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There is No Occupy Gotham

A Better Look at The Dark Knight Rises

By SkylerPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 13 min read
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Remember the summer of 2012 with the release of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises? It was the epic conclusion in his Batman saga starting back in 2005 with Batman Begins. Almost immediately, critics paint The Dark Knight Rises with a broad brush of a supposed Occupy Wall Street influence. Occupy Wall Street began in September of 2011, carrying on nearly six months later. People return for a May Day March in 2012. Occupy movements pick up elsewhere, both nationally and internationally. Time Magazine mentions it in Time Person of the Year 2011 being "The Protester." Turn on the T.V. there is Occupy Wall Street! You could not get away from it. Hence, it was easy to make this connection to Gotham City in The Dark Knight Rises. Our antagonist of the film Bane, makes a speech that may sound like an Occupier. There is the attack on the Gotham Stock Exchange and much more. Ergo, making the link is understandable. Yet, this connection holds no merit believe it or not.

Timing

Timing is everything! All art, including film, is subjective, existing as an expression of our times and our reaction to said times. It is common to read many sci-fi films of the fifties in Cold War terms. Usually, the aliens in these movies are metaphors for monolithic communism. In the horror genre, the slasher films of the eighties with Jason Voorhees from the Friday The 13th franchise see Reagan's moral majority run amok, as drug-using, fornicating teens meet gruesome deaths. Noting these two examples - it is not hard for politics to enter the fray of filmmaking. However, timing is everything. Yes, the Cold War can influence a film in the fifties. But not if the film entered production before the bombing of Nagasaki.

We live in our bubble and operate by our standard of time - a concept that is so intimately well-known but not easily describable. Many take the craft of filmmaking for granted. Once the trailer arrives for the film, we assume the movie just wrapped yesterday. Making a movie is costly and timely, but more so than redecorating and painting your kitchen. On average, a film takes at least two years to create with pre-production, principal photography, editing, reshoots, and then marketing. We then take the final released film in theaters as a product of our time, with our influences and prejudices. Do you know that wonderful eighties classic Caddyshack? Hardly a movie of the eighties. They shot it in the fall of 1979. Furthermore, the influence came from the writer's days as a caddie in the 1950s. Case in point, pre-production of The Dark Knight Rises predates Occupy Wall Street.

Warner Bros. was willing to get another Batman hot off of the coattails of The Dark Knight! Already they were hoping for a third film sometime by 2011 or 2012. Christopher Nolan completed a rough story outline for the movie in December of 2008. It was hardly a priority, Inception was entering production, and he had no interest or third story to tell for Batman. In February 2010, Nolan finalized his idea for the story, with Johnathan Nolan and David S. Goyer off to the races to pen the script. By December of 2010, Nolan is scouting locations for the film. Finally, the film began shooting in India in early May 2011.

Now, of course, Occupy Wall Street did not unfold overnight. It all starts with Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, and their article "A Million Man March on Wall Street" in February 2011. They registered the website OccupyWallStreet.org in June. The actual protest of Occupy Wall Street does not materialize until September 17th, 2011, in Zuccotti Park. By this time, The Dark Knight Rises has already been filming for over four months.

Yes, Christopher Nolan shot many scenes in New York, such as part of the Gotham Stock Exchange and the 957 Fifth Avenue scene. He filmed the clash between Bane's forces and the police on Wall Street and William Street. In addition, is these scenes' filming schedule of late October 2011. No doubt, this helps add to people's speculation of the film being a critique of Occupy Wall Street. Remember, the finished script predates the actual protest by more than a year. Christopher Nolan is not the type for crazy re-shoots and re-writes. In Batman (1989), the script was being re-written constantly, and only near the end of filming introduced the idea of Joker killing Bruce's parents and the cathedral. Can you imagine Nolan doing something similar? Last-minute, he decides to shoot a fight on Wall Street to critique the protest. Think of the money going into that from Warner Bros. and their heads spinning. Understand, the film also uses several locations for Gotham, including but not limited to Los Angeles. Take Bane's revolutionary speech, for example, shot in August 2011 in Pittsburgh. Again, the film predates Occupy Wall Street's cry against "the oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity."

Comparing The Two

Some do not like the idea of coincidence, and the same applies here. The idea of The Dark Knight Rises as a critique of Occupy Wall Street is too engrained. Who cares if the film predates the movement, it is an accident and changes nothing they say. They cannot escape their identity politics and overly narrowed-minded political analysis of this movie. David Sirota writing in Salon, critiquing Call of Duty and the film, said they "not-so-subtly reflect the Tea Party's rhetorical backlash to the powerful Occupy Wall Street zeitgeist." In his mind, it was a conservative, right-wing backlash of a film. It is worth noting that many critics do agree with this notion. However, let us keep the focus on Occupy Wall Street.

Comparing Bane and the League of Shadows to Occupy Wall Street is beyond ridiculous. I cannot speak for Bane, but I think he would laugh at such an accusation. Now, of course, some commentators will try to convince you that Occupy Wall Street is chock-full of dangerous Bolsheviks. Are they criminals? Legally speaking, yes, some of them were criminals. Now, what goes through your head when you hear the term criminal? Do you think of acts such as disorderly conduct, trespassing, and failure to disperse? More than likely, you imagine theft, murder, arson, or rape. By no means is this any judgment on a person's behalf for such thoughts. However, it is the first list of charges that Occupiers met. One cannot compare disorderly conduct to what the League of Shadows do - releasing imprisoned criminals, kidnapping, killing the mayor, and threatening to nuke Gotham City. A failure to disperse is probably the least of many people's worries in the world. Yes, there are conflicts with the police in cases such as Michael Premo and Cecily McMillan. However, these conflicts do not include bombs, imprisonment, or forcing the police to walk thin ice. Finally, the running assault from both sides like you would see, in a movie, never occurred on Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street's catch slogan was 'We Are the 99%.' The phrase pertains to the other 99% of Americans who are not economically advantaged as the top wealthy 1%. Some critics threw this back at the movement for being overwhelmingly white. Hence, it seemed the movement only embodied the demands and needs of poor whites, not blacks or American immigrants. We are 99% white - one could jest. With a clear eye, one can see Bane's army is far from being waspy. More than ten actors appear as Bane's mercenaries, including Noel Gugliemi, Joshua Elijah Reese, Phillip Browne, Christopher Judge, Vanessa Alameda, Rishi Gandhi, Adam Night, Simon Rhee, Rafael Zubizarreta, Ilan Krigsfeld, and Alessandro Nicolaci. Their ancestry ranges from many places such as Africa, Cherokee, Puerto Rico, Korea, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, and beyond. Another critique deems the Occupy Movement as anti-Semitic for slogans like "Jews control Wall Street" or "Zionist Jews who are running the big banks and the Federal Reserve." Yet, actor Ilan Krigsfeld comes from Jewish ancestry. Yes, you can accuse Bane and the League of Shadows of inciting class conflict but not racism.

Another notable difference between these two is their organization. We see Bane give orders and execute failures. In addition, we find the character of Barsad in a position of authority under Bane. Of course, we forget how Miranda Tate, Talia, is the true leader of the League of Shadows. Therefore, it appears the League of Shadows operates under the hereditary rule. In the comics, this is not the case, as Ra's al-Ghul was rather traditional and never willing to bestow power upon a woman, family or not. They operate as a traditionally hierarchal, vertically structured group. With the actions they take, they are men of violence who use mercenaries, ex-convicts, and thugs who do not mind putting their life on the line. Adding to their suicide, do not forget the scene earlier in the film, where Bane remarks to another, "No, they expect one of us at the wreckage, brother." Bane's brother-in-arms complies with giving up his life for this ultimate goal. The plan throughout the film is for the bomb to go off, destroying Gotham City. The League of Shadows has no escape plan, this cult of death plans to fulfill their Sorelian Myth of having a stray Gotham citizen cause the detonation as a counter to the League's revolution for the under-class.

Some people view the Occupy group as just that, a group similar to that of a political party. Opponents believe there to be some conspiratorial head of this monster. This head can be an actual figurehead or something more akin to the Communist Party, Obama, or insert deep state conspiracy theory here that runs Occupy. Yet, we label them the Occupy movement, as other demonstrations sprung up outside Wall Street. We see this new method of non-hierarchal, decentralized, horizontal movement in others like Black Lives Matter and Anonymous. Its decentralized nature brought in many people - socialists, communists, students, low-wage workers, academics, unions, anarchists, and endorsements from some big-name individuals. This sounds nothing like the League of Shadows! The Occupiers were willing to put their bodies on the line. Unlike the League of Shadows, the Occupiers' idea of putting their bodies on the line is akin to just a sit-in at the diner until removed by force. Yes, there were conflicts with local authorities, but they resulted in arrests, not death.

Finally, we need to look at the differing goals of the two. Yes, Bane speaks about the 'myths of opportunity' and taking Gotham back from the 'rich,' yet this is a speech made to violent criminals. Not many people care much about the opportunity for violent offenders. Second, he makes this speech on camera, engaging in the form of political theater ala Mussolini. It adds to this myth that Bane is here for a revolution to aid the underclass of Gotham and fight corruption. Do not forget what Bane said, 'theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated.' The citizens of Gotham bought into Bane's words, as did many people who saw The Dark Knight Rises. Yet, Gordon even notes to Foley about Bane's bluff about a deal and this so-called revolution. Before Bane's prolific words, the bomb is armed, as in it is decaying and will self-destruct. The plan always was to nuke Gotham City! Talia even notes her motivation - 1.) this will finish Ra's al-Ghul's mission of fighting 'human corruption.' 2.) revenge for her father.

Occupy Wall Street's goals are hardly coherent. Numerous off-shoots and groups exist within the movement. What began as a protest against corporate influence sprang into various political demands such as national healthcare, student debt relief, public work programs, and more. Some protesters even desired a set of proposals. One group drafted the 99 Percent Declaration, which included some of the demands from above. However, this was a method to co-opt the name and movement. At least, that's how the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly saw it. The group got the boot, along with their declaration. With the various backgrounds in this movement - had you interviewed individuals about their demands, you would find no single narrative.

Let's not forget their means in this protest, accomplishing whatever their desires are. The League of Shadows relies on direct action, violence, and intrigue. Yet, these occupiers wait it out in the streets in their tent cities. When they are not busy marching, you can find them gathered in circles playing the drums, appearing like bohemians. This radical movement of revolutionaries that people speak of, or the occupiers wishes to be, comes off more like the 21st-century version of Woodstock but in the city. Bane and The League of Shadows is a revolutionary vanguard, like Lenin and his Bolsheviks. In comparison, the Occupiers come off more like angry middle-schoolers protesting their crummy, cafeteria food.

Conclusion

How did we get here? We live in hyper-partisan times where people take ideological ownership of what they can and read politically into everything. The population has become akin to conspiracy theorists who interpret every piece of media as part of a political agenda. In these charged times, each side treats the other as a complete monolith. Bane's creator, Chuck Dixon did not help when he commented on the character, "He’s far more akin to an Occupy Wall Street type if you’re looking to cast him politically." No doubt, Chuck Dixon is trying to contextualize the character in the setting of 2012. However, he paints him with a wide swath of generality and cliché.

I think Alex Sayf Cummings and Ryan Reft 'politically cast' Bane better as a "high-tech Robespierre on steroids" and likening him to a combination of "Lenin and Bin Laden and Stone Cold Steve Austin." There can be room for disagreement in their analysis, but it shows more nuance. Politics and ideology are far from linear and monolithic. Go back to the Cold War, and you can find numerous Communist states at odds with one another. Again, look to the Occupiers, and you learn they all want different things. Some are simply reformists, and some are revolutionary in wanting the end of capitalism. Again, if you watch Christopher Nolan's entire trilogy, with no input from the outside world, it is pretty straightforward as into what Bane and The League of Shadows want and why.

Finally, we need to understand and remember where the inspiration for The Dark Knight Rises comes from, if not Occupy Wall Street. Christopher Nolan's brother and screenwriter Johnathan Nolan, admits to using Charles Dickens' 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, as his inspiration.

"Before the recession. Before Occupy Wall Street or any of that. Rather than being influenced by that, I was looking to old good books and good movies. Good literature for inspiration... What I always felt like we needed to do in a third film was, for lack of a better term, go there. All of these films have threatened to turn Gotham inside out and to collapse it on itself. None of them have actually achieved that until this film. A Tale of Two Cities was, to me, one of the most harrowing portrait of a relatable, recognizable civilization that completely folded to pieces with the terrors in Paris in France in that period. It's hard to imagine that things can go that badly wrong."

When Johnathan handed his brother the screenplay, he noted, "You’ve got to think of A Tale of Two Cities." Again, a novel that predates Occupy Wall Street by 152 years! With an eye for detail, one can find numerous references to the book in The Dark Knight Rises. Bane's lieutenant Barsad was named after the character John Barsad. You have the kangaroo court scene of Bane finger-knitting, just like the character of Madame Defarge. You also have Commissioner Gordon's eulogy at the end of the film, which is lifted verbatim from the end of the book. These details only scratch the surface of many references and callbacks to Dickens' novel.

In the end, to believe that The Dark Knight Rises takes from Occupy Wall Street rather than A Tale of Two Cities is a sign of ignorance. It shows a lack of critical thinking, literary knowledge, historical knowledge, and a damning need to codify the world around you into identity politics. It uncovers a fool.

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About the Creator

Skyler

Full-time worker, history student and an avid comic book nerd.

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