Movie Whimsy: The Dark Knight

Stop. Stop right now, all you people reading this, and let me make one thing very clear to you.

Yes, I had not seen The Dark Knight in its entirety until a few nights ago. I caught the tail end of it a while ago, but I hadn't seen the whole thing. Mostly due to the large amount of smallish people in our house who really don't need to watch it, and also a mother who doesn't like dark movies.

I have to give her props, though, because she did sit through most of the movie, except when she was taking little children back to bed after they snuck down the stairs.

After the movie was over, she turned to us and said, "I don't like it."

To which I immediately replied, "You're not supposed to."

She was confused.

But you're not supposed to like The Dark Knight.

First of all, it's the second movie in a trilogy. There is an unspoken rule about trilogies, especially for dystopian ones, but it goes for almost all of them. There's a form it goes through while taking shape. The first book/movie starts with a bad situation and ends with a victory for the good side. The second one takes that victory and shows people that not all victories end in a happily ever after. Usually the protagonist doesn't complete his/her goal, or if they do, it's at far too high a cost. And the antagonist does complete his/her goal, no matter what happens to the protagonist.

Now why would people like the second part of any trilogy that way? You watch the protagonist go from the safe countertop into the frying pan, then at the very end jump in the fire. But that's the wonder of the third part of the trilogy, wherein we get to watch the protagonist get out of that fire. (No, I haven't watched the Dark Knight Rises yet, so I don't know how exactly it plays out with Batman.) That's the general rules for a trilogy. There are always exceptions (Peter Jackson and The Two Towers ends on an uncharacteristically happy note, but that's easily rectified in the beginning of Return of the King) .

Anyway, so now you know the literary reasons why you're not supposed to like The Dark Knight. But there's more reasons than that. This movie lets Christopher Nolan show us the darker side of human nature, where the ends justify the means and sometimes there is no end, just means, and they're all nasty and gross and repugnant.

And oh, how much do we poor humans rationalize our actions.

"You know... you know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan', even if the plan is horrifying! If tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all 'part of the plan'."

We watched the Joker prove himself right, making the movie bitter.

A choice between a lawyer's life or a hospital getting blown up? We sat there and watched as Reese's life was saved only due to the quick actions of law enforcement and Batman. An empty hospital got blown up. Normal citizens, doing what they thought was best for society, attempted to kill Reese because they didn't want innocent sick people to die. Never mind that Reese was innocent as well, he hadn't done anything wrong. All he did was attract the attention of the Joker, who decided he wanted to see who people would place above the other, one innocent man or several.

The ferry scene. Two ferries, one filled with convicted felons, and the other with ordinary citizens. Both rigged to blow, and the trigger to the other ferry placed in the hands of the people on the other boat. Told that unless one of them blew up the other one, they would both be blown up at midnight. The people on the citizen's ferry tried to solve this dilemma by democracy. The tally came in, with an overwhelming majority voting for the massacre of the other boat. Then someone pointed out that the other ferry hadn't blown them up yet. In the convicted boat, one man stood, offering to take the trigger from the captain and do what he should have done 10 minutes ago. The captain hands him the trigger. The man throws it out the window and sits down.

Two ferries, both full of people, saved by the brave actions of a determined convicted felon, and the fear of ordinary citizens at massacring a mass of people.

I was reading an article the other day, and this quote stood out to me. "You shouldn't torture people because it's wrong, no matter your view of its efficacy. Consequentialism is a false approach to ethics."

The Joker pointed out that so many people do use the ends to justify the means.

Sure, Batman's a renegade vigilante, but look at what he's done for the city, making the bad guys afraid to act.

Sure, we might be killing a man. But we're saving a hospital.

Sure, we're torturing people. But we might be getting answers to save our country.

Sure, Gordon might be working with people bought by the mob, but he's working to make the city better.

Sure, the aspartame in fake sugar might be slowly mummifying my bones, but I'm losing weight.

Sure, I might be voting to blow up an entire boat full of other people, but I won't die.

Sure, people might be dying daily, but Batman's identity, and therefore his symbolism, is preserved for Gotham.

Sure, I might be procrastinating getting ready for the new school semester, but I'm writing a blog post about ethics. And Batman.

Overall, though, The Dark Knight was a phenomenal movie with great writing and acting, and I enjoyed it, as much as I disliked Joker winning. A very good, thought-provoking movie.