Debating the war on terror in entertainment cinema: the politics of spectacle in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, 2016)

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This paper focuses on a detailed analysis of Batman v. Superman’s introductory sequence, which dramatizes the film’s exploration of loss, fear and power and raises questions of truth and the reliability of images. Such close reading serves to deepen and enrich existing interpretations of Batman v. Superman and of entertainment cinema in general by revealing a complex fabric of narrative confusion, affective politics and reflexive cinema that invites the viewer to embrace an active, critical position. The sequence is analyzed from three different perspectives that are extended to a thematic analysis of the film. The first is the creative confusion established at the outset of the film, which locates the unfolding drama in a semantically unstable and deceptive filmic world. The second perspective deals with the affective politics of 9/11, revolving around the question of rebuilding a narrative coherence from the experience of loss and fear. The third perspective is the metanarrative dimension of the sequence and the ways in which it critically engages the viewer’s perception of filmic reality. If the first two perspectives grapple with the allegorical dimension of the film as a direct commentary on post-9/11 American politics, the third perspective discusses how the spectacular film provides an embedded narrative of the making of political choices.