Dark Knight Article

Dark Knight, Dark Ideas by Peter Turner

Summary of Key Points

• Batman isn’t necessarily a hero. He is shown as a vigilante, who is unburdened by laws and rules, he isn’t afraid to be seen as the villain for the greater good. Batman, however, needs a villain, he needs disorder and chaos so he has something he can fight against. This is why Batman, with his seemingly-limitless wealth chooses not to spend it on something more productive than new toys to play with when beating up criminals.
• Batman’s ethics are murky and, despite choosing not to kill anybody, he does resort to disturbing decisions such as torturing The Joker and spying on the entirety of Gotham. This makes it difficult to distinguish good from evil, and parallels can be drawn between Batman’s actions “fighting” crime and the decisions of America in trying to fight terrorism.
• There is a clear class divide in Gotham, and it’s important to consider that Bruce Wayne is a millionaire who doesn’t have much of an idea of poverty or its prevalence in Gotham. Batman has a reactionary role, in that he does not fight the cause of crime, he just fights the “bad guys”.
• Nolan represents the people of Gotham as docile and keen to let Batman save them rather than do anything for themselves.

The Importance of Reading Articles

Reading articles and reviews of films we’re studying is important because it helps give us ideas of exactly what we’re talking about. Different people will always have different interpretations of each part of a film and by reading reviews and articles, we can get more ideas on how to interpret the film along with some social or political context we may have otherwise missed.

Terrorism, War, and Bush 43: Crash Course US History

Relation to The Dark Knight

• The 9/11 attacks on America showed people a different kind of threat that hadn’t been obvious in recent history. There were people willing to die just to cause terror and discourse. This can be seen very clearly in The Dark Knight as The Joker is only interested in watching the world burn, with no motive for any kind of money or power, and he has no fear of dying to achieve his goals.
• There could be a comparison drawn between Batman’s decision to be seen as the villain for the sake of the city and Bush’s willingness to go to war and develop his “war on terror”, even if it hurts public opinion of him.
• Just like Batman is nothing without an enemy to fight, many people believe that some wanted a reason to go to war for the sake of being able to go to war.

• A lot of Pan’s Labyrinth’s historical context revolves around the Spanish civil war.
• There are also a lot of allusions to Del Toro’s abusive Christian upbringing.
• There are many references to Catholicism and fascism within the film, which relates to the prior.
• Del Toro pulls from a number of inspirations, from history to art.
• He also draws on the myths and ideas from the art he is inspired by.  An example of this can be seen with The Pale Man’s inspiration from Saturn Devouring His Son relates to the theme of parental abuse.
• The Faun’s representation may mirror the fascist leaders, asking her to blindly do as she’s told while not necessary telling the truth.