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The film could easily be seen to portray good as a weakness used and repeatedly exploited by evil BY LifeSiteNews.com Editorial by John-Henry Westen I finally saw the movie which has grossed $400 million in its first 18 days - well on its way to overtaking Titanic as box-office champ.  The movie was visually and viscerally stunning but deeply disturbing, even diabolic.   My concerns were confirmed when LifeSiteNews.com co-founder Steve Jalsevac told me he had also just seen the film and shared my unease.   Some have pointed to the extreme violence in the film, but my concerns go well beyond that.  In a Canwest News Service review Jay Stone refers to Joker as a "psychotic butcher"; Jenny McCarthy in her August 2 review in the London Telegraph wrote, "The greatest surprise of all - even for me, after eight years spent working as a film critic - has been the sustained level of intensely sadistic brutality throughout the film." One reviewer even called the film "torture porn."   The story’s focus is the Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger of Brokeback Mountain fame.  The Joker is portrayed as a man engaging in a purity of evil rarely seen.  An anti-Christ type figure, he engages in evil for evil’s sake and not for any material motive, and is totally unconcerned about his own well-being.    So youth seeing the film will see the evil of the Joker, be repulsed by it and turn away from it, right?  Wrong.   There are two supermen in this film - Batman and the Joker.    One problem, however, is that while Batman is a somewhat distant figure - a multi-billionaire whose money is largely the source of his being a superhero - the common man can relate more to the Joker who is a man dealing, in his own intensely cruel way, with a rough past.   In one scene the Joker describes the way he got his ‘smile’ - the two obvious scars which run up from both corners of his mouth.  He describes domestic violence in his home where his father attacked his mother and then turned on him as a child, saying, "Why so serious? Let’s put a smile on that face," and carved one in.  As sick and scary as that scenario is, it is nevertheless one with which a great many of today’s youth - deeply scarred internally - will easily identify as they too have been subjected to domestic violence.   And if that’s not enough, Joker changes the scenario half-way through the film.  He explains that his ‘smile’ is the result of an incident stemming from a disagreement with his wife who would thereafter have nothing to do with him.  Hence, Joker’s psychosis is portrayed as being a response to the all-too-common experience of domestic turbulence, whether involving one’s parents or one’s spouse.   The Joker and Batman are both presented as virtually invincible; indeed, if anything, the Joker is presented as being more powerful in many respects. He is completely unrestricted in terms of his actions, while the film clearly portrays Batman as hampered by his conscience.  Batman The Dark Knight could easily be seen to portray good as a weakness which is used and repeatedly exploited by evil - the Joker.  The corruption of the good in people is one of his main aims - it is in fact the only purpose which can be discerned in the Joker’s otherwise completely chaotic acts.   But for all the power of this anti-Christ portrayal, there is no portrayal of an equally pure Christ figure.  An heroic man in public power, one of the main characters, is eventually corrupted by the Joker’s devices, and the only two good guys left - Commissioner Gordon and Batman himself - are themselves corrupted in that they must foster and live with a lie to maintain the illusion that the one who thoroughly succumbed to evil was actually the hero of the day.   Batman, meant to be the hero of the film, is far less morally consistent in his pursuits than is the Joker.  As Bruce Wayne the billionaire, he is portrayed as a jealous, spiteful ex-lover, insulting his rival and using other women (even three at a time) to inspire jealousy in his ex-lover.  The portrayal of Batman is weak and conflicted compared to that of the Joker.  The Joker’s character dominates the screen and the brilliance of Ledger’s performance in this role serves to highlight this difference.   It should also be noted that many have pointed to Ledger’s Joker role as possibly having a role in the 28-year-old’s death by an overdose of drugs including sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication shortly after filming of the movie was completed.   The suspicions are not unfounded as his final interviews indicate Ledger was very troubled during and after the filming.  A New York Times interview which took place during the filming noted that Ledger’s Joker role was "physically and mentally draining". Ledger described the Joker as a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy".  He also revealed he was having trouble sleeping and the reporter noted his bizarre restless behaviour.   Reported the New York Times: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," he said. "I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.   Even as he spoke, Mr. Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat, put the hood back up. He went outside and had another cigarette. (see the full Times interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/movies/moviesspecial/04lyal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin )   A video interview available on YouTube, which took place just after the filming finished and is billed as one of the last interviews before Ledger’s death, visually demonstrates that bizarre restlessness. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKa-aDga1fE&feature=related   Are there going to be imitators of the Joker portrayed in The Dark Knight? There already are.  Just look on YouTube for the number of videos where teens are dressing up as and imitating the lines of the Joker.  Even more seriously, however, there have been crimes committed since the film’s release where the criminals have dressed in Joker makeup.   The film would likely not be dangerous for those well-grounded in morality; but for the many in today’s world who have not received the moral training that would allow them to clearly distinguish between good and evil, Joker character and philosophy of "anything goes" presents an all-too-appealing alternative way of attaining power and recognition.    Seeing the film only a few days after the very disturbing and unexplainable beheading of a passenger on a Canadian bus, I could not help wonder if the perpetrator had seen the Batman film.  The description of the killing and decapitation as having been carried out in a calm manner, entirely without emotion, and the killer taking the head of the man and glibly showing it to horrified witnesses, seemed to fit with the Joker’s character.  Media screen shots of the film showing the Joker holding up his "calling card" (a Joker playing card with a decapitated head dripping blood) added powerfully to the association.   Superheroes in films normally generate imitation. Joker is every bit a superhero in The Dark Knight - but a super-evil one.   If your children have seen the film, talk to them about it.  If they have not yet seen it I would tactfully discourage it.  For a parental review of the film see Screenit’s very detailed information (the Internet’s most useful movie information website for those concerned about ethical content): http://www.screenit.com/movies/2008/the_dark_knight.html#v   See other reviews noted above here: "This is a movie that turns its heroes into villains and its villains into immortals. It’s a haunting mess." A ‘psychotic butcher’  http://canada.com.dose.ca/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=15088ff6-3494-4761-8a69-e51c37a2beb9   Torture Porn Aimed At The Kids by Jenny McCartney National Post, August 2, 2008  http://www.orwelltoday.com/batmanbewaredark.shtml http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/batman-the-dark-knight-should-we-fear-imitation-of-the-joker/

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