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

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 second part of that essay is below. Read part one here. I will post a new portfolio excerpt every day.

  

 The Dark Knight: A Post-9/11 Tale

The Joker: An Agent of Chaos

The demented and mysterious Joker is The Dark Knight’s fiendish antagonist, as well as the catalyst for its culturally symbolic story. This well-known figure from Batman mythology is given an interesting and terrifying twist in Nolan’s post-9/11 tale. In his metaphorical world, the Joker represents terrorism, unhinged and unrestrained. Terrorism is a difficult word to define; though commonly used in the media and by the general citizenry, there has been no consensus about its meaning (Williamson 38). The term is usually related to the use of violence to send an ideological message, often a political one. In The Dark Knight, the Joker spends most of his time trying to demolish the very notion of principled behavior, so viewing him as a terrorist promoting an ideology might seem far-fetched; but, as much as he denies it, the Joker is motivated by one particular worldview. As he creepily tells Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), he is an “agent of chaos,” claiming it is “fair.” He also manipulatively encourages Dent to “upset the established order” (Nolan). The Joker upholds anarchy and amorality; this is his creed. He is a terrorist because he forces it on a city with violent actions that create panic in the streets.

The United States is of course faced with two main categories of terrorism: foreign and domestic. With the 9/11 attacks, foreign terrorists set the stage for the War on Terror and a culture of anxiety, but in the years since, a number of violent acts have instead been planned and sometimes even carried out by domestic terrorists. There have been at least sixty “publicly known” terror plots since 9/11, with an increasing number being planned within U.S. borders (The Heritage Foundation). There have also been a number of mass shootings in the past decade, not always considered acts of terrorism, but definitely adding to the fear of seemingly spontaneous violence that permeates modern American culture. With this in mind, the Joker clearly works best as a representation of domestic rather than foreign terrorism. This is due to his loner status and his lack of loyalty to another government, or any government for that matter. Viewers could interpret the Joker’s reign of terror as what might happen if a mass shooter was given immense power and endless resources. Driven by a twisted mentality, he kills for personal reasons, thinking he is sending a message every citizen of Gotham needs to hear. That message is the superiority of irrationality, senselessness, and pandemonium.

Sources

The Heritage Foundation. (2013). 60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism. Washington, DC: Steven P. Bucci, James Jay Carafano, and Jessica Zuckerman.

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

Williamson, Myra. Terrorism, War and International Law: The Legality of the Use of Force Against Afghanistan in 2001. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009. 38-40. Print.