Atrios just linked to a take on the politics of Dark Knight in the WSJ. This is pretty funny:
Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?
I'll dispose of the strawman by pointing out that morality, failth, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right are all enshrined in Al Gore's movie about those hard choices we need to make as a society. Moving beyond that...
Could it be that, in the real world, the swarming hoard of The Enemy are real people who have families, emotions, and feel pain. When the horrors and indignity of "whatever it takes" are inflicted on the real world counterparts of Tolkien's orcs, the moral outrage of right wing ideology becomes fully apparent?
Read More