In keeping with this week's "Batman" theme... (Yes, it's "Theme Week" at The Blog. It didn't start out that way. But, with three Batman related posts in a row, a theme has become evident. Work with me here.) Let's discuss the "Dark Knight Conspiracy."
Yesterday, the bloated bloviator, Rush Limbaugh floated a conspiracy theory so whacked out, bat shit crazy that it makes pretty much anything that he has ever said before seem reasonable.
Here is the transcript....
"Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bain?
So, anyway, this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there’s now a discussion out there as to whether or not this is purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters. It’s gonna have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is gonna be huge. A lot of people are gonna see the movie, and it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd, and they’re gonna hear Bane in the movie and they’re gonna associate Bain. The thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie, “Oh, yeah, I know who that is.” (laughing) There are some people who think it’ll work. Others think you’re really underestimating the American people to think that will work.
The Bane character in this movie was a terrorist. He’s out to destroy Gotham, New York City, which is the case in every Batman movie. But instead of sounding like Romney, he sounds like an Occupy Wall Street guy, in truth. Now, there’s a story in the Washington Times today: “Is Mitt Romney…Batman? — Opponents of Mitt Romney have noticed that the name of Batman’s villain in the upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises is homonymous with the name of an investment firm that Romney founded in 1984. The childish ‘aha’ moment was not unpredictable. Americans have tolerated condescension remarkably well for the past four years, so we can presumably take an insult to our ability to spell — or ability to follow a storyline, for that matter.
But, anyway, I didn’t really know what the point of this story is. They’re trying to point out that in Batman the good guy and the rich guy are one and the same, and that’s Bruce Wayne. And so what this guy is saying here, hey, instead of falling in with the evil guy being Bane, let’s just say Batman is Romney. Batman’s Romney, he’s the evil rich guy, he’s the good rich guy, he’s out to save New York. The rich guy’s the good guy. Of course the evil guy is always rich too in these Batman movies. You may think it’s ridiculous, I’m just telling you this is the kind of stuff the Obama team is lining up. The kind of people who would draw this comparison are the kind of people that they are campaigning to. These are the kind of people that they are attempting to appeal to."
The Blog has edited the transcript for length. But, if you think that any of this is taken out of context, you can listen to the full audio here.
I'll put it bluntly. This theory is nuttier than the Fox "News" theory, a few months ago, that "The Muppets" movie was a liberal attempt at indoctrinating children against the sheer awesomeness of corporate fascism .
Now, if "El Rushbo" had simply suggested that the Christopher Nolan trilogy contains some liberal leaning subtext about terrorism and security in a post 9/11 America, The Blog would be hard pressed to argue the point.
The fact is, Nolan's Batman movies are loaded with commentary about the moral ambiguity that has come with our "war on terror."
Which is no mean feat, considering that much of the source material for "The Dark Knight" trilogy comes from "Batman: Year One" and "The Dark Knight Returns," both written by the uber-macho, self-professed fascist Frank Miller. (See also, "300" and "Sin City.")
In Miller's Batman stories (as in much of his other work) Gotham City's real problem is not the over the top villains the city attracts, but rather, sniveling liberals, spineless intellectuals and politically correct media.
Miller's 1980s contributions to the comic book genre were edgy, brilliant, literate and, unfortunately, right-wing extremist wet dreams.
But, I digress.
The issue is about the villain Bane.
The Bane character was introduced by DC Comics in 1993. After the success of the "death" of Superman in 1992, DC decided that a similar fate was needed to pump up the sale of "Batman" comics. Thus, Bane was born. A hapless victim of a military experiment by a South American, third world regime, Bane was the result of a "super steroid" called "Venom." A bit of fake "science" so lame that it would have been right at home in the Marvel Universe, along side radioactive spiders and overdoses of gamma rays.
Add a "lucha libre" mask and you have the villain who broke Bruce Wayne's back, making him wheelchair bound for a whole year. Much silliness followed, a pretend, apprentice Batman, and, well, a recovery from spinal paralysis after only a year.
So, wait! What's my point?
Oh yeah. The bottom line is, the idea that DC comics came up with a villain named Bane nearly two decades ago, just in case a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 would have connections to an evil corporation called Bain is about as fucking insane as the notion that someone planted birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers in 1961, to cover the tracks of a 2008 presidential candidate.
But the story gets better!
After getting bitch slapped for his idiotic remarks by the likes of Dr. Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, Rush tried to backpedal.
"Everybody's out there running around saying I got this giant conspiracy theory that the Batman people, the creators, the comic book creators, created this thing to campaign against Romney. I never said that. I didn't say there was a conspiracy. I said the Democrats were going to use it. . . ."
Actually, Limbaugh did say it was a conspiracy. He did so when he asked the question, "Do you think that is accidental?" about whether it could conceivably be an accident that this new Batman movie has a villain in it with a name that sounds like Mitt Romney's former firm.
The Blog wonders if Rush is back on the "hillbilly heroin." One major side effect of Oxycodone is, after all, paranoia.
Or is it just that the $40 million a year that he gets from Citadel Broadcasting means that he has to come up with some shit, no matter how crazy and ignorant, to pander to his idiot "Dittohead" audience?
The Blog reports. You decide.
Oh. One more thing.
The right-wing will tell us that it is a low end, cheap shot to portray a candidate as a Batman villain.
But, never mind...
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