Is George W. Bush Batman?

Quick Links » Obama | Morning Brief | Must Reads | Latest Articles | World News

Is George W. Bush Batman?

Sat, 07/19/2008 - 2:09pm

Forget Bruce Wayne. I think Dubya is actually the Caped Crusader. In her excellent review of "The Dark Knight" the latest in the Batman franchise, Slate scribe Dana Stevens writes, "[T]he movie seems to arrive at much the same conclusion about Batman as Americans have about Bush: Thanks to this guy, we're well and thoroughly screwed."

Stevens does a great job of deconstructing the copious references to the war on terror in the film, but I feel a need to explore her point about Bush at little bit more carefully.

Warning! There may be a few mild spoilers here:

	Batman	Dubya
Lives in an enormous mansion attached to a vast secret underground complex	Yes	Yes
His Arch nemesis is _____ whose goal is to ______.	The Joker; "burn down the world"	Al Gore; warn the world about global warming
His parents were:	Killed by a small-time criminal.	Threatened by a small-time dictator.
Commits himself to an aggressive plan to rid the world of evildoers.	Yep	Check
But his plan subsequently backfires, making him extremely unpopular.	Yep	Yep
When innocents are killed, as a result of his actions, he:	Broods, considers hanging up his cowl	Quits playing golf
Builds a massive surveillance network, which upsets his most loyal employees.	Yep	Yep

Travis Daub | Permalink |

| Comments? Login or register

( filed under:

Bush Administration | Culture

)

I'm Batman

by Drake on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 8:36am

Only one way to answer to this : ROLF!

Bush = Batman = faulty logic

by Charle Oapostro... on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 4:51pm

i know the right seems to be wetting itself over the metaphor of bush = batman in the new movie, but there's a huge flaw in that logic: muslim extremists can view the same movie in the opposite way, i.e., bush = the joker, destabilizing the world, osama bin laden = batman, the lone freedom fighter standing up for justice. one man's hero is another man's villain and vice versa. logic is a sword that cuts two ways. got it? so stop drawin inane, sophomoric conclusions that wouldn't stand up for 5 minutes in a philosophy 101 class