The Dark Knight: A Post-9/11 Tale (Part Four)

In my last semester of college, I completed a writing portfolio entitled "Exploring Modern American Culture through Contemporary Cinema." It contained four essays dissecting four recent films. I started with Christopher Nolan's dark epic The Dark Knight (2008). The fourth and final part of that essay is below. I will post a new portfolio excerpt every day. What's up next? A look at Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer (2009). Previous posts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

The Dark Knight: A Post-9/11 Tale

White Knights and Dark Knights: Leadership Dilemmas

In “the battle for Gotham’s soul,” three main players try to keep the city from succumbing to chaos: Batman, Gordon, and Dent (Nolan). While they have the common interest of defeating the Joker, their varying backgrounds and positions produce three distinct views of how to deal with the rapidly escalating situation. Batman, the vigilante, has one rule he strictly adheres to: no killing. That principle aside, he believes in protecting the city at all costs, making him only one step away from being as lawless as the Joker. He will break rules – and mobsters’ legs – if it means keeping Gotham safe and sound. Gordon and Dent, on the other hand, are bound to legality by their jobs. They admire Batman and allow him to disregard the law, but they can never do so themselves. Though they both follow a creed of lawfulness, discrepancies exist between the two men. Gordon wants to rely on his police force; Dent does not trust the lieutenant’s men and women due to their history of corruption, often a source of tension between the lawmen. Even though all three – Batman, Gordon, and Dent – have their differences, they manage to compromise and cooperate with each other for a higher purpose.

While the trio is able to find common ground, the disputes the men have raise a few questions. Which route – vigilantism or lawfulness – is better for combating the Joker’s malice? Is one better than the other? What about the morality and ethics of one versus the other? What measures are appropriate when dealing with imminent security threats? The list goes on. The film does not give easy answers to any of these questions. The citizens seem to favor Dent’s approach. To the public, he is Gotham’s white knight, a bright symbol of hope for a better future. By the end of the film, Batman becomes the dark knight of the title, vilified by the very people he strove to defend. In many ways, though, he is more heroic. It is Batman who defeats the Joker in the end, while Dent, suffering from great personal tragedy, loses faith in their cause. He concludes in the third act that he failed, alongside Batman and Gordon, because they could not be “decent men in an indecent time” (Nolan). The corruption that allowed the Joker to thrive in the first place made it impossible for the trio to keep their hands clean as they tried to reestablish order in the city.

Even in a generally upstanding community, acts of terrorism are difficult to cope with. There are many reasons for this, one being the arduous task of responding to them in a timely manner that is both effective and just. Gotham’s leaders and heroes face this dilemma when the Joker begins his reign of terror, just as the Bush Administration did after the foreign strike on the U.S. in 2001. Several tactics from that presidency were widely questioned or condemned, such as entering into foreign wars, using enhanced interrogation techniques, and implementing invasive surveillance programs. Some critics of The Dark Knight have claimed it has a neoconservative slant that supports the aforementioned strategies. Others have disagreed, saying the movie is about “the need for public resoluteness in the face of terrorism… the inherent limitations of relying on vigilantism,” and “reaffirming law, legal institutions, and popular courage” (Ip 211). Commenting on The Dark Knight’s politics, Nolan denied the presence of an intentional bias saying “We just write from the perspective of the world we live in, what interests us and frightens us” (Svetkey).

Regardless of the filmmakers’ aim or angle, the world created in The Dark Knight is clearly analogous to the present-day United States in terms of its struggles with morally ambiguous leadership. Like the Bush Administration, Batman uses invasive, secretive security measures to fight terrorism. In the film’s third act, he uses an advanced high frequency generator that accesses every cellphone in Gotham. This device helps him defeat the Joker, but does the end justify the intrusive means? As his friend and colleague Lucius Fox says, the tool is “beautiful, unethical, dangerous” (Nolan). Fox believes it is wrong for Batman to use such a powerful invention to essentially spy on millions of people, even if his intentions are good. This is not the only time Batman’s techniques are questionable. There are multiple instances earlier in the film in which he uses violent interrogation tactics. For example, he deliberately injures a mob boss to get information from him, and he brutally beats up the Joker after Dent and his girlfriend, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), are kidnapped. In these scenes, viewers may be reminded of alleged torture committed by U.S. agents, one of the extreme methods used for gathering intelligence in the War on Terror. While the specific tactics are different, the general idea is not: use violence to get important details needed to protect citizens. And just as many Americans denounced the government’s stance on torture, audience members may recoil at the sight of Batman using inhumane force for interrogative purposes.

Conclusion

The ethical problems of surveillance and torture are just two elements of the film that may feel familiar to a post-9/11 audience. There are distinct parallels between Gotham and the U.S. found throughout The Dark Knight’s superhero storytelling. The Joker’s actions characterize him as a terrorist, while in the narrative of early 21st-century America, terrorists – both domestic and foreign – are the main villains. Acts of extravagant violence cause anxiety and tension to rule Gotham. Millions are left on edge, wondering when and what the Joker’s next move will be. In the days, months, and years after 9/11, U.S. citizens have dealt with similar worries. The last decade saw a country suffering from national post-traumatic stress disorder, filled with “psycho-political fears” and concerns about the potential for future attacks (Kolenic 1023). To quell the nation’s dread, government heads, like the protectors of Gotham, employed plans of questionable moral quality. Whether they were noble dark knights, like Nolan’s hero, or simply crooked politicians is up for debate. What is not is The Dark Knight’s connection to post-9/11 culture. It is a reflection of a wounded nation’s problematic road to recovery.

Sources

Ip, John. "The Dark Knight's War on Terrorism." Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. (2011): 209-29. Print.

Kolenic, Anthony J. "Madness in the Making: Creating and Denying Narratives from Virginia Tech to Gotham City." Journal of Popular Culture. 42.6 (2009): 1023-39. Print.

Nolan, Christopher, dir. The Dark Knight. Writ. Jonathan Nolan, Perf. Christian Bale, and Heath Ledger. Warner Bros., 2008. Film. 31 Oct 2013.

Svetkey, Benjamin. "Q A Director's Chair." Entertainment Weekly. 01 Aug 2008: n. page.