photo of the rodeo by Eugene photographer Kai-Huei Yau
Friday, October 10, 2008
3. Popcorn and Torture: Holy Human Decency, Batman!
Heroes and villains ain't what they used to be in the good old days. But in the good old days American soldiers didn't torture terror suspects, and actors didn't die of overdoses shortly after looking into the darkness of our souls.
(Public service announcement: This posting is longer than most--scroll down to earlier entries if you want a smaller bite.)
A couple months ago there was a lot of media coverage about Heath Ledger’s performance in the latest Batman movie, speculations about whether he could win a post-humous Oscar. Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs was one of the only bad guys to ever win one. Intrigued by the hype, and having loved his acting in Brokeback Mountain, I went to see The Dark Knight.
I see truth reflected in fiction everywhere I turn these days. One scene recalled American soldiers' abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib. The Joker releases home-made grainy video footage, which the media plays on TV. The black-and-white video appears to be shot in a meat locker. A hostage grovels naked, next to a skinned cow hanging from the ceiling. The references to the home-made videos we saw about Abu Ghraib seemed obvious and intentional to me, but maybe I was just making connections that the director didn't intend. Does the media play such footage to inspire moral outrage? Or is the media an accomplice in spreading evil by giving it such a wide audience? Violence sells; it makes compelling news.
In this era of waterboarding sanctioned by the President, there is little room in the movies for a simply good good guy. The Joker tries to pervert goodness again and again. In one scene, he is in a cell being interrogated by Batman and the police chief. He is sado-masochistically withholding information about a bomb. If he would only reveal what he knows, many innocent lives could be saved. It's win-win for him: he gleefully takes pleasure in driving the “good guys” to torture him for information about the bomb. If they don’t find a way to make him talk, others will die. He succeeds in forcing Batman into his dark side: Batman chooses to beat him up.
Do we take any pleasure in seeing the the Joker, beat up? I could not. It was more painful to see the hero driven to violence than it was satisfying to see the bad guy get what he deserved. The scene seems to justify violent means to a nobler end. Is director Christopher Nolan being an apologist for violent interrogation tactics? Or is he merely reflecting the prevailing cultural despair that there can be no pure goodness, no way to take the high road, no such thing as uncorruptible principles when reacting to terrorism?
What qualities make up a hero who performs grand acts of saving people? What qualities make up a bad guy capable of grand acts of terrorism? It may be the very same qualities either way. A third major character in the movie is Harvey Dent, who through most of the movie is a "heroic" district attorney on a crusade to reduce crime. But pushed into bitterness through the Joker’s schemes, he transforms into a revenge-seeking sadist: "Two Face." As the D.A., he had a strong ego, a belief in his charismatic abilities to influence people around him and make an impact on the world, which helped him be an effective and heroic crime-fighter. But he had a sense of godliness, of being better than other people. When pushed towards his dark side, this same drive made Two Face a relentless murderer, passing ultimate judgment on people.
Batman says that he dreams of quitting his job protecting Gotham, that he longs for the citizens to show they can handle crime without him, that he would like more than anything to never put on his Bat gear again. There was one scene that held out promise that we need not have super-powers to be heroic, that “normal” human decency can save the day. The Joker set up a plan where the passengers of two ferries were pitted against one another. On each boat he put detonators that could explode bombs on the opposite ferry. He told the passengers that the only way they could save themselves was by choosing to blow up the other boat. If neither blew the other boat up by midnight, he promised to blow them both up himself. He was foiled in his plan by the fact that both sets of passengers, after tense arguments amongst themselves, were willing to sacrifice themselves to avoid being murderers of the others. More than any ass-kicking that Batman doled out to various bad guys, this was the most uplifting moment of the movie.
The Joker’s “gift” was to bring out the evil in others. Perhaps the best gift that all superheroes could give to humanity would be to retire once and for all. That would be a gift of responsibility to bring out the best in ourselves in order to overcome evil. No Bat-Mobile, no Bat gear. Just plain human decency. Holy Human Decency, Batman!
copyright Sara Zolbrod 2008
(Public service announcement: This posting is longer than most--scroll down to earlier entries if you want a smaller bite.)
A couple months ago there was a lot of media coverage about Heath Ledger’s performance in the latest Batman movie, speculations about whether he could win a post-humous Oscar. Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs was one of the only bad guys to ever win one. Intrigued by the hype, and having loved his acting in Brokeback Mountain, I went to see The Dark Knight.
I see truth reflected in fiction everywhere I turn these days. One scene recalled American soldiers' abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib. The Joker releases home-made grainy video footage, which the media plays on TV. The black-and-white video appears to be shot in a meat locker. A hostage grovels naked, next to a skinned cow hanging from the ceiling. The references to the home-made videos we saw about Abu Ghraib seemed obvious and intentional to me, but maybe I was just making connections that the director didn't intend. Does the media play such footage to inspire moral outrage? Or is the media an accomplice in spreading evil by giving it such a wide audience? Violence sells; it makes compelling news.
In this era of waterboarding sanctioned by the President, there is little room in the movies for a simply good good guy. The Joker tries to pervert goodness again and again. In one scene, he is in a cell being interrogated by Batman and the police chief. He is sado-masochistically withholding information about a bomb. If he would only reveal what he knows, many innocent lives could be saved. It's win-win for him: he gleefully takes pleasure in driving the “good guys” to torture him for information about the bomb. If they don’t find a way to make him talk, others will die. He succeeds in forcing Batman into his dark side: Batman chooses to beat him up.
Do we take any pleasure in seeing the the Joker, beat up? I could not. It was more painful to see the hero driven to violence than it was satisfying to see the bad guy get what he deserved. The scene seems to justify violent means to a nobler end. Is director Christopher Nolan being an apologist for violent interrogation tactics? Or is he merely reflecting the prevailing cultural despair that there can be no pure goodness, no way to take the high road, no such thing as uncorruptible principles when reacting to terrorism?
What qualities make up a hero who performs grand acts of saving people? What qualities make up a bad guy capable of grand acts of terrorism? It may be the very same qualities either way. A third major character in the movie is Harvey Dent, who through most of the movie is a "heroic" district attorney on a crusade to reduce crime. But pushed into bitterness through the Joker’s schemes, he transforms into a revenge-seeking sadist: "Two Face." As the D.A., he had a strong ego, a belief in his charismatic abilities to influence people around him and make an impact on the world, which helped him be an effective and heroic crime-fighter. But he had a sense of godliness, of being better than other people. When pushed towards his dark side, this same drive made Two Face a relentless murderer, passing ultimate judgment on people.
Batman says that he dreams of quitting his job protecting Gotham, that he longs for the citizens to show they can handle crime without him, that he would like more than anything to never put on his Bat gear again. There was one scene that held out promise that we need not have super-powers to be heroic, that “normal” human decency can save the day. The Joker set up a plan where the passengers of two ferries were pitted against one another. On each boat he put detonators that could explode bombs on the opposite ferry. He told the passengers that the only way they could save themselves was by choosing to blow up the other boat. If neither blew the other boat up by midnight, he promised to blow them both up himself. He was foiled in his plan by the fact that both sets of passengers, after tense arguments amongst themselves, were willing to sacrifice themselves to avoid being murderers of the others. More than any ass-kicking that Batman doled out to various bad guys, this was the most uplifting moment of the movie.
The Joker’s “gift” was to bring out the evil in others. Perhaps the best gift that all superheroes could give to humanity would be to retire once and for all. That would be a gift of responsibility to bring out the best in ourselves in order to overcome evil. No Bat-Mobile, no Bat gear. Just plain human decency. Holy Human Decency, Batman!
copyright Sara Zolbrod 2008
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