The Hero We Create: 9/11 & The Reinvention of Batman

I found this article written by an MIT student that appears to be a thesis about Batman and 9/11. The article does a great job of explaining how the real world and popular culture influence each other and showing this relationship through Batman and 9/11. This paragraph taken from this article provides a nice summary. While this article does not make specific mention of any information technology with the exception of the technology used to track down the Joker in the Dark Knight, this article does show how to write a scholarly paper about Batman.

Through analysis of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), I intend to prove that this renaissance and the events of 9/11 are indeed related and that these films represent both a reassertion of and reflexive commentary on a cultural mythology that forms the foundation of the superhero genre and the American response to 9/11. Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I argue, seek to explore and mitigate the trauma and anxiety associated with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The films work to establish the terrorist as the supreme form of evil, incorporating the events of 9/11 both thematically and allegorically to demonstrate the continued ascendance of Good over Evil. In the first film, Batman Begins, the worldview of the terrorist is explored through the character of Ra’s al Ghul, and a fantasy of conquering fear and preventing the attacks is enacted. In the second film, The Dark Knight, the terrorist is embodied by the Joker, who is dismissed as a nihilist and agent of chaos. Yet this film also explores the moral ambivalence about questionable tactics such as spying and torture that characterized the American reaction to 9/11. Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) reveal a latent desire to prove the ascendency of the terrorist model only to subsequently defeat it, thus demonstrating the moral supremacy of American society. Yet these are also deeply self-conscious and reflexive works, critical of the American response to 9/11 and of the very process of cultural mythmaking itself. Despite the exploration and defeat of terrorism that occurs within these films, they reveal a deep-seated cultural anxiety about the nature of the American response and a fear that fighting terrorism necessitates a fundamental compromise of American ideals.

URL - http://studentpulse.com/articles/104/1/the-hero-we-create-911--the-reinvention-of-batman