the dark knight...not just keeping us happy and comfortable

(Note: possible spoiler)

A few days ago I talked to someone who had hated The Dark Knight; she said that no one should ever have to be exposed to something that violent and negative. She was disgusted that such a film should be made, much less lauded.

We like our action movies, our comedies, and our romances to be in neat, sorted genres, where we know exactly what we're going to get. It makes us comfortable. It lulls us. It's often entertainment, nothing more. An easy beginning, a simple buildup of suspense, and a relieved denouement. Even in superhero movies, the hero rarely loses everything. There's almost always some easy reason the villain is evil, some way we can pity him or put him in a box: we can look at Dr. Octopus' accident, and we can see the numbers on Magneto's arm. We’re reassured.

Not merely slick and exciting, The Dark Knight brings up uncomfortable issues. It presents evil as a three-dimensional adversary. Things are not going to end happily for everyone. Things will not be fair. You will watch while this happens, and you will think about it. You could say, why put anyone through that, if they’re out for adrenaline rush and some popcorn? And even if we do appreciate serious things, primally driven serial killers need never be on the menu, no matter what point you’re trying to prove.

That view almost fits the society of Huxley's Brave New World, where discomfort is banished along with love, pain, and art:


"We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."*


There's poetry, danger, goodness, and sin in The Dark Knight. As for God, I think it's a fairly spiritual film. Harvey Dent's character shows that the ability to forgive is what keeps us human; if we lose that, we lose something integral to our personhood. Witnessing his agony forces us to ask: what would we do? How would we respond? How are we responding right now, with our thousand tiny frustrations, our hundred paltry reasons to be resentful?

The Joker (who became my favorite screen villain—except for Lecter—in under ten minutes) is as close as you can get to a Devil figure while remaining human. You can't blame his actions on a convenient back story; his many different renditions of how he became scarred seem to show his amusement that people want to pin his motives on a tragic childhood or love story. He is not merely weak, corrupt, or insane; he delights not merely in the nature of chaos, but in watching others become corrupt. And, while he is disgusting, while he is repulsive, he manages to dominate almost every scene he's in. In the theater, the whole audience giggled whenever he walked onscreen. The other characters, all of whom despise him, are still fascinated by him. There's only one word for his portrayal: seductive. The same persuasiveness that convinces Two Face to take the gun could believably have convinced a woman to pick an apple.

It is important to realize that stark evil does exist, and that it is seductive. Things on this earth may not always be “fair” or “just”, but it is our free choice how we react. We can harbor rage or we can seek out selflessness. We can sacrifice. We can resist evil even if it croons to us. We may be hated and spit on, but our resilience always has value. We are loved completely by a God who wishes us not merely to be comfortable, but to choose the good freely, knowing that evil exists.

I thought The Dark Knight was incredibly entertaining as well as thought-provoking; you may prefer other movies, other genres. But even if it's not your cup of tea, dismissing it by calling it "pointlessly dark" is a bit hasty. There is a stark moral battle portrayed in it, one which deserves our concern. It’s no more difficult to stomach than the truth of good and evil, choice and consequence. Entertainment keeps us happy; art often points out a reality we’d be happy to cover with popcorn and butter.


*Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932