COMensarations
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Batman vs. the UN
Guess who plays Bruce Wayne....
Mark Steyn whumps on the UN.
Go back to that [post-Christmas 2004] tsunami. While the UN and its agencies were on television badgering and hectoring the West for its stinginess, the actual relief efforts were being made by a couple of diverted U.S. naval groups and the Royal Australian Navy. The Scandinavians can’t fly in relief supplies, because they don’t have any C-130s. All they can do is wait for the UN to swing by and pick up their check. And it says something for the post-modern decadence of the age that that gives you supposed moral superiority.
There’s a moment in the latest Batman movie in which Bruce Wayne has just bumped into his childhood sweetheart, Rachel Dawes, in the lobby of some Gotham City hotel. Unfortunately he’s sopping wet, having been cavorting in the ornamental fountain with a couple of hot pieces of arm candy. Rachel is a crusading district attorney and Bruce can see she’s a bit disappointed to discover her old pal is now Paris Hilton in drag. So he attempts to assure her that deep down he still cares about all the worthy stuff. Rachel swats this aside. It’s not what you feel inside that counts, she says. “It’s what you do that defines you.”
Bruce wanes, visibly, under her withering riposte. I wouldn’t claim this film has anything as coherent as a philosophy, but its director thought enough of that line to reprise it late in the action. “It’s what you do that defines you,” Batman whispers to Rachel before diving off a rooftop to go whump the bad guys. “Bruce...?” she says, faintly.
It’s an essay. And, as usual, superbly done by Mark. Read the whole thing....
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