I believe that if the worst case scenario happened in any given circumstance, I would be blamed for it. It would be my fault for being out alone/having some drinks/wearing a dress/smiling at people/take your pick.

This is the reality of rape culture: I don't want to go out alone anymore. I would rather remain cooped in my house if I don't have the protection of another person with me. I don't want, or have the strength of mind, to fight through all the fear that is building up around being out, in public, alone. And why is it incumbent on me to have to fight through all that just to enjoy the world? Because I'm a woman? Bullshit.

Men, quit acting like this. I don't care how drunk you are. I don't care how long it's been since you got laid, or how badly your last relationship ended. Just knock it the hell off. There's no excuse for it.

I don't want to go out alone. If you know me even a little, you must understand how momentous a statement that is. I don't want to go out alone anymore.