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What Is A Feminist Analysis Of The Dark Knight

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Batman, The Dark Knight Analysis Through a Feminist Lense

Christopher Nolan has directed some of the best movies in the past decade. Interstellar, The Dark Knight, and Inception, are just a few examples of his success as a director. However, while watching his films through a feminist lense, I found that the female characters were not well sketched and did not have any depth. In this film, Rachel Dawse, the driving female part, has more impact by dying than actually doing something herself to change the plot and perpetuates the helpless “female role”. Her part as the love interest for both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent is what defines her character and gives her purpose. Her demise is what fuels Harvey and batman's anger and pushes them to seek revenge so she only serves as motive. I believe that the message Christopher Nolan is trying to convey is that a woman, or rather one’s love for a woman, often results in more pain and sadness than in happiness.

While women have more of an impact in this movie, they still seem to suffer from women in refrigerator syndrome. This means that women need to be kidnapped, killed, or …show more content…

In order to pass the test, there needs to be two women in the film who talk to each other about something other than a man. It seems that movies would pass this simple test easily but many famous movies actually fail. The reason is because many believe that when two women talk about something other than a man, it drives the story and makes the male character less important. Now let’s examine the Dark Knight, technically it passes the Bechdel test because in one of the scenes Detective Ramirez calls Jim Gordon’ wife and they have a brief conversation about the Gordon family’s safety. However, I believe that this movie still fails the Bechdel test because one of the women is held at gunpoint and is told what to say by yet another male so in a way she was being controlled by a male

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