A Geek History of Time - Episode 87 - Batman through the Ages Part IX

Episode Date: December 26, 2020

Wow. You're gonna like this. Oh no I'm not. Cause there is no god damn middle. This is not unlike ancient Rome by the way. Not so much the family of circus. Yeah. I did, when I did Miratialia, I had the same issue as before Nancy.

A lot of them wanted to create self-sustaining farms and got into crystals. I know. Okay. I understand that. But yeah, I'm reading Livy, who is a shitty historian. Because Irrigan is. Others say that because Laurentia's body was common to all the shepherds around, she was called a she-wolf, which is a Latin term for horror.

You were audible, lassies. It was just most of it, where you slamming the table. As the Romanists at the table, well, duh. Yeah. Obviously, Ipso facto. Right. You know, it's your original form. Ipso, duh. You have a sword rat. This is a deep history of time.

If we connect here, we take the role of the world, and if you hadn't guessed, we were having a conversation when we started recording this. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher with one, count at one, section of remedial reading here in northern California. And who are you? I'm Damien Harmonian. I've just realized that we've recorded eight episodes on Batman and we've probably got another four to go. This is now the Batman podcast. Like what are we gonna do for a palette cleanser after this? Um, something marvel. Okay.

Well, maybe something not comic bookie. Maybe maybe something not comic bookie. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like this, yeah. Like what should we really do? You have to think about that. But you know, and the thing is as we're talking about it though, I think it, I think it bears

mentioning that I'm a lab teacher in Northern California. Well, number one. And number two, that in our in our own defense, Batman is one of these characters who there has just meant so much shit done with him. That's true. In the course of the last, you know, he and Superman, I think even more than any other pair of superheroes, they truly are archetypes that we have in the modern era come back to over and over and over again. That is true. As and every time the Zitguys changes, we get at some point in the cycle, we get new Superman, and at some point in the cycle, we get new Batman.

And they kind of react to one another, and they kind of counter one another. And they are the Arthur and the, there's a Robin Hood and the, and the, you know, whatever bardic character you wanna think of of our hero. Every generation has to come up with their own, their own spin on these characters that already exist. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, part of the reason that we have to spend so much time talking about this, this, you know, crypto fascist motherfucker. It ought to be really blunt about it now. Yeah.

Uh, is, is that he hasn't always been that and every generation brings you know We call him that I call him that right now because that's what he looks like to us. Yeah, in the current time frame and Got him we get to the when we get to the current when we get to the current iterations You're gonna see a lot of that shit too like well. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when we left off, last thing you had mentioned was that the time span between Burton 1 and Schumacher 2 was the same as the time span between Schum two and Nolan number one. Yeah, because it's 89 to 97 and then it was 97 to 2005. At that kind of baked my noodle. I think it feels like it was a lot longer, right? It really does. Well, there's a couple reasons for that. One, you and I came of age. Okay. That's just true.

Media changed a lot between those two years. Between 97 and 2005, there was a much bigger media change than there was between 89 and 97. Okay. Because while between 89 and 97, you had the advent of the internet between 97 and 2005, you had readily available broadband internet. It's kind of like the difference between no TV and having TV, and then having TV and having a TV with a remote control. And then having TV with remote control and over 100 channels.

Well, you won't get over 100 channels without remote control. No, you're right. Yeah. You're entirely right. But there's there is there is I'm going to argue there is as much of a difference between TV with no remote and TV with remote as there is between TV with remote and 25 channels and TV with first you know first generation remote 25 channels and TV with first, you know, first generation remote, 25 channels, and a generation later, TV with remote and over 100 channels, like the landscape shifts. I think it's a difference.

Dereaus. I think what you're talking about is a difference in degree, and the degree shift is different, but I think it's a difference in kind. When you go from go over there and click the thing, because you're gonna turn that damn thing off. There is not that much broadcasting going on because people sitting there with a remote are just hitting their thumb and now

you have around the clock broadcasting and yes you you do have an explosion of channels but you already had around the clock broadcasting that allowed that. So that's a difference in degree. I'm going to say shifting from no remote to having a remote because that's a different in kind. All right, I see. Okay. And I see the argument you're making. And I think the drama level of the change, I think, is comparable though though because the massive difference in scale. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say you're wrong because I think you make a meaningful point there, but I think after a certain point a big enough change in scale almost becomes a

change in kind. Yes, it does. For becomes as dramatic as a change in kind. I fully agree that a difference in degree can turn into difference in kind. And in a large of that point's academic, but that's why we're here. I do think though that the change in culture between 89 to 97, when the internet was still nascent, it was still dial up. It was still localized for the most part.

Versus the change from 97 to 2005, suddenly you've only got like seven corporations running most internet. It's all broadband or it's wildly available broadband and YouTube has started. And so I'd say that that that shift is a massive difference in kind. It is. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Getting over you mad at me. But the real reason why it feels like it's so much longer is because something happened on September 11th, 2001. And that's a flash bulb through which you kind of restart the ticker tape as far as what you think history starts with.

Because everybody remembers where they were kind of thing. That was the anchor point. Yeah, it was the power, unfortunately, it was our generation's version of Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Or daily, or daily plaza. Yeah, yeah, I fully agree. Yeah, it's yeah. So I think that's what makes it feel so long. Yeah, I think I think there's something there. I think there there was a really major change in the character of our culture. Yeah, after that.

Yes. So, yeah. So, it's going to feel like it's a lot longer. And I really think that's because the movie Master of Disguise was being filmed at that time. And that is what... I mean, there was also a tragedy in New York, but the... This is really good, this is the... This is really good, really good beer.

You nearly made me spit all over the microphone. I... You disagree that... That's not cool. A movie with Dana Carvey, Brent Spineriner and Jennifer Esposito is not worth I mean Yes, I disagree okay immensely agreed to disagree then I guess because Okay, you name another movie that literally only made it to 80 minutes with credits that had as huge a national impact as this movie did. Off the top of my head, I will confess that I cannot.

Right. That, yeah, I'm okay. I'm gonna give that one to you in the interest of moving on. Fair enough. I will call that a victory and strut around and brag about you. Okay. In the interest of moving on. Fair enough. I will call that victory and strut around and brag about it. Oh, okay. So I'm podcasting with a pigeon. Okay. Got it. Understood. Got it. So, Kuku, mother fucker. So, yes. So the time, the eight years between the end of Schumacher and the beginning of no one do feel much longer in retrospect than the eight years between the beginning of

the, I continue to say the modern Batman cycle and the end of it is it is though. That's the thing is it's um I mean you you okay so I think that the Nolan is the modern. Okay I think that's the breakaway because the other one is is still emblematic of an era that we're no longer in. But the Nolan Batman has started a way to make me feel fucking old, man. I have no way of arguing. Yeah, ow. Yeah, right. So here we are, 2005.

And maybe this is also why it feels older, or it feels like it's been such a long time between those two because this one's called Batman Begins So the other ones are like prehistoric Batman Okay, yeah, okay, I can see that okay, so meaningful. This is the first of the Nolan trilogy This is the throat cancer Batman. This is the one grounded in reality not iconography Batman begins. Okay, okay. I'm fascinated by grounded in reality, not iconography. Yes.

Throat cancer, Batman. I totally understand what you're talking about with that. Like, I get that. Right. It took me a minute, but I got there. So, I get that. I would love emo Philips to play Batman There's only there's only one way I would watch an emo Philips movie or an emo Philips play Batman And that would be if Andy Warhol came back from the dead direct

Because that's what you would need. You could just see Emo Phillips just talking very light and going into different things while he's fumbling with his utility belt. You're really lucky I finished my beer before. As I have to reach through the monitor and fucking hurt you. Oh, dear. Yeah, that's performance art of it is entirely different.

Novel kind of level. I gotta ask if any friends can get in touch with emo philips and I'll pitch that. That would be amazing. That would just be amazing. Okay, okay, since you can't get... Warhol? Warhol. You need to get waters.

Yes. Like, yes. It has to be one of the two of them. Yes. Because otherwise, why are you even bothering? It's true. Yeah. But, oh my God. So.

So, okay. So, so we're clearly very amused by our own says a few more, but to get as soon as we ever get your Nolan and rooting the reality that iconography is sprained. Okay, so this Batman is the 2000s version of what Bruce Wayne was, was, how to put, not what's tried to be.

What Michael Geaton was trying to do with Bruce Wayne. Okay. This is a 2000s version of it. So things are updated. It's not so much about the internal, so much is how he expresses that internal. Christian Bale played Batman as a rage monster. Oh, oh yeah.

Yeah, that's 2000s, right? 89 is, I'm depressed and I'm drawing inward. 2000 is, I am raging. Uh, physically and psychologically aggressive. It's also much more close to noir than any other because Nolan and Bale both wanted to really push Batman toward a moral ambiguity. And I say this knowing full well that this is 2005 where we're not the good guys in the world anymore. We can't even pretend to be.

No. And we're starting to embrace it. That's the scary part. Mm, yeah, sadly. The moral, not even ambiguity, the moral relativism. Yeah, the right of might is, yeah. Yeah, no, I see that, because of course, you know,

now by this time we've been We've been it or in the Middle East for you know four years now Well, let's see the invasion starts in 02 right? Okay, so yeah, but still still And and nobody Nobody in the audience of the movie by 2005 would be, would remain by that time absolutely convinced of our unwavering moral rightness. Yes. Because by 2005, we'd seen AppleGrab.

Mm-hmm. And we had, try to remember, when was the surge? The surge was before the S.O.5 was after we reelected Bush, who said, yeah, I fucked it up, but you don't really want to change leaders. And besides this guy, he lied about his service in Vietnam that I ducked. And so we ended up having an election about the wrong part of Asia and about the wrong war. And with the guy, yeah, Ed is drinking heavily. And Yeah,

okay, no. But yeah, the audio effect and go I worked there. So this is all through my beer bottle. The surge happened in 07, if I recall, Lato, 607. You know, folks, add us, add us, find us on the Twitter. We'll give you the address at the end. But yeah, so it's, it's, it's, it's, find us on the Twitter. We'll give you the address at the end. Yeah. But yeah, so it's a bad time. It really is.

And rage, rage is happening. You're going to have a bad time. You know, the next year a song would come out by a group called Blue October called Hate Me. Like it's just a really bad time. OK, all right. So I get a personal for half a second here. Okay. And of course, it's me. So we'll be have a second. But anyway, so so oh five oh six is the time

period during which I was divorcing my first wife. Mm hmm. And holy shit. Hang on, hang on, hang on. You and I absolutely married each other because you're divorcing your first wife as I was marrying mine and then I was divorcing her as you were marrying yours. Oh shit. God damn. Okay, so anyway, that's the person.

Anyway, so anyway, yeah, 2005, 2006 was the point which my first marriage was disintegrating. Um, and that that song by blue October, um, really, really fucked me up. Oh, yeah. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. It did, it did bad things to me the first couple of times it came on the radio after about the third time I was like, you know what? No click. Yeah, I for my own sanity. I need to walk away from this. Yes. And so I mean, I went with you know my best friend and his wife to go see Batman begins. And yeah, the color palette of my own internal emotional landscape. Oh yeah. Lots of grays.

And you know in my recollection what's interesting about Batman Begins is there's an awful lot of it that happens in daylight. Yes. Which all of the other since, since 89, all of the other Batman films had been, you know, everything happens at night because obviously Batman like nocturnal. Right. But there's awful lot of stuff in Batman Begins that happens in not only, not only daylight, but like broad daylight. Oh yeah. But it's all immensely washed out. Yes.

Oh, yeah. It's all gray overcast. Yeah. Daylight. Yeah. And it's a daylight version of noir. The way of putting it, yeah. Yeah.

The character Rachel Dawes is created entirely for this particular movie. So if you're keeping score, that's what three female characters created entirely for the movie, or maybe four. As for the folka and the themes of this particular one, it's yet again a product of our times. This Batman movie has Batman as its central character, even though Batman doesn't show up until an hour into it. Bruce Wayne is Batman, whereas Michael Keaton's Batman was Bruce Wayne. This particular Batman iteration is fatherless, and that's kind of the thing. He's in search of a viable father figure and kind of keeps getting burned by it. Now I say that because we were in many ways leaderless. For that time, it was leaderless. The guy was incompetent and we kept

getting burned by his attempts to make his dad love him. Bruce Wayne latches on to Razao Ghul as a father figure. Yeah. And that goes kind of strafically badly. Well, he does teach him how to Batman. Yes. But then he also latches on to Alfred as his other father figure. The ones who teaches him why he should Batman. Yes. And by the way, yeah, I just want to say as good as the the everybody like I don't know if there has been a single bad performance as Alfred like ever. I think that's one of those parts that everybody who's done the role has done a good job of it. Yes. That being said, Michael Cain's Alfred is fucking brilliant. Michael Cain is probably the best actor

to have played Alfred, you know? You're not wrong. Yeah, you know? Not at all. And now Jeremy Irons is doing it, by the way. Oh yeah. You know? So yeah.

You know what you gotta tell ya? I'm actually, I'm low-key, really excited about the new film that they're working on. And we can talk about that later. Yeah, that's five episodes from now. Yeah, that's gonna be the Coda for episode 13 of our Batman series, but anyway, carry on. So Batman has Razagul to teach him how to Batman,

Alfred to teach him why to Batman. Really, he's got like four father figures in the movie, which all bring a special kind of fathering aspect toward Batman. Like I said, Alfred and Razogul, but also Lucius Fox, who is the steady and reliable dad. And of course, Thomas Wayne, who is his actual father who dies before they could connect. He's Fox's opposite. He is not steady and reliable because he's dead. Now in 2004, 2005, a lot of kids' parents were off at war.

Okay. So fatherlessness, father absence, kind of. I'm going to push back a little bit on that. Sure. Just only a little. I think there were an awful lot of parents who were off at war. I'm going to point out that as a percentage of the population in the United States, the number of people who are serving at any given time is relatively quite small. It is part of the reason why it is as easy for us as a population to commit people to going to war because not very many of us know very many people who are actually going

to have to go do that. You know, I mean, you and I of course both know your brother and so we have a very personal connection to that. Whereas, and I mean, I have a couple of cousins who served and have been over there and come back and all that, but I think they're there. I don't want to run the risk of overselling the idea of, you know, we as a society had parents who were off at war. I feel like that's a little bit of a reach. Well, let me let me try to convince you that it's not. Okay. So a lot of people's parents were off at war. Notice I didn't say

dads. I said parents. This is a new thing. That's a new thing. This is, yes, mom is certainly not going to argue with that, which is highlighted in the news regularly at that time. The welcome home videos, the coming home to the high school rally, all that stuff is in the feel good section of the news. You have TV shows that are starting to highlight the war over there, including one called Over There. FX TV is doing really good stuff with that kind of thing. You have movies starting to come out about the first version in Gulf War, you have the war itself being so entrenched in the zeitgeist and part of the reason why is because the Bush administration is putting as many good faces onto it as

possible which means talking about parental sacrifice. So proportionally you're absolutely right, representationally I disagree entirely. I think the fact that we had so many stories about parents at war absolutely skewed the story for us. So in other words, we as a Zitgeist, we had a manufactured. Yes. Over emphasis. Yes. Over emphasized.

Okay. All right. All right. I see what you're saying. And I will grant that. I don't have a counter to that. And yeah, okay. All right.

Yeah. That makes sense. You've got Bruce Wayne who's parentless, but he's trying to grab it. Father figures. He's got three living ones and one dead one, right? So yeah, yeah, okay. So our leader was the unfaithored son of a prior president who was doing

everything he could to impress and win his dad's love and not knowing a thing about how to do the job. He was learning about it from his advisors and his enablers as he went. Does this sound like Bruce Wayne trying to figure out Batmanting yet? That means that he's learning under the he's learning under the tutelage of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell. Razagul, a guy who knew his parents, Donald Rumsfeld, and a black guy who's pretty steady. I'm never going to be able to watch that movie the same way I ever fucking again.

Sorry. This is now Damian Ruins, Batman for Ed. Thank you. Sure. God damn it. So like I said, Powell was the constant study force. Dick Cheney was the ambitious and amoral pragmatist that Raza Ghul was pushing bush for his own agenda ultimately. And Rumsfeld was like the bad guy version of Alfred. He was doing what

Bush wanted because that's what Cheney told Bush he wanted. And he was offering advice the way he could. Both his serve prior masters and we're now pulling Bush strings. So now, where would you have not necessarily the army that you want? Uh-huh. That's a really, really, really shitty counter to. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Like, like I said, he's an evil Alfred. Yeah, I know. I heard that. Yes. I, I'm, I'm just saying, yes, like how, how, how often does this reality let us down so so badly comparison to the silver screen? Like, yeah. Now, the comparison between Russell, I would say,. I would say have you seen hereditary?

Like, you already know how badly it's let us down. No, no, I haven't seen hereditary. How about a quiet place? No, no, no, because there's your pair right there that tells about this. No, no, no. All right, so you're talking about Ross Elgul. So, so Ross Elgul as as the celluloid Dick Cheney, the one the one thing I'm going to say there is Raza Ghul was not a soulless fucking

vampire. He had an ideology. You're right. He actually had an ideology that wasn't just, you know, power for the naked, grasping sake of power. True. And and he didn't, you know't suck the lifeblood out of kittens to survive. True. So one of my favorite moments from the Daily Show back during that time period was John Stewart, look at the camera saying, so you know, it's, it was interesting this week. You know, the Washington DC, the air was a little fresher and the birds sang a little sweeter in the trees and the sun shone a little brighter. That's right. Dick Cheney

was out of town all week. My favorite was where Dick Cheney shot his friend on a hunting trip and his friend apologized. Yes. How, how like what level of dark lord of the Sith do you have to get to to pull that off? Right. Like, like I want an experience point. I want to know yeah like what level was Cheney as a net chroma answer yeah that fucking happened yeah

like your god you know we thought it couldn't get any worse uh-huh oh yeah like dark alert of the Sith again has an ideology. Although I would say Palpatine his ideology was power for its own sake. So also yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. In 2004, we were also still really damn scared. Who was the main bad guy? Oh, a guy with an oddly Arabic sounding name.

No, I was saying in the Batman movie. I'm sorry. Yeah, I just scarecrow. Okay. All right. I was thinking of racial cool. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, no, you're right, actually. Yeah, scarecrow, yeah. He's all about fear and the other theme, right? Batman in this time is not fearless, but he did rise above his fear.

Thus, scarecrow was more of a complication to deal with than an actual existential threat. The threat was much more Rosalgool. And Scarecrow was the vehicle for Batman to be drawn out of Bruce Wayne as a result. So it's through his trial with his fear that he then can become the Batman and face Rosalgool. And the paid outgorn. There's some real interesting heroes journey, kind of analysis that could be done with that at the same time as our, you know, political veneer analysis. It's just what occurred to me, hearing you say that is, you know, we have the, you know,

initial dragon pulling the hero out of his original persona to face the, you know, yeah, that's all. Yeah. So Bruce Wayne is, he has to face his fear, but he has to use pain to get through it. And the pain of his search for his father's was a much more centralized struggle for him. And it's really the pain and the despair of feeling betrayed. And tell me that people in America did not feel that shit, right? And the feelings, yeah. And the feelings of emotional pain of being attacked when previously we'd held a possession of tremendous hegemonic and privilege are

Absolutely being echoed in that very thing The despair is really there too. Whereas self-reflection not so much No, no, no Bales Batman does not spend any time reflecting on himself. Nope. Like at all, he is, he is all externalized. Yes, everything. Yes. Everything is externalized.

There is, there is no meaningful level of introspection at all. Yep. Um, his Batman, his Bruce Wayne are both entirely about outward control and projection of power. Yes. and where Keaton's Bruce Wayne was a wounded kid trying to deal, trying to cope with that loss, and actually had an arc in which he actually dealt with that. Yeah, there is no acceptance face of his morning. It's all no, no, I'm going to control this one way or the other. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So at the same time, nationally, there's not much self-reflection. There's nobody asking why we fight, despite it being a really good documentary that came out around the same time. They just know that there is a fight and it's scary, so be really strong and be a badass. Mission accomplished. And the editing of fuck you. Yeah. The editing of that's actually the moment I stop being a Republican. Oh, okay. Like I did I need to throw that out there. Yeah, so so it's funny. My father and I actually really strongly disagree on this

But it was because of my father that this moment was just made me so incandescently fucking angry So so we all of course remember the moment that George W. Bush stood on on a carrier deck with a huge banner behind him that said mission accomplished. Wearing wearing, you know, a flight jacket. And it was so clearly a photo op. Oh, yeah, like everything about it was so it was so stage perfectly framed and and he himself Of course had joined the air national guard to avoid going to Vietnam and then had not even shown up For all of his time in the guard right

And so seeing that You know Rich boy silver spoon mother fucker wearing the trappings of my father's genuine wartime Vietnam military service standing on the deck of a carrier. fucker never landed on a goddamn carrier. Naval aviators land on fucking carriers. This is a big point for me because this is how I was raised. Like, like, there are pilots and there are aviators and the differences in aviator, naval aviator, it was how land on carrier, middle of the ocean at night under high seas. He never did that shit and he wants to stand on the deck of that fucking ship and claim credit. He ain't even fucking over yet. I'm saying this now 15 plus years later. You can hear how anger I am talking about it now. At the time, I could not words.

Yeah. My father, who was the guy who actually did all of that shit, was like, no, man, that was cool. That was the president, you know, doing, doing president things. And like, and president things and like, you know, I've never seen I'd eye politically since, you know, but that was literally that was the point at which W lost me for the Republican Party forever. Like, no, motherfucker, you don't get to claim that. to claim that. I mean, I had already been moving away from being somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan, you know, anyway. And, you know, my social circle had expanded to include, you know, liberals. And so I was, I was, you know, beginning to move in a more centrist direction to begin with, but then that was just like, okay, no, you know what, fuck you. And it's just been one long gradual left-word slide for me ever since to the point now that, you know, I'm actually an Eisenhower Republican.

So a socialist? you know i'm actually and i's and how are republican uh... so socialist which yet so by the standards of our day and you know comby uh... to anybody in the republican party now uh... but yeah okay i think i had to you know talking about mission accomplished talking about that that moment, our

resentment, guys, because the thing is I don't think I was the only one. I think I think of our generation. I think there were, I think, I mean, I'm not going to try to claim that it was like a majority of young Republicans or anything, but I think there were people who were, you know, on, on, on, on, of 30 or, or around there who, who did look at that and that was kind of the moment where W is, so Alfred E. Newman kind of cared was revealed for a lot of us. No, again, not like a major, but I think we're fair

number of people who were like this dark is going to stand up here and try to launch really, but I've been projecting. But yeah. Well, I would say that the following election did actually prove that a lot of people did leave that party at least for the next eight years and then you do. This is what happens when you don't take the full course of antibiotics and you just wait until like the subsides subside because then it comes back worse. That's the problem with not stopping the fashion. Ash could always tank enough. Yeah. So yeah.

All right. So let's look. Anyway, yeah. Sorry. I just type. Yeah. So let's look strong. Let's look badass.

And let's hang a banner. And the editing of the movie absolutely reflects that too. There's not very many shots that last over a couple editing of the movie absolutely reflects that too. There's not very many shots that last over a couple of seconds in the movie. We are constantly thrown around as his Batman in his new role. Okay, yeah, you know, I hadn't thought about that, but cinematicographical. Mm-hmm. So is there any iconography going on in there? No. Is it a jarring sense of reality?

Yes. Is it mimicking our sense of being jostled and unsure and having to deal with fear and having to project rage? Yes. And that's what 2005 really was about. That's why that movie hit so hard. So that brings us to 2008. Yeah. The Dark Knight, the one with the Joker again. Yes. The one with surveillance state being necessary to bring back order. So this is the one. This is the one where the Joker isn't just shooting a scenery.

He's far more fascinating as a character. Really, this was his ledger's coming out party. More than it was Christian Bale's movie. Ledger Dove. Yeah, and it's such and go ahead. Okay, ledger dove pretty deep into the psychology of his character to get this performance and it absolutely shows and he's not method because he's not drawing on his own experiences. He did something different.

Now this was the first superhero movie to make it to a billion dollars worldwide. There you go DC. It is still the highest grossing Batman movie of all time, and it was also a stark contrast to Iron Man, which had come out in May, which was rather tongue in cheek and flashy. Yeah, that's very very much so and and had a very charismatic snarky You know wise guy main character who you know has a moral epiphany Yes, and take the moral stand that is moral learns Wow, yeah, okay, whereas This one is less about more Wow.

Okay, whereas this one is less about more reality in the world. Yeah. And it's all, it's very much Apple, Indian versus Dionysian. Yes. So this one is gritty. It's reality-based and it's psychotic as fuck. I mean, it's a dark movie.

And it was made darker by the death of Heath Ledger in January of 2008 when the movie hadn't even come out yet. The fact that he died of a drug overdose or a combination of drugs that was toxic to him, and he had worked so hard at this role made it even darker and grittier. And Heath Ledger was not the only death attributed to his movie by the way because a stuntman died in the car crash scene. Oh wow no kidding. Yeah. So Nolan decided, Nolan decided to get away from what Burton had done with Joker. He specifically avoided his origin story so that Joker would be an absolute character.

But this is a podcast about Batman and the depiction of Batman, so I'm gonna talk about Batman, okay? But it did need mention because Joker is such an instant cat. So Christian Baill comes back to play Batman. He continues to play him as a man who's been struggling with identity. In his discussions with Harvey Denton, Rachel Dawes, we see Bruce, by the way, Rachel Dawes is played by a different character. We see Bruce Wayne discussing the true

nature of Batman in contrast to Harvey Dent, who is the White Knight versus the Dark Knight. And you get into this hero we deserve versus hero we need. You either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain. That kind of stuff, a lot of identity questions and a lot of doubt as to whether or not Batman is doing the right thing as to whether or not it's worth it and as to whether or not it's valued. But note that none of it is a discussion as to whether or not it's valued, but note that none of it is a discussion as to whether or not his efforts as Batman are necessary.

There's such a rot in society that the need for such a Batman is clearly there. Now, this is 2008. We accept that these wars are ongoing and they have no end in sight. So there's no question as to whether or not we have to be there, which is really scary, just whether or not it's worth it and whether or not it's valued. Not that it's not necessary. Ouch. Yeah.

That's, yeah, that's, that's hard. Yeah. And then you've got the Joker acting as an agitating agent there. Like it just is worse. It's nothing's better. In this sequel, Bruce Wayne tries to stop being Batman. He sees Dent as his own salvation, actually. And later, he decides to reveal his identity

in order to save lives. So there's a lot of play with the identity. As Joker is threatening and making good on his threats, uh, to kill until Batman does this, and Batman starts to play along. Um, because there are Batman imitators cropping up, this Joker has a lot of people it can pick on. And before he can, Harvey Dent,

before Bruce Wayne can claim it, Harvey Dent claims to be Batman. So there's a lot of issues of identity going on. So Harvey Dent is the white knight of Gotham and he is the quote, bright face of Gotham's future. And then he becomes two face. So just, I mean, the amount of spinning that I had to do to keep my head around this is insane. Bruce Wayne doesn't want to be Batman and he sees Harvey Dent as his salvation

of being Batman. And then Batman's identity is called into question and Joker threatening to kill people who are pretending to be Batman until Batman reveals his identity. So then he goes to reveal his identity, but then Harvey Dent lies about his own identity claiming that he's Batman and now Bruce Wayne still can't claim to be Batman. And then Harvey Dent gets damaged and becomes two-faced, his identity forever shattered and bisected. Bruce Wayne is constantly trying to stop being Batman this whole time. He doesn't feel compulsion from within anymore. It's it's from without. Everything is acting upon him. He's let go of the fear and he's let go of the anger that led him to being Batman. He wants a

normal life. And it's only external factors that are preventing it now. Doesn't that kind of sound like the last six months of Bush's presidency? Oh, yeah. Oh, hugely. Yeah, in a big way. Yeah, woof. Yeah, okay. It gets... Yep.

I'm going to have to re-watch this one again, because... Yeah. Yeah. And there's more, because Joker sets up a up a two ships dilemma, which is really the prisoner's dilemma with criminals and non-criminals. So now you've got deserving versus undeserving. So again, the hero we need, the hero we deserve. And each ship has the power to blow up the other ship, which is again duality and again

identity. So who's going to act more brutally to save themselves? And you've got a dilemma. And you've got identity dilemma and all this. And this whole movie is about Bruce Wayne's anguish at even being Batman. And I would just like to point out, the first one I mentioned was despair. And this one I'm mentioning anguish. Um, even the solution to finding Joker so as to end his madness as Joker is pure chaos in this movie is the one that is a moral dilemma.

Lucius Fox threatens to quit over this and Batman now says that it's necessary as awful as it is. Get my watch. Oh yeah, well yeah. So, and honestly, like when was the Olympics in London? Was that 2012 or 2008? I forget. Oh yeah, I do too.

What? They set up an enormous, what do too, but they set up an enormous What do you call it basically the the Olympics in London was a wonderful excuse to create a surveillance state? Yeah, so yeah, it's that's how it went It was 2012 by the way, so I'm off by a few years on that but was 2012 by the way. So I'm off by a few years on that. But yeah, so so he's anguishing over this. Lucius Fox says, I'm gonna quit and and so like a father abandoning his son. And Batman says it's it's necessary. And then he turns around and uses the entire city as his own sonar network, which kind of cool being a bat

Which is absolutely a surveillance state in order to find the Joker and end his madness um, and then he gives the power to destroy that to Lucius Fox because he does In the only time in history, do you have somebody with a lot of power decide not to use it ever again? Yeah. So, in fact, in many ways, Batman is the embodiment of what vision is arguing for in Civil War. You remember, Vision's saying in Civil War, he says, you know, basically Batman's his presence attracts lunacy and escalation at the very violence that he's trying to prevent. Just like Vision said, you know, we have power, power breeds opposition, opposition breeds calamity.

Catastrophe says, yeah. Yeah. Well, and at the end of the first Nolan movie, it's actually explicitly called out, the first Nolan movie, it's actually explicitly called out, because Gordon shows him the playing card and makes some kind of reference to an arm's race or something. And it's very clearly, you know, it is explicitly called out. You've shown up and now we have a new breed of crook. So you've shown up and now we have a new breed of crook. Yes. Yeah. Oh, God, yeah.

That's absolutely there. And so this is in some ways the expansion and payoff of that seed having been planted at the end of the dark night. The Batman begins. Yeah, Batman begins. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. So Gotham is clearly incapable of solving its own problems. So it at once begs for someone to take matters into their own hands. That's dangerous. And then it scorns them for doing the same. And

well, Fashy much. Yeah. In so doing, they're abrogating their own moral responsibility and really calling into question the value of the social contract. And I love that as relates to the two ships dilemma because the prisoner, giant prisoner goes over and takes it from the, from the cop from the warden from the warden. That's right. And he says you can. Fling's about to win down. Yeah.

He's any sits down so Justice is something that you can take into your own hands and impose upon others through the your own force of will Yeah, well, I mean that's that's been That's been part of the subtext of the character of Batman since the very beginning. Yes. Now I'm gonna say there's a second layer to that subtext because Batman is ultimately a protagonist, he is ultimately a good character.

And so you are, how to put this, you are, whatever you're going to make is going to suck. There is no good choice to make. There is no good choice to make that doesn't leave you stained. And you have to decide as though you're the only one who can. So not only do we have this Nietzschean ideal of Batman that has been there from the beginning, but now we have a Sartian existentialism that's going on through the arc of these two films

You have to choose ultimately you have to choose Bucket Creek. Yes, it is and it's 2008 and 2008 was a goddamn time so Nate was a goddamn time. So, this is fully embodied in Bruce Wayne's desire to stop being Batman. He wants to quit being Batman, but also he wants to save Gotham and he's noticeably exhausted by this conflict within. He, like, you see, like him at the parties and stuff and he's clearly playing a tired

man. Now, some of that is he's got a really active nightlife too. But it doesn't, in this one, isn't he falling asleep in a board meeting? Isn't that this one? He's also, he's anguishing in his desire to tend to himself. I was just a little bit to tend to himself. Yes, so he's anguishing in his desire to tend to himself, but also to tend to the city that scorns his very efforts. There is no social contract in Gotham.

It's ultimately an exploitative relationship at its core and Bruce Wayne is the one suffering from that And it's the chaos that the Joker brings that highlights all which is Yeah, man, it's and it's a remarkably linearief and stahl kind of kind of narrative. Yes, it is the the strong man The one the one with the will be in the victim of the mass it yes, you know I ran to it just like That that would be that would be the kind of thing that would that would give I ran You know quite the good time. Oh, she did she'd'd have, yeah, she'd have George Clooney nipples, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. The exceptionalism, the elitism, the objectiveism, all of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's's you know, the thing has I don't know if because because this is Nolan we're talking about who is a smart enough guy that like I have to wonder if the the layers of text and subtext that we're talking about here with the objectiveism and the linear reef and stuff and all that, whether that was, no, no, I'm making you as the viewer complicit in all this and whether he noted all of it and it was on purpose to make a statement.

Or if he saw it all and did it because he was trying to make an objectivist point, which I don't think from what I know of him, I don't think that's what Nolan would be trying to do. Or if it was just, this is the story I'm going to tell, and you know, the subtext is a subtext, and it's, you know, pattern and wallpaper kind of stuff. I think that he would have been given his use of color, like you said earlier, how it's just so gray and bleak, he's absolutely trying to involve you in what's going on. Because if you look at the interrogation of the Joker scene,

the light is swinging, which means the borders between dark and light, the moral ambiguity is in full sway. And I mean, it's brutal, and you look at where you're focused and who's in what position and stuff like that. And you really start to see that like there is no difference between these men other than who has that power and that that is necessary and good is yeah I think I think yeah he probably was maybe not in these specific philosophical terms but he absolutely artistically was trying to put us into that mindset or into the despair and into the anguish that that is. Okay. So now you don't start with the head. Right. It's a fuzzy. I can't remember anything.

So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. At the end of the film, his entire reputation is Batman is ruined Which is the part that I have the hardest time understanding quite honestly, but okay I accept it because it's part of the movie and he Batman Bruce Wayne has to choose even that Like nothing happens to him. He has to make every single choice and Like nothing happens to him, he has to make every single choice and their awful choices. And there's nothing that he hasn't done for Gotham, and this is yet another thing that he's done for them. He saved them from the knowledge that their white knight was ultimately corrupted by the

forces of chaos. That chaos is winning. That chaos, because if chaos is winning, then everybody else in Gotham is going to give in to despair. And he's the only one that can hang on to despair and keep moving with it. So he took all the city's sins onto himself and ran into the wilderness. Literally, there's dogs chasing him. And frankly, he's doing it for a city that doesn't deserve it. Yeah. Wow. And this is how Bruce Wayne will finally get his break from being Batman. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And all the same, it's not a liberation for him. It's a house arrest. He's still imprisoned and he's still anguishing. And physically crippled. Yeah, oh, I'll get to that when we get to the Dark Knight Rises in the next episode. But yeah, so that's that's the 2008. Like you thought the 2005 was a mind-fuck.

The 2008, Jesus Christ. Like the 2005 was like external, external, external, and then like, like oh we are fragile is shit and then 2008 was like oh the internal that's rotten to the core too. Wow. Yeah, it's it's a pretty stunning indictment of of us as a culture that those two movies have that arc and any ain't done with us yet by the way. Yeah.

So, oh no, hell no. Yeah. Not at all. Oh, we get to the one that is my favorite in terms of a lot of things, not necessarily in terms of the acting, but in terms of the, well, you'll see in the next episode, but it's, it is something. It is a masterpiece in, I think, in symbolism. I think the Dark Knight rise is as masterfully done symbolically as the Batman Returns was the 92.

Oh, wow. Okay. Sorry. All right. So, it's a little short tonight, but that is what I've got on those two movies because I think they pair well. And because I just have way too many pages

on the Dark Knight Rises for us to put that into this one. So. Oh crap. OK. Yeah. So all right. So Ed, what have you gleaned? It goes as long as you need to on this one, because we start a little short.

Okay, I genuinely think there has been, how to, how I'm trying to figure out how to frame what I'm trying to say. The Nolan movies are very, very, very strongly placed in time. Like for all of the reasons that you've put forth as your thesis, that you've put forth as your thesis. You cannot say anything about these films as films without recognizing what time period in US history they were made. And I think there is a real, I don't know if ambiguity is the right word, but I feel like there's very ambivalent emotional relationship in the fandom to these films. I think there are a lot of people who really, really, really love them. And I think there are a lot of people who really, really don't like them. And like to the people who really are into them,

there's no, like there is no criticism of them. Like everything about the Miss Perlet and everything about them is awesome. Right. And to the people who really hate them, nothing about them is any good. Like the colors are flat. Right. And you know, and Batman is this total one note rage monster character.

And you know, it's all a fascist screed. And you know, and the thing is, I lean in the direction of really loving both of these movies as Batman stories as a return to the noir nature of the character. And simultaneously, I totally recognize the criticisms, you know, from the folks who talk about the fascist greed, you know, kind of angle on things. And I think that's part of the reason I brought up the question about, you know, do you think Nolan was like making his own triumph of the will here, or was he trying to get us to notice the verhoven level kind of satire, and make us complicit in,

oh, hey, look at what you're cheering for, kind of thing. And, you know, I, yeah, they are, they are amazing works of cinema. And I think Christian Bale gets ragged on really hard for the choices he made in his portrayal of Batman. And I think, I think there's, there's some validity to like what you said about no, no, Bruce Wayne in this, this isn't about Bruce Wayne. This is about bad man. And he is a rage machine like, like it's all anger, like everything is about the anger, everything is about,

you know, trying to find a way to, you know, beat the shit out of the underclass, have got them to bring his parents back to life somehow. Like that's totally valid. But he manages to make that believable and sympathetic. Yeah, yeah. And in a way that like the people who are critics of these films, I don't think want to give him credit for. You know, and then, you know, of course, we're talking about Batman and these podcasts without talking about the Joker, but like Heath Ledger took everything Jack Nicholson had done with the character

and then was like, yeah, okay, I can see that, but what if I just go like Prodian? Yeah, he truly redefined the role because really did like yeah Well again though Nicholson's Batman was a Nicholson version of the Caesar Romero I'm sorry Nicholson's Joker was a Nicholson version of the Caesar Romero version It was it was derivative. Oh, well. Yeah, we owned it, but it was derivative. Christian What's his face? The Heath ledger. His was original. His was original and everybody's since then has been a response to that. Well, okay, I think I think his was original. I think his was so you you're talking about, you know, Nicholson being a Nicholson interpretation

of Cesar Romero's Joker. And that's totally on the money. I think that all, I think all of the choices that led your maid were made as a response to Nicholson. Yes. Yes. It's going to be,son. Yes. Yes. And in that it's going to be no, no, because because Nicholson outshin, he codified, he's the codifier of the Romero version.

Yeah. And so and so in order to in order to to not be just doing that again, he had to go, okay, what if I just make it so you can't believe a single word that comes out of this guy's mouth? Like we cannot believe anything he says, you know, you see, I just see all of them, they're schemers. Right. You know, I'm like a dog chasing a car. Okay, so you're like a dog chasing a car,

you wouldn't know what to do with it if you caught it. But like you came up with this multi-layered, rather bad man like, you know, if they do this, then this, if they do this, then this, you know, if then tree for this elaborate plan that you had to plan out, you know, to the minute. Yeah. Like, like, wait, no, you know, and just the the prodian nature of the character, the there is, there is nothing is defined. And that by itself is a definition. You know, the only thing, the only thing

that we really know about the character is that his only motivation is his tearing down everything. Yeah, he is a force of nature ultimately. I mean, he literally is chaos and Batman is order and yet what I love about it is Batman is flagging Batman order is is not able to sustain the blows of chaos. Chaos can keep on going. Yeah. Oh, and it loses. I mean it costs Batman And it loses. I mean, it costs Batman to defeat him. I say costs Batman. Yeah, and and I think the most the most defined you know, everybody wants to talk about Do you want to know how we got these scars? And as an acting and as an acting exercise

That's there's like that's brilliant that that needs to be taught in every high level acting class, like everywhere, because there are so many things about that that are fucking brilliant. But for the definition, for the defining moment of the character of the Joker, I really think it's the moment where in the warehouse, he sets the pile of cash on fire. Yes. Because, because that's the point where all of the other critics are like, wait, wait, what, what, what, what, what, we thought you were one of us, you're not one of us, you're, you're a fucking monster man.

Right. No idea, like you crawled out of Hades, we don't know what the fuck you are. Well, he is to the payoff on what the, the, the, the auto bond guys from the big Lebowski claimed. You know, if you believe in nothing, the Bowsky, he actually, you know, say what you will about the tenants and national socialism, at least as an ethos, you know, it's like Nihilist dude, you know he's a fucking Nihilist You know he's gonna cut off your Johnson, you know it's

And then God knows what it'll do with it Yeah, no and and and I think that conflict, I think that that, you know, characterization of developing the character of Batman out to be the avatar of order and developing the character of the Joker out to be the avatar of like absolute protean chaos, I think speaks very much to the mindset of our society at that time. Like there is no, there is no balancing act. Well, I'll, I'll go you one more. Okay. Batman is a flawed avatar of order, and he's seeking to offload that responsibility that he assumed himself onto an agent of the government.

And that agent of the government is destroyed by it. Okay. And then he becomes the ultimate delineation of order and chaos. Okay. So it's, yeah, it's as bad as you said times 10 like because yeah, yeah, cuz cuz like shit This this is almost an inevitability that things are going to be Terrible yeah Yeah, so Yeah, so you've got this guy who represents the hope of Gotham who can bring a route change and then you've got the dogs of chaos barking louder and louder

and louder trying to pull down everything he does until it completely destroys it and then you have essentially a rudderless ship afterwards. Well, I'm really not liking that analogy on a big scale. It sucks. Like fucking sucks. Like basically, yeah, we pinned all our hopes on one guy and then that left like that let people just, oh, cool, now we have a target

and they absolutely did from 2010 onward. And remember, keep your government hands off my Medicare? Like the fuck is that? And then you do that for like, it doesn't matter what he does. Oh, we got bin Laden. No, he shouldn't be spiking the football. He wore a tan suit, he had mustard, like whatever the fuck.

Who, who, yeah, you know. And then what do you get afterwards is a populist who appeals to the people through lies who has a really misshapen mouth. And who isn't even actually a populist. Right. So could it be that the next Batman movie is prophetic as fuck? Oh man, I really, I gotta tell ya I really hope not, because I've seen the color palette for the next, in the trailers, and I really don't want that. Well no, no, I'm saying that the 2012 one predicted these last four years.

Yeah, oh Jesus. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. And they all and by the way, just so you know, all the Batman's after that, just get worse and worse in terms of being slices of shit that we don't like about ourselves. So oh, yeah, I can totally see that. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. All right. So a little bit of, you know, foreshadowing there of what a

shit sandwich things are going gonna turn out to be yeah Yeah, yeah, great good time lifting how wonderful everybody please subscribe Give us a like give us five stars. Yes, you could find us on stitcher Spotify and Apple podcasts rate subscribe review Let us know how amazing we are because we're doing a damn good job here. We're doing the Lord's work. And... Okay, wait. You're the one saying that? Yes.

Yes. Okay. Just double-checking. Not the co-host you deserve, but the co-host you're going to get. There you go. So... All right. All right.

So, let's see. Where can they find? Oh, no, no. What are you reading? Oh, I'm reading. So. But yeah, all right. So let's see, where can they find? Oh, no, no, what are you reading? Oh, well, right now, what am I reading? I'm still working my way through fellowship of the ring. Uh-huh. And then when I put that down, I am, excuse me,

I'm continuing to read the story of the flying tires. Oh, cool. And I have now read up to the point where the actual AVG has been authorized. And all of the mechanics and all of the pilots and all of the everybody's support crew and everybody are sailing their way across the Pacific on a series of Dutch register liners to get to Burma and then to China. And it's really quite remarkable how young so many of these guys were. Reading this book as a 45-year-old. Oh, yeah. And reading about the fact that we're talking about these guys being 21, 22, literally half

my age, heading off this, you know, at this time, and I'm just I'm shaking my head at, you know, just the the the incongruity of it, and yet at the same time it's like, well, of course, who are you gonna get to sign on to do something this flagrantly fucking stupid? Like, you know, like, like it's it's remarkably brave, but also like dumb. Yeah. You know, I mean, and, and, and, you know, it sounds more judgmental than I mean, but just, just, from the point of view of being again, a 45 year old married guy with a kid, like, right. Yeah, you know, you're gonna, it's, it's the same. It's, it's, it's, you know, you're gonna it's it's the same it's it's it's you know running off to Japan to teach for two years only like times a thousand yeah, you know and and the the sheer

Dump a courage involved in it is really amazing Mm-hmm. Yeah, so and and of course this is these guys are doing this in the, you know, 1939-1940, during a time in our country's history, when, you know, most of these guys are coming from small towns, you know, this is before the massive urbanization that we now know as being normal. Right. And, you know, so the first time they've been outside the United States, they're literally going to the other side of the planet. You know, that's, yeah, that's my name. So yeah, it's a fascinating story. Yeah, it's really amazing. And it's very well written. So yeah, I highly recommend it. How about you?

There's a book written in 1955 called They Thought They Were Free. And it's essentially this guy named Mayor. He basically went and interviewed people, different guys, different men, and asked them basically like, they'd all been part of the Nazi party, and he's like, why? And so he goes and invites them or interviews them. And essentially, it's a discussion

of how a very progressive democracy can give way to fascism, and it doesn't happen overnight as a clambatist thing. It happens little by little by little, which enables the catastrophes. Death of the thousand cuts. Well it's almost like the death of the thousand cuts allows the splitting of the carcass. Okay. You know, and so yeah, you're making a lot of little cuts and then suddenly the whole thing rips apart, you know,

and it's really quite something. And it just kinda talks about how people really trusted in Hitler and he enabled, he used that to, that bully pulpit to get people to be okay with governance by surprise. That was a phrase that I read in there. And yeah, I just, I don't know, for some reason that just seemed like a good idea to pick that up. It has nothing to do with our current situation at all.

Nothing at all. Anything with the through of suppliers. No, totally recommend. It's depressing as shit. So, where can they put the word reading? Yeah, absolutely. Where can they find you on the social medias? So I can be found on the social medias at EH Blalock on Twitter and ehblaloc on the TikTok and MrBlaloc, MRBlaloc on the Instagram. And if you want to yell at both of us because you know I've said something heretical about my opinion of the Nolan movies.

You can shout at us collectively at Geek History Time on the Twitter. And if they're looking for you, Mr. Harmony, where can they find you? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at duh-harmony-2h's in the middle there, the harmony. You can also find me every Tuesday night at twitch.tv-capital-punds. And you can see me slinging puns with people from Australia to Berlin and all behind some between slinging puns every night at 8.30 p. a Pacific standard time. So that's pretty much where I can be found. Yeah, so there was something I was going to say, but damn to fact, I can remember. So for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s. I'm Deeming Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.