How far does genre shape expectations about societal representations in The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall?

 How far does the genre of a film shape audience expectations of how society will be represented in the film? Discuss this in relation to examples from one British film and one US film you have studied. [35]

- The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall

Christopher Nolan's 2012 'Batman' film 'The Dark Knight Rises' (TDKR) and Sam Mendes' 2012 'Bond' film 'Skyfall both use their respective 'Bond' and 'Batman' genres in combination with the overarching action blockbuster genre to strongly shape spectator expectations of representations that mainly comments on gender, class, and the social representations of each respective Americanised and British landscape though Skyfall succeeds in challenging the typical generic representations of a 'Bond' film in relation to the changing social attitudes of the 2000s.

TDKR employs typical representations of masculinity in the opposing Proppian 'sphere of action' of the hero Batman and villain Bane, influenced by the cinematic tropes of action and superhero films.  For example, their individual costumes; Batman's display of an 'ideal' male physique through a carved breastplate and chiselling facial features both in casting and mask in combination with a lower-pitched gravelly voice representing the 'ideal' and conventionally attractive male as the superhero of the narrative. In relation to the film's target audience - though a wide marketable audience as blockbuster Hollywood film - that is generally more male than female in its dark aesthetics, spectacular stunts, action-packed violence, and conventionally glorified appraisals of extreme masculinity, this generic representation of the narrative hero presents the idolised standard of masculinity - common in Nolan's auteur approach - further normalising such conventions in its genre. However, atypical of a 'Batman' film, a genre that became stagnated and often parodied with audiences, Nolan presents an ambiguous spirituality within the narrative that presents a challenge for Batman to overcome - his own sense of failure and guilt canon from Nolan's 'The Dark Knight'. Presenting Batman as physically weak as he sports a walking stick, unshaven face, and limps alone in his mansion suffering from the guilt of his past, he has to return to Gotham to protect it from Bane who plots a Marxist-style revolution, his monstrous and animalistic mask encoding (a Stuart Hall theory) theatrical villainy typical of its genre. Nolan presents the need for physical and mental conquering in the form of a 'pit' metaphorically connoting the magnitude of Batman's overcoming pain and fear that links to the well symbolic in 'Batman Begins'. Framed from low-angles and chanting, staccato non-diegetic music uplifting Batman from his failure, he attempts to escape the pit in order to be 'reborn' and resume his role as protector of Gotham; this thematic narrative device shapes expectations of the representation of the ideal masculine hero and the need for a rebirth out of an atypical masculine weakness to succeed as a hero, an intended preferred reading (Hall) for spectators of TDKR, provoking a social self in relation to response theory, supported by the fact that this blockbuster film was intended for large audiences in IMAX theatres, the intense soundscape and visuals enhancing this projected reading. Skyfall in contrast, though similarly idolizing in its representation of masculinity of its Proppian hero James Bond, particularly in the opening as he demonstrates physical prowess in chasing the antagonist Patrice on top of a moving train, a re-evaluation of gender and the 'Bond' identity atypical of both blockbuster action and 'Bond' films is made new and enigmatic to the spectator from the very first shot: Bond stands blurred in a back-lit long-shot silhouette, his identity solidified to the spectator from the iconic leitmotif, as he then walks to the camera, his face obscured in darkness though his eyes are lit up. A vulnerable and humane Bond is constructed as the camera tracks him going to 'stop the bleeding' of a fellow agent, Mendes asserting to the spectator a Bond they can identify with in accordance with the changing views around masculinity during the 2000s. A spiritual rebirth like TDKR is also present in Skyfall after Bond is shot by Eve Moneypenny - some criticising the film's encoded (Hall) stereotypes of an incompetent woman despite being a typical expectation of its Bond and action genre - and masculinity is presented by the subversion of Bond paradigms, with Mendes perhaps influenced by contextual changing attitudes. For example, as Bond leaves his position as 007 from M's matriarchal betrayal, he performs typically machismo activities inside a rowdy masculine bar, drinking alcohol with a scorpion on his hand. In a provoking cut, he sits in a frontal MS, the lighting bleak and cold as he rests on his arms, clearly unhappy in his new life. The following long-shot of the bar shows Bond sat in the shadows as an expression of his altered state. Thus Mendes shows Bond performing typical masculinity at his lowest point while feeling melancholic inside, subverting the expectations of a 'Bond' film. 

Skyfall has both a functional and descriptive approach to its genre, using Bond paradigms such as the provoking low-angle panning shot of the Aston Martin, Sean Connery leitmotif, and typical voyeuristic romance, spy, and thriller conventions to appease and set up expectations for its target audience (though wide like TDKR, its action and 'Bond' genre of spectacular action sequences, male gaze notably on the 'Bond Girl' Severine (Laura Mulvey), and idolisation of masculinity appeases a male audience) while simultaneously existing in its contextual socio-historic environment; Skyfall remains relevant with audiences by asking questions relevant to a changing Britain, making the film suitably put to Steve Neale's quote, an 'instance of repetition and difference'. Bond's traditional mould is placed within a modern Britain and subsequently clashes with it, his attitude to modernity symbolised as he meets the reinvented youthful Q in the National Gallery: viewing a Turner painting, 'The Fighting Temaraire', Q remarks how the ship is past its prime while all Bond sees is a 'bloody big ship; formidable and powerful, the only thing that matters. This represents his and perhaps Mendes' attitude to modernity, that as Bond remarks, 'youth is not a guarantee of innovation' which links to the representation of technology within the film and Bond's clashing with it, preferring old methods over new which ultimately prevails as he defeats villain Silva with a dagger rather than an automatic gun because 'the old ways are the best'. This parallels the presentation of Britain as a demoted global and insecure power, influenced by contextual discourse and socio-historic attitudes rather than genre, which is subverted by Mendes in favour of such changing attitudes. TDKR  similarly presents a contextual criticism of its represented Americanized landscape through the representation of class which is far more impactful that its action/Batman genre and ambiguously mythic narrative. For example, as Bane crashes into Gotham's stock exchange, heavily represented as New York's Wall Street, a chaotically masculine scene anchored in an aerial shot exposits extreme power dynamics between the ruling and corruptive capitalists against the working classes as they assert authority in the literal staging of higher statuses such as when their shoes are shined, or they push past a cleaner on the stairs, such workers revealed to be working for Bane's undercover revolution. Bane responds to the dialogue, 'there's no money to steal' with 'then why are you here?', Nolan presenting an overt criticism of American capitalism; this being more influential on such representations of class than its genre and narrative. 

Nolan's Batman trilogy reinvented the character and concept of Batman, bringing complex ideas of contextual representations of America and class despite having a conventionally generic representation of superheroes in relation to gender, his auteur approach starting the trope of the 'dark reboot' which ultimately began to re-shape audience expectations of a batman or superhero film. Similarly, Mendes re-evaluated the approach to Bond as a character and as a cinematic legacy relating to representations of gender, changing attitudes, and Britain, while simultaneously remaining within the scopes of an action 'Bond' film and subverting audience expectations.