BY JOEL SWANSON

In print | Published November 20, 2008

Every so often, you come across a news story so absurd that it just begs to be written about. Last week, I found one. Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman movies “Batman Begins” (2005) and “The Dark Knight” (2008), is being sued by the city of Batman, Turkey.
Yes, you read that correctly.

Apparently, the city of Batman (which is, of course, located on the Batman River and is the capital of Batman Province), is having some difficulties. The city first grew as a result of the construction of an oil refinery during the 1950s. Now that industry has left, however, unemployment is high and Batman is facing a wave of crime and an unprecedented number of suicides. What has Mayor Hüseyin Kalkan decided to do about these problems? If you’re thinking, “invest in social services and mental health clinics,” you’re wrong. No, Mayor Kalkan has decided to invigorate Batman’s economy by suing Christopher Nolan for stealing the name of his city. Never mind the fact that Batman has existed as a character since 1939 and that it isn’t actually copyright infringement to just steal the name of a place anyhow. According to Mayor Kalkan, “There is only one Batman in the world.” That Batman, of course, is Batman, Turkey.

I tried long and hard to think of a way that this lawsuit is actually brilliant, but I couldn’t come up with one. Nevertheless, it did get me thinking: What if other places attempted to sue filmmakers? What other lawsuits would we see? Naturally, being the intrepid movie columnist that I am, I had to investigate the possibilities. Here are the ideas I came up with:

Pearl Harbor National Historic Landmark v. Michael Bay
Michael Bay not only stole the name of a historic landmark for his 2001 flop “Pearl Harbor,” but he had the audacity to turn it into a terrible movie as well. The memories of those who died on that day that will live in infamy do not deserve to be associated with this film. Clearly we have an emotional damages suit on our hands here.

City of Seattle v. Meg Ryan
No city really deserves to be known primarily for a bad romantic comedy. Seattle certainly does not deserve to be associated with bad, overly cute movies that start with the words “Sleepless In.” If anyone has ever watched this movie, and has thought that a lovely American city was a place where cute, adolescent romantic fantasies really occur, then Seattle may have a libel suit waiting to be filed. Not only did they steal the name of a great city, but the climax of the movie doesn’t even take place there. It would probably be preferable for Seattle to be known for Bill Gates, Starbucks and Kurt Cobain than for this movie.

Wales and Northern Ireland v. Mel Gibson
Because why should only Scotland get a movie about its brave independence fighters struggling against the hegemonic power that was imperial England? What about the other British commonwealths? Sure, you could say that there wouldn’t be actual historical events to base those other two movies on, but when has that ever stopped Mel Gibson before? (Think of “Apocalypto.”) Wales and Northern Ireland seem to have an equal protection case here.

Rambo Department v. Sylvester Stallone
Yes, Rambo Department is a small subsection of Yatenga Province in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. It even has a lower GDP per capita than the city of Batman does, so surely it has at least as much need to sue the creator of a major film franchise for copyright infringement. Sure, Sylvester Stallone may have been paying homage to the grasslands and villages of the region, but that’s probably ascribing a level of cultural sensitivity that the creator of bad action movies like this one is unlikely to possess.

City of New York v. Michael Bay
Okay, so one can never mock Michael Bay too much. In his classic clunker “Armageddon”, he even depicts New York getting hit by a meteor. I’m not sure what law that breaks, but it has to be against some law of some sort. Or, if nothing else, we ought to just sue Michael Bay for making such terrible movies. There should be some way of revoking his filmmaking license, or at least sentencing him to attend compulsory classes on the films of the French New Wave.

So maybe Mayor Kalkan of Batman, Turkey, doesn’t have such a terrible idea after all. Maybe he’s just tapped into an entirely new way to make money, which cities and countries all around the world are just waiting to get into. I can’t help but wonder, however, what would happen to filmmakers around the world if that began to happen. Would they no longer be able to make movies that reference real locations in any way? Maybe we would be forced to bring back movies about fictional planets and there would be a renaissance of science fiction filmmaking. Or maybe we would just see a hell of a lot of movies set in New Yrok or Washington, C.D. That might not be so bad though. At least it would give us something interesting to focus on the next time Michael Bay makes a movie.

Joel is a junior. You can reach him at jswanso1@swarthmore.edu.

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