Abstract

The chapter introduces themes of Agamben’s theory of exceptional politics through Christopher Nolan’s The Batman trilogy and discusses its implications for democratic politics. Giorgio Agamben encounters in his work the border zone of the political: between law and exception, sovereign power meets bare life. Agamben shows how exceptional politics tend to become the new normal of governing, even implicating the biopolitical governance of life itself. Nolan’s The Batman illustrates the paradigm of exception through the quest of billionaire Bruce Wayne, who fights evil in Gotham City as a masked vigilante. In contrast to Agamben, however, it is not the state which stretches the law through exceptional politics. Batman is situated outside of the law but emerges as exceptional Leviathan in situations of emergency. The chapter discusses Agamben’s key concepts through the emblematic figure of Batman, his relations to his antagonists, and the politics of fiction.