Carnival in the "Knight"

Embrace the Mask.

            Superhero comics have long been part of American culture, and recently, they have become entrenched in popular American film culture. Throughout superhero films and comics, one can see elements of the Carnival. One of the superhero films in which the Carnival is most apparent is Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

Batman: The American Adam

". . . an individual standing alone . . ." (Lewis 5)

Batman is one of the most well-known heroes in American society and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy utilizes various forms of the ideas and formulas mentioned above. Because of this, we are going to look into the first film in the trilogy: Batman Begins to see where Nolan follows the ideas of the American Adam, the American frontier, and the hero cycle, as well as where he differs from them.