Authority in The Dark Knight Returns: President Reagan and Batman Try to Save the Day
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2020-08-25
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en
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The comic book medium regularly explores profound topics, and they offer interesting
insights and critiques. This paper examines The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, and it
centers the question: How does the comic book series The Dark Knight Returns portray concepts
of authority in American society during Reagan’s presidency? A theoretical approach based on
Gramscian notions of hegemony and ideology is utilized to understand how authority might
manifest itself. Authority’s relation to space, violence, race, ideology, and international politics
are examined in this paper. Miller’s story about Batman generally implicitly supports
neoconservatist ideas about who should have authority and how authorities should act.
Vigilantism, punitive action, and individualism are commonly indirectly promoted in The Dark
Knight Returns . However, Miller additionally satirizes and criticizes specific organizations that
function in accordance with the American government, such as law enforcement and the news.
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