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Batman (and World War III) Begins: Hollywood Takes on Terror1

Kyle D. Killian, PhD

Batman Begins (2005) tells the origin story of one of America’s greatest, and most

psychologically complex, comic book heroes. Bob Kane dreamt up the Batman saga in 1939, back

when a just war could still be found, and when no red-blooded American voiced questions about the

need to battle the evil Axis powers. It’s no accident that the Caped Crusader rears his cowl for a

whole new franchise during the United States’ Crusade against Terror (yes, Bush did say ‘Crusade’

as the US military penetrated into Afghanistan, before he was coached to never repeat that word).

In Christopher Nolan’s film, we meet a hero who has both demons and ideals, and he does what he

must to make Gotham City safe for its citizens, just as the current US Administration claims it is

making its citizenry safe by taking the fight to the terrorists. It’s back to the future, an old-

fashioned hero fighting the war on terror in the twenty-first century. Played by Christian Bale,

Bruce Wayne is the liberal ideal, as the entire story rests on the idea that a single, obstinate, and

thoroughly committed individual can lead the way and improve matters, both global and local,

through his agency. How does Bruce Wayne go from an orphan who has fallen down a well at the

film’s opening to savior of a city?

Driven by guilt and rage at the murder of his parents, young Mr. Wayne must go on a journey

of self-discovery before he can become Batman. To find himself, he travels to the Far East, is

arrested, and learns about criminals by playing ‘fight club’ with them in prison. With his

gregarious, idealistic ‘biological’ father (and his already silent mother) silenced forever, Bruce

encounters another father figure in the form of spiritual teacher and warrior Henri Ducard (played

by Liam Neeson). Ducard gets him out of prison, and takes him to a Shaolin Temple to undergo

training. Here is an excerpt of their dialogue:

1 Killian, K. D. (2007). Batman (and World War III) Begins: Hollywood takes on terror. Journal of

Feminist Family Therapy, 19 (1): 77-82. Correspondence may be directed to killian@yorku.ca

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Ducard: What are you seeking?

Wayne: I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

Ducard: To conquer fear, you must become fear.

The above text contains an epistemological move, and a hegemonic intelligibility. To emerge as

Batman, the rational actor who can fight injustice, Bruce must ‘conquer fear’ by becoming fear.

This move is ridden with the logic of the US Empire. Of course, audience members will not hear or

see this logic unless they are familiar with the material and political power of the United States and

are critical consumers of the text provided them.

Ducard teaches Bruce a lot: sword fighting, how to overcome his fears, and to create a

constructive channel for his rage. But the young apprentice is also asked to reject his father’s

weakness (he had failed to take action while being robbed at gunpoint in Gotham alley) and to join

the League of Shadows, a group of ninja-like vigilantes who leave no neck un-severed as they dole

out their sense of justice on a corrupt world. It turns out that they have a sweeping history:

Ducard: The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands

of years. We sacked Rome. Loaded trade ships with plague rats. Burned London to the

ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence... we return to

restore the balance. Over the ages our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With

Gotham we tried a new one. Economics.

Once more, this epistemological move is incomprehensible unless we are familiar with the history

of Empire. These a priori connections with Rome and London are not arbitrary, but draw

extensively on the familiar images of the Roman and British Empires in world politics. In a linear

sense, these iconic images link history with that of the United States’ emergence as a hegemonic

power in the world and to sustain itself militarily and economically. It is possible that this move of

talking only about economics rather than politics is intended to obscure the fact that the market, and

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capitalism, are political, involving many struggles (e.g., exploitation, gendered violence, etc.) for its

emergence.

Bruce is asked to behead a captive criminal and become one of the League, but he hesitates,

and eventually refuses. Ducard intones, ‘That is a weakness your enemy will not share.’ Wayne

counters, ‘That’s why it’s so important.’ The Ducards of the world will kill to achieve their goals,

do whatever they deem to be necessary. Wayne rejects the League of Shadows’ excessive zeal for

justice at any price, and insists that Gotham isn’t beyond saving. Wayne’s rejection of Ducard, and

reaffirmation of his loyalty to his ‘true’ father, results in the destruction of the temple and a not so

friendly parting of ways between teacher and disciple.

Bruce returns to Gotham, which is, of course, Gothic, decked out in designer darkness, and

thoroughly corrupt. Most of the police are on the take, Lt. Gordon warily observes, and, later, R’as

Ah Ghul, the leader of the League of Shadows, matter-of-factly observes, ‘You're defending a city

so corrupt, we have infiltrated every level of its infrastructure.’ Soon, Bruce arrives at the idea of

becoming a creature of justice, but not vengeance. In a conversation with the faithful butler, Alfred,

played in wonderfully understated fashion by Michael Caine, Bruce Wayne realizes the how and

why of his imminent transformation: ‘As a man...I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, destroyed.

But as a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting….Something elemental, something

terrifying.’ (see Image 1). Here is a man who realizes that Ducard had a point—to fight those who

bring fear to the city, he must become fear. He must out-terrorize the terrorists, even if that means

becoming a ruthless, violent vigilante. To make a difference, he must act, and act he does, doing

what is necessary; and, the while, Wayne endeavors to stay on the Good side of a razor’s edge

demarcating the border between justice, and fear and revenge.

Batman Begins’ themes and its portrait of Bruce Wayne’s struggle with his own darkness

resonate with the tough, discomfiting questions some US citizens are facing today. As the nation

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grapples with (or, systematically ignores) the issues raised by Abu Graib, the Patriot Act, and the

idea of pre-emptive war, we realize that both Batman and the US military machine are powerful and

frightening entities to have on ‘our side’ in a war on terror, but bring with them their own

problems—those of violence and ‘collateral damage’, escalation, and the nagging theme of

achieving victory, but at what price? In one scene, the Batmobile, which is (not coincidentally) a

high-speed tank in this re-vision, jumps from rooftop to rooftop, crashing through walls and

guardrails, and is a menace to criminals, police, and citizens alike. But, hey, this is Batman, and if

he can’t pull off a ‘surgical strike’ against the enemy, who can? Despite my experience of

discomfort during these scenes, I really think the filmmakers intended for most persons in the

audience to experience exhilaration rather than worry. After all, not only is a superhero driving a

tank through Gotham, but most of the cops and citizenry are on the take anyway, so if a few get hurt

in the process, does it really matter? And, is it a coincidence that a group of eastern terrorists led by

a shadowy, elusive leader has devised a plot to crash a train (not a plane, this time) into a

skyscraper? Like another summer 2005 blockbuster, War of the Worlds, society is threatened with

imminent destruction by invading ‘others’, and the audience is given an opportunity to exorcise its

post-9/11 demons and have everything neatly resolved by the time the credits roll.

The parallels between fiction and reality persist, as the villains in Batman Begins are actual

terrorists, of the ‘economic’ variety, which brings up a series of questions about capitalism in late

modernity, some of which are beyond the scope of this piece. Suffice it to say that Nolan’s film

critiques Post-Fordist finance capitalism, but not capitalism itself. Still bearing his father’s name,

Wayne Industries has been taken over by shareholder capital, sullying the family name. As Bruce

takes up arms against the crime wave and economic depression that have engulfed Gotham, he also

takes on the finance capital that has assumed control of his father’s company. We see the effects of

the creeping malaise of this rabid form of capitalism when we are introduced to the benevolent, but

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demoted, humiliated, and all but forgotten, Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman) who haunts the

sub-basement of the Wayne corporate headquarters (see Image 2). Bruce must restore Lucius, and

the family name, to their proper standing by bringing back a localized, personalized form of good

old American capitalism (it seems no real alternative to capitalism is available in this celluloid

universe).

On the level of simple entertainment, this film is a bold, more realistic rendering of the

Batman myth (e.g., our hero is a struggling amateur in some scenes, but when you’re just starting

out, it’s hard to climb walls and always have the jump on the bad guys). And while the film does

take a few chances by delving so deeply into the mythos, and the Bruce Wayne character, before

becoming a standard Hollywood summer blockbuster, Batman Begins does not break new ground in

its depiction of men, women, and gender relations. The film is replete with testosterone and

powerful male figures, but completely marginalizes female characters. For example, it parades an

innumerable caravan of father figures—Bruce’s true father Thomas, Ducard as sinister wannabe,

Alfred as the nurturing, stay-at-home faithful servant, Lucius Fox as the older, wiser, technical

wizard—but presents no strong women. As alluded to earlier, Bruce’s mother is nearly silent before

being rendered permanently so in the first act, and assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes (played

by Katie Holmes) is sincere, moral, and upright, but not given much to do as an active agent (see

Image 3). Her screen time is devoted to her being acted upon as a prop: she is threatened, rescued,

swept off her feet by the hero, sedated without her consent by the very same hero, etc. And the

female board members at Wayne Industries are similarly silent, without a line in the film. This is

disheartening to watch, but is consistent with the film’s message: tough, bad men meet their match

in tough, good men willing to go outside the box and do what they must to save the weak and

defenseless (read: women and children). In the end, women are reinserted into the 1950s, so

feminist and other struggles against capitalist-patriarchy are rendered invisible. The emergence of

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this new subject, a Batman of neoliberal capitalism, requires women’s labor (e.g., moral, etc.) but

not women’s political agency. Further, the text of this film also renders invisible a requirement for

the emergence of capitalism in general, and finance capitalism in particular: The exploitation of

men’s and women’s labor worldwide.

In conclusion, this Batman shows depth, drawing on psychological principles extensively, and

appears to make a moral choice of compassion and justice over vengeance upon his enemies. But is

our hero qualitatively different from those he defeats? Ideologically, perhaps. But his methods are

so similar—the use of terror and weapons of mass destruction—and such responses foment a

symmetrical escalation that creates a whole other set of problems, both in Gotham and back here in

the real world. Batman Begins is an entertaining start to a new franchise, but runs parallel to the

dangerous path undertaken by the current US Administration. Not merely an aesthetic work, but

part of a discursive domain of culture, the film reflects the ‘War on Terror’ and U S foreign policy.

The film’s subtext warns us about the dangers of doing unto our enemies as they have done to us—

to twist Nietzsche a bit, what does not kill them, or even what does kill them, makes them stronger.

REFERENCES

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zavarzadeh, Mas’ud. 1991. Seeing films politically. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

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How to terrorize the terrorists—Batman Redux (photo copyright Warner Brothers 2005).

Mine has to be bigger than theirs: Real men Bruce and Lucius discuss weapons of war (photo

copyright Warner Brothers 2005).

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Woman as romantic interest, and prop: This is not your feminist film (photo copyright Warner

Brothers 2005).