The idea that Selina Kyle will be a metaphor for Sarah Palin in The Dark Knight Rises has already been previously discussed here, in the post Why Catwoman Will Be Sarah Palin. There is little left to say on the matter, aside from these key points:
1.) Anne Hathaway will be an excellent Selina Kyle, who will probably be Catwoman, who will definitely be Sarah Palin. The reason I say “probably” before “Catwoman” is because I suspect that Hathaway will be spending more time as Selina Kyle than she will as Catwoman. Why? Consider that Bruce Wayne did not become Batman until roughly halfway through Batman Begins, Jonathan Crane was never called Scarecrow other than people suffering from his weaponized hallucinogens, and Harvey Dent was only referred to as “Two Face” once, by Commissioner Gordon, reluctantly. It’s also still possibly that Selina Kyle might not even be Catwoman: who knows if Nolan has decided to take it in a different direction. The only villain in the first two films who has had a fully formed identity from the start of the film is The Joker, and the main reason for this is that his character has no alter ego in the manner that the other characters do.
Either way, this image recently lit up the internet:
One thing that is clear is that Selina Kyle looks different than we’ve seen her before: she is wearing leather, but she doesn’t have pointy ears.
The reason we can rest assured that Anne Hathaway will be a fantastic Selina Kyle is because she has Nolan as her director. He has continually drawn actors and actresses into the Bat Pack, taking them from people you didn’t take very seriously and drawing shocking performances from them. Consider that one of Hathaway’s most notable roles before this is in Brokeback Mountain, putting her in a very similar category to Heath Ledger. While I have never thought Hathaway is a very good actress, we can assume that Nolan knew what he was doing when he cast her and that she will do well in this film.
2.) There is quite a bit of Batman buzz swirling about the internet at the moment, and there probably will continue to be a continually rising anticipatory wave of this buzz until The Dark Knight Rises is released next summer. As such, WSBD will be ignoring and avoiding the majority of it, and sticking to ignorant speculation for the most part. The author of this blog has not looked at any of the leaked photos of Bane fighting Batman, is ignoring the shooting locations for new Batman film, and is really just not reading any articles about it. This is for a very simple reason: I don’t want it to get ruined for me. If something says *spoiler*, then I don’t read it.
3.) Here is the most important reason for this blog post. Someone was recently lead to What Should Bale Do by searching “batman is george bush bane is mccain catwoman is sarah palin.” Why is this a big deal? It means that people are already thinking about the allegories of The Dark Knight’s final chapter, and the idea of Sarah Palin being metaphorically present is being considered. As for Bane as John McCain, that is not something I had even considered, but it does raise an interesting idea. Will the metaphor in this film be entirely centered around the brawls occurring within the Republican Party? Will Bane team up with Catwoman to fill a throne vacated by Batman, only to find himself ultimately undermined by Catwoman? Perhaps we will even see Bane scathingly refer to Catwoman and friends as “hobbits.”
So far, there is little else out there regarding Sarah Palin as Catwoman, but it’s only a matter of time. And unlike the specifics of the plot of The Dark Knight Rises or the photos from Bane and Batman’s final fight, this is something that I will be paying attention to.
Want more posts on The Dark Knight trilogy? See Why Bale Will Be Referred to as a Member of the Bat Pack and Regarding The Dark Knight Rises.