I think a lot of reviewers jumped the gun when it came to "The Dark Knight Rises." As the final Batman film by Christopher Nolan it was pretty widely (or at least wider then typical for a superhero film) described as "fascist," especially by Salon's Andrew O'Hehir (I'll leave him to define what he means by fascist) who captured the film by saying "it’s a great fascist film, and arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling and disturbing and utterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen."
I have to disagree; in the new film not only does Batman "Rise" but Nolan redeemed himself of the blatant fascism and authoritarianism he was accused of in "The Dark Knight". Indeed, it's not just a spectacle but a spectacle with a decent political sensitivity.
The film begins with an event honoring the late Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) where it's revealed Gotham passed an anti-crime bill in his name. Essentially Gotham got "tough-on-crime" and unjustly arrested thousands without parole thus "fixing" its crime problem. Indeed Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has been a crippled recluse for 8 years and Batman disappeared as well (I wondered why no one in the movie managed to put two and two together) complementing the lack of need for the Batman hero.
However the inequality and tensions remain, a literal underclass works in the sewers as it's the only place for work and attracts those that are desperate for a job. As ThinkProgress pointed out there doesn't seem to be a real middle class in Gotham, it's the lower class people servicing the city's billionaire elite. And the new villain Bane (Tom Hardey) is brewing a storm to change this.
Bane initiates a faux revolution followed by a modern Reign of Terror led by freed prisoners. This was seen by many as a betrayal of the Occupy movement and a display of Nolan's true Fascist colors: an apocalyptic scenario where the rabble take back the city and run it into the ground. As O'Hehir makes the case:
In its tremendous, almost apocalyptic action sequences, “The Dark Knight Rises” suggests a reverse-engineered version of a Soviet-era revolutionary epic, in which the masses are the villains and their onetime overlords the heroes.
The problem is that's completely false, at best the number of people that actually follow Bane are in the tens of thousands which given a city of several million is not that exactly "the masses." As the film makes clear, the city is a failed state led by Bane as its warlord and sole dictator. This new revolutionary government even has exaggerated show trials where its said "Bane has no authority here" only "the people of Gotham" which is a clear nod to the Stalinist show trials.
The most fascist element of the film is Bane and his cohorts who, under the guise of a revolution, tries to annihilate the city and commit genocide in the name of stopping decadence and corruption. Sound like a certain fascism in history?
The Big Turn
One thing that's startling is the thematic 180 from "The Dark Knight." It's no wonder "Dark Knight" was scorned or revered as a presentation of the Bush Administration, the hero uses extraordinary rendition and mass surveillance to save the day in the absence of tough policing. As Huffington Post points out, in "Rises" Bruce Wayne himself becomes a victim of rendition.
Even on a deeper thematic level, the point of the film was about suppressing the truth. As Slavoj Zizek analysis:
Batman and his friend police commissioner Gordon realise that the city’s morale would suffer if Dent’s murders were made public, so plot to preserve his image by holding Batman responsible for the killings. The film’s take-home message is that lying is necessary to sustain public morale: only a lie can redeem us. No wonder the only figure of truth in the film is the Joker, its supreme villain. He makes it clear that his attacks on Gotham City will stop when Batman takes off his mask and reveals his true identity; to prevent this disclosure and protect Batman, Dent tells the press that he is Batman – another lie. In order to entrap the Joker, Gordon fakes his own death – yet another lie.
In "Rises," the noble lie falls apart and even the most intense police repression couldn't prevent the disintegration of the the city. Even the charity of the rich falls apart as Wayne can't fund orphanages because of unprofitable endeavors to help mankind.
Batman's identity is also given a progressive twist as "anyone can be behind the mask" as opposed to a specific Übermensch. This should seem odd since in "Dark Knight" the hero took out a Batman imposter who was fulfilling this vision.
A Progressive or Fascist film?
Nolan told Rolling Stone its not a political film but the reactions obviously beg to differ.
The big gripe with the film is how the villains by default become "Occupy-esque" since they literally attack Wall Street (or perhaps the Gotham Stock Exchange?) as well as a football game where an angelic boy was singing the national anthem, how anti-American can this man be!
While Nolan scrapped any appearance of "Occupy Gotham" or a protest force to help the city, It doesn't seem he was scorning them. In the film a maniacal villain falsely claimed to be the voice of the disadvantaged only to kill them; not exactly reminiscent of Occupy. And while we root for Batman to fight crime, he doesn't attack petty thieves, he confronts the crime bosses that the legal system can't in the face of extreme inequality.
Thus Christopher Nolan's biggest flaw is that Batman returns things back to normal, a state of inequality and decay. Unlike "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which does everything short of smashing the state, Batman's existence becomes self-serving as he fights to manage the decay of certain conditions, not solve them the way a mass movement would.
The problem is Batman doesn't fight to smash the decaying Gotham system we see in Nolan's films, he unwittingly fights to maintain it.