Peer-reviewed
What Do You Believe In? Film Scholarship and the Cultural Politics of the Dark Knight Franchise
Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has produced a wide and contradictory range of scholarship examining the franchise’s political viewpoints: Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) have been interpreted as conservative affirmations of and warnings against post-9/11 militarism, while The Dark Knight Rises (2012), in the wake of global economic crisis, has been reviewed both as right-wing repudiation and radical fantasy of the Occupy Wall Street protests. The nature of the films’ political ambivalence has been equally contested, appearing to represent the contradictions and dilemmas inherent in the character of Batman or symptomatic of Hollywood’s tendency towards apoliticism. A review of the body of academic criticism surrounding Nolan’s franchise provides a useful indication of trends in contemporary film scholarship
Article, 2013