Bashing of liberals
I liked the satire of all the liberals in the movie from the girls parents and the media something that has never really been shown in a batman movie.
shareI liked the satire of all the liberals in the movie from the girls parents and the media something that has never really been shown in a batman movie.
shareFrank Miller did a good job of satirizing both extremes when he originally created this story. These days he seems much more conservative in his views.
"You seem familiar with my name, but I don't remember smelling you before."
Right. Like Robocop 2. We all see so little mocking of the sixties as a bunch of dirty hippies. It was a magical time that changed America.
Batman explicitly states that guns are just for cowards. A lot of Reagan mocking, too, which is sacrilege amongst real conservatives.
He started smoking meth after 9/11, I suppose.
www.jrichardsingleton.blogspot.com
How did he bash liberals? Specifically?
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The girls parents when they were talking about batman and all the marches they did meant nothing, then the father saying " pass that " obviously referring to a joint. And the media was very tolerant of the crime and more concerned with fair treatment of criminals than being made victims.
get busy living or get busy dying
Why are they bashing liberals though? Is marching against war suppose to have been a bad thing? Is smoking weed suppose to be bad?
I consider myself a liberal so I object to them being made fun of. But I'm Australian so maybe it's different.
Protesting a war isn't bad. Smoking weed is bad when you're a parent and are too busy getting stoned to give a shít about your daughter and not noticing she's become a vigilante. Carrie's parents were awful.
shareI'm not sure if American and Australian liberal are the same thing (though they might be). I know that liberal/conservative mean totally different thing in Europe than in America, though.
Miller is definitely pretty conservative by modern American standards, and it shows in a bunch of places in the book. The biggest example for me was the psychiatrists and the story's portrayal of psychology in general. They're so obviously full of *beep* in the lengths they go to apologizing for the villains throughout the film. This is mocking the American bleeding heart liberal who looks at a mentally ill criminal and thinks they're victims of a disease or abuse rather than just evil.
For the record, I'm an American liberal and Frank Miller's conservatism is the most annoying thing about him. It doesn't bother me, though. It's a great story.
First of all, I only understand the Liberal/Conservative leanings of America so I can't really give you how the ideals relate to your country's political spectrum but this is how the characters in Miller's work would be interpreted by a late 1980's audience (which is when this graphic novel first became very popular).
Robin's parents are cliche "bleeding heart" Liberal stereotypes who are so absorbed in their own attitudes and beliefs that they ignore their own daughter. They spend their time watching Gotham spiral out of control on TV (safe from within their home) as psychotic criminals murder women and children and then blame the "fascist government" for anyone who reacts with strength against them. They are neglectful pot heads who cry for the criminals because, obviously, if it weren't for fascist police the criminals wouldn't be "acting out". And they aren't just smoking weed...they are ALWASYS smoking weed and have no real ideal where their daughter is and make no attempt to find her.
Joker's Psychiatrist is a "bleeding heart" Liberal who blames Joker's aggression on The Batman because Joker has no choice...being mentally ill, Joker only behaves the way he does "acting out" against Batman's aggressive display. He is also obsessed with the public spotlight for touting his agenda.
The Liberal Newscaster is a cliche "bleeding heart" Liberal who focus on Batman's violence rather than the Mutant's violence believing that Batman's idealism is what causes the Mutant's to act out.
In the end, they all hold a classic stereotypical perception of the 60's "hippy" who is so hateful of authority that they are willing to condone any criminal violence as a "Protest against The Man" and condemn any police response as "reactionary", "fascist" and "over reaching". They all focus more on the rights of the criminals seeing them as victims (because no one would be a criminal unless society bent them into it) and accept the violence that they do as just another reason to blame society/government.
But, to directly answer your question, marching against war and smoking weed isn't what Miller is complaining about. He is giving us a stereotype indicative of a group and marching against war and smoking weed are things we would associate with that "type".
And, by the way, Miller isn't just railing against liberalism either. The Mayor of Gotham is a weak and insipid politician who is so obsessed about what the voters think of his actions that he can't actually make any decisions for fear of angering his constitutes. He, in the end, opts for diplomacy with a lunatic under insane conditions hoping to score political credit. So the Mayor is a stereotypical politician.
President Reagan is a stereotypical Right Wing Conservative (manipulative, power hungry, controlling, misdirecting and completely insensitive to human life).
In general, Miller is giving us a cross section of selfish/self-absorbed idealists who are so focused on their own agendas that they can't function to produce a pragmatic solution.
And even Joker and the leader of the Mutant's are stereotypes as well if you really think about it. They are "Evil" in that they have no motivations as to why they behave the way they do...They just like to kill people. The failing of the lampooned liberals in Miller's work is that they are incapable of understanding that someone could, actually, be that way and so try to blame the one guy (Batman) who is behaving in a way they hate (Batman's stated purpose in the whole novel is telling the people to take responsibility and take charge to improve your own lives and this is actually 100% opposite of what EVERY critic of the Batman in the story wants).
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who get binary and those who don't.
Thanks, great reply.
Miller seems like a pretty weird guy.
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I liked it back in the day but I always thought of it as a device to enable the story, I always thought it was such a ridiculos satire that it was so extreme it was impossible to take seriously.
I mean blaming Batman for the actions of The Joker and letting The Joker out to do a TV interview is so stupid it doesn't make any logical sense; you have a choice to either feel insulted and not enjoy the book or let it go as a quirk of the universe Miller has created for these characters, and not translate it into real terms.
However this has become tainted given Frank Millers comments about about Occupy Wall Street. I have my own reasons for not liking OWS which essentially boil down to it being a perfect demonstration for why positive changes which empower all rather than a select few will never be taken seriously, but Millers reasons were deeply disappointing.
His comments were every bit as hyperbolic as the ranting villians he has written, yet lacking a poignant insight or truth which make them endearing. Frank Miller is a coward who believes we should be worried about Islamacism, but the militias in compounds building bombs are protectors of 4th amendment freedom.
I could go on but I really don't want to, this is why authors should just shut the *beep* up and stick to their work. I can no longer read Frank Millers stuff without being reminded that it was written by a colossal moron.
"but the militias in compounds building bombs are protectors of 4th amendment freedom."
What militia's? What bombs? And last time I checked, those "militia's" didn't kill hundreds of innocent civilians by blowing themselves up in public.
"Frank Miller is a coward who believes we should be worried about Islamacism"
No, he believes you should believe in something and stand behind a cause (patriotism), which he came to realize after 9/11, he realized what it was to be an American, to be a patriot of your nation, just like Russians, Germans, Japanese, and Chinese are towards their nations, and with disgusting histories behind all of those countries, there's literally NO excuse to not be a patriot for the USA, in fact I'd argue there's more to be patriotic about it than many of those countries.
"I always thought it was such a ridiculos satire that it was so extreme it was impossible to take seriously."
That's because you're either a simple-minded fool too afraid to see the government back away from its socialist ideals, or you're unwilling to use what powers you have to your advantage. We live in a time in the US where powers are traded for government security at the drop of a hat, some people, believe it or not, truly wish for the government to be completely limited in all their public endeavors, and for good reason.
Frank Millers satire is sublimely brilliant, and beyond that, truthful. I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between his satire of the news in Dark Knight Returns and real life news stations.
What militia's? What bombs? And last time I checked, those "militia's" didn't kill hundreds of innocent civilians by blowing themselves up in public.
No, he believes you should believe in something and stand behind a cause (patriotism), which he came to realize after 9/11, he realized what it was to be an American, to be a patriot of your nation, just like Russians, Germans, Japanese, and Chinese are towards their nations, and with disgusting histories behind all of those countries, there's literally NO excuse to not be a patriot for the USA, in fact I'd argue there's more to be patriotic about it than many of those countries.
That's because you're either a simple-minded fool too afraid to see the government back away from its socialist ideals, or you're unwilling to use what powers you have to your advantage. We live in a time in the US where powers are traded for government security at the drop of a hat, some people, believe it or not, truly wish for the government to be completely limited in all their public endeavors, and for good reason.
Frank Millers satire is sublimely brilliant, and beyond that, truthful. I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between his satire of the news in Dark Knight Returns and real life news stations.
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Holding Batman at least partially responsible for the Joker (or especially his return) actually makes perfect sense to me and I think it could be done realistically. But Miller does go pretty over the top with his criticism, and I agree that it is is hard to take seriously as a result. I love the book and the movie, but I think that his message would have been better served had he taken the criticism a little more seriously.
On the other hand, a lot of the anti-liberal jokes did bring some much needed humor to a pretty dark, unrelenting story. And that's coming from the type of liberal he's making fun of.
If anything Miller bashes the Repiblicans more. Ronald Reagan essentially becomes a villan at the end (from the audiences perspective) when he sics Superman on Batman.
But in the end the film is critical of both sides of the political spectrum.
It's even worse in the original comic, where Reagan is depicted wearing an American flag-patterned business suit in such a parody of 1980s-era rah-rah patriotism that he becomes cartoonish.
I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?
Eff the liberals
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have something to say "