From the Department of Redundancy Department
Rush Limbaugh makes a fool of himself:
"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 Bane?"
As Adam Serwer notes, this villain was created in 1993. This was some far-sighted conspiracy!
Aslo of note is that Limbaugh claims that the name of the villain is named "Bane." Ah, but what is the name of the villain called?
"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 Bane?"
As Adam Serwer notes, this villain was created in 1993. This was some far-sighted conspiracy!
Aslo of note is that Limbaugh claims that the name of the villain is named "Bane." Ah, but what is the name of the villain called?
I remember one fringe lunatic blogger who was claiming that Avatar was a communist agitation propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThe same person also claimed that the alien incubation in Prometheus implied approval of abortion and was made with a pro-choice message in mind.
But this was a fringe lunatic blogger. Limbaugh makes such thoughts explicit to a fairly large audience. It's all very strange, his large scale popularity.
In fairness, '93 is not the appropriate comparison date; the choice of plot for Dark Knight Rises is.
ReplyDeleteNo matter when the character Bane originated, the director did not have to include *that particular* character in any given Batman movie.
Look at it this way: imagine the comic publisher churned out every possible character name (a "library of Babel" worth of them, let's say) in a series of Batman comics published in 1905. So there's a Bane character, but also a "Santrum" and a "Bama" and "Biding", etc. As well as a "Shoogla" and a "Farka", and other names completely phonologically distinct from any candidate.
Then, out of that universe of names of Batman characters, the director decides, "Hey, we're going to introduce Bama as the villain in this movie." Would you scoff that, "Duh, Bama was from 1905, long before Obama was born!"
Now, reduce the universe of names of Batman villains to its (smaller but still large) size and move '05 to '93. Is '93 still the appropriate date for comparison?
This isn't to defend Rush's general claim, of course.
"In fairness, '93 is not the appropriate comparison date; the choice of plot for Dark Knight Rises is."
ReplyDeleteSure, but the selection of Bane as a main villain of Dark Knight Rises occurred well prior to Bain Capital becoming a political issue / talking point.
"In fairness, '93 is not the appropriate comparison date; the choice of plot for Dark Knight Rises is."
ReplyDeleteSure, but the selection of Bane as a main villain of Dark Knight Rises occurred well prior to Bain Capital becoming a political issue / talking point.
Considering that the film finished filming before the first republican primary election, it would seem unlikely.
ReplyDeleteBatman's rouges' gallery has hundreds of villains, but only about 15 of them are feature-film-worthy.
Limbaugh is countering by stating that he never said that the villain Bane was created to discredit Romney's association with Bain.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that prefacing statements with "Do you think it's accidental that ..." is some kind of rhetorical "Get of of Jail Free" card.
Whenever I have listened to Limbaugh, I get the feeling that he doesn't believe 75% of what he says. He understands his audience; he plays to them; and he does so very well.
ReplyDeleteIf poo sells. . .