Combs 1
Julia Combs
Professor Combs
English 1010
February 5, 2010
The Dark Knight: Wasted Time and Motives
“Gotham City needs a hero.” That’s the theme that keeps coming up over and over again in the latest installment of the Batman movies, The Dark Knight. Heroes do whatever needs to be done to help others. The Dark Knight sets itself up to be the story about a hero. However, the movie fails in its rhetorical appeals, especially its appeals to logos and pathos. Several scenes just don’t make sense, and Batman is not a hero—clearly not the hero that Gotham needs.
The Dark Knight follows Batman as he tries to rid Gotham City of its villains. His goal is to catch bad guys and see that they are put behind bars. Batman is not a typical hero. But then, heroes are not typical. Batman is an outsider. He has to be a vigilante hero because of events that happened in pervious Batman movies, but that’s ok. He’s a hero fighting for justice outside of the traditional system. He’s getting the job done better than the police can do it. Batman does not mind that many people in the city see him as a bad guy. He is more concerned about justice and following his self-imposed moral code. And that’s where the flaws surface.
Logically some scenes do not make sense. One scene in the movie is especially bothersome. At the fundraiser for Harvey Dent, the Joker crashes the party. The Joker comes in looking for Harvey Dent. Batman has already taken care of Harvey by forcibly moving him to a safe place. Batman knocks Harvey unconscious and drags him into another room to keep Harvey safe from the Joker. He puts a bar in front of the door to keep Harvey in. Then Batman returns to the party, just in time to see the Joker push Rachel, Batman’s girlfriend, out the window of the skyscraper, where the party is happening. Batman leaps out the window after Rachel, freefalling for several stories before saving her life. The scene is absolutely thrilling. The illogical part, however, is that we never find out what happened back at the party. Remember, the Joker is upstairs crashing the party and looking for Harvey Dent. Dent is in a room with a bar in front of the door. Now, the Joker has ways of entering buildings and showing up in places where he should not be, and in this scene, he’s already in the building. What happens? Does he simply get on the elevator and go back down? Do all of the party goers, including the Joker, simply say their good-byes and call it a night? It would seem logical to me that the Joker would spend a little bit of time, while he was there anyway, looking around and trying to find Harvey Dent. After all, that’s why he crashed the party in the first place. That scene makes a poor appeal to logic because it leaves the audience hanging.
Another troublesome scene is the one in which the Joker blows up the hospital. It’s a stunning scene. The Joker comes out of the hospital, and the hospital blows up in the background. The Joker, wearing a white nurse’s uniform, is walking down the middle of the street. He’s walking, but “walking” is not the best way to describe it. He’s half clomping, half sauntering down the street. What’s strange is that moments before this, he comes out, and reporters and police are swarming around the building. Everyone starts to run when the building blows up, but it’s still concerning to me that all of a sudden, the Joker is all alone, “walking” down the street. Why does no one try to stop him? Why does no one take a shot at him? Where did everyone go? I realize everyone was running for his or her life, but it seems odd to me that no one tried to get to the Joker then. Why? That troubles me. But it IS a great scene. I suppose it’s there for artistic purposes, but the scene defies logic, especially if people are intent on getting their hands on the Joker.
There is also the scene where Harvey is in the back of a police van, and the Joker is trying to stop the van. The police have Harvey in the van because Harvey has claimed to be Batman. The Joker is trying to get Batman, and the Joker thinks that Batman is in the van. Joker and his fellow villains are in some kind of an open diesel, shooting at the van. Several times, we see the diesel with Joker and about four other villains waving their guns and shooting at the police van. The Joker’s vehicle is an open vehicle. They are clinging to the sides, and aiming at the police van. We can clearly see the joker against the sunlit background. He makes a pretty clean target. However, here’s the part that is not logical. Inside of the police van is a driver and another policeman with a big gun. He never tries to shoot at the Joker, who offers himself as an obvious target—outlined by the sunset--several times. Instead, the two officers keep talking about how they need to get back-up. They need someone to help them. Why don’t they at least shoot at the Joker? That makes no sense to me. Take the Joker out for heaven’s sake!
Of course, if the Joker gets “taken out,” then the movie is over, so the Joker can’t be killed, not yet. Batman is the hero of the movie, but that’s where the movie becomes really complex, and that’s one of the good things about the movie. It is complex. It forces the audience to analyze characters and their motives. Batman is an extremely complex character. He functions as a hero, even though he is a vigilante hero. His role as a hero should be to take the Joker out, to make society safe from insane criminals. That’s what a hero would do. Right? Right! He would do whatever needed to be done. He would sacrifice himself, anything. He would offer his life. That’s what heroes do. He would put himself in danger. He would not think of himself. A hero would be the ultimate moral character, and here’s where The Dark Knight movie gets complicated.
Batman is an uneasy hero. As I understand it, Batman has imposed his own set of rules on himself. He will not kill. He wants to make sure that justice is served in the proper way, so he will never take justice into his own hands. This is an important idea in the movie. Batman lives his own higher law, which could be seen as making an appeal to ethos because we are supposed to admire and trust Batman. His behavior can also been considered an appeal to pathos because he inspires admiration for his dedication to his own moral code at great personal expense. The Joker keeps taunting Batman, trying to get Batman to violate his own moral code. In a way, I admire Batman for setting such a noble standard for him own behavior. The Joker believes that if he can make Batman angry enough, Batman will give in to his anger, kill him, and then Batman will become as bad as the Joker. Batman’s intentions are noble. He shows moral fortitude by maintaining his own high standards of behavior.
Batman has several opportunities to kill the Joker, but he does not. For example, he could have run over the Joker in that great scene where he is on his really cool motorcycle, speeding down the road, and the Joker is right in the middle of the road, encouraging Batman to bring it on! He WANTS Batman to plow into him. But Batman has a higher code of honor. So instead, Batman swerves at the last moment, and Batman ends up in the street unconscious, while the newly “undead” Commissioner Gordon arrests the Joker and takes him to jail. Batman also has the chance to kill the Joker at the end of the movie, but after he knocks the Joker off of the building, Batman saves the Joker and leaves him dangling upside-down so that the police can take him back to jail. Batman has his own set of values, and he will not violate them.
Batman’s set of moral codes prevent him from being an effective hero. Because he will not kill the Joker, the Joker goes on killing people. This is even more complex than it sounds. My point is that a hero is a hero often because he suspends rules for himself and for others for the greater good of other people. Take, for example, the heroic man on the plane that crashed into a field instead of into a building during the 9/11 hijackings. What if that man, Todd Beamer, had given himself a higher sense of morals? What if he had decided that he would never take another man’s life? The facts of that day speak for themselves. Todd Beamer made a choice to kill a terrorist, to kill himself, AND to take a chance that his actions might lead to the deaths of over one hundred innocent people on the plane that day. He made that choice in an instant. Was Todd Beamer a hero? Yes. Did he inspire a nation? Yes. Was he a moral man? Yes. Todd Beamer made difficult choices in which he had to suspend the moral codes that he may have set for himself. That’s what Batman fails to do. I realize that I am comparing a real man, a real hero, with a comic book superhero. I do not mean to disrespect real-life heroes. My point is that a hero is often forced to make difficult choices, and if Batman fails to make those kinds of choices, Batman is too rigid. He will not set aside his own code of honor for the greater good. That is selfishness, not heroics.
Here’s one more example to think about. What about the principal at a middle school. A shooter is gunning down innocent students. The principal takes out his own gun, which he has a right to carry, and shoots the shooter. The carnage is halted. Lives are saved. What if that principal had imposed a higher set of morals on himself? What if he had vowed never to kill anyone, no matter what happened? More innocent people might die because the Principal would not set aside his self-imposed morals. In the movie, the Joker has already proven that he will kill with blatant disregard of human life. He has already illustrated over and over again his ability to thwart the proper channels of justice. If there is even the glimmer of a chance that Joker will continue with his insanity, then it is the moral duty of Batman to kill him, the sooner the better. I can excuse Batman for giving the Joker a chance the first time, in the motorcycle scene. Batman gives justice a chance to run its course. However, the second time, Batman should not have taken that chance. It is selfishness on the part of Batman to continue to adhere to a moral code that puts the rest of Gotham City in danger. Ultimately, allowing Batman to adhere so rigidly to his personal moral code reveals a failed attempt to appeal to the emotions of an audience that understands the definition of a true hero. True heroes make difficult moral choices, so maybe the movie was not as complex as I thought. In truth, the complexities of life appeal more appropriately to emotion. This movie portrayed the choices that Batman had as being simply black or white: live his moral code or violate it. In reality, Batman had the option to violate his own moral code and be a true hero who protect the lives of others. Had Batman made THAT choice, the audience could be more emotionally invested in the movie. As it stands, however, the appeal to emotion is shallow.
But then again, The Dark Knight is a movie, and the plot of the movie is to get rid of the Joker. If Batman gets rid of the Joker too soon, then the movie is over, and Batman needs to leave the Joker dangling upside-down at the end. If the Joker were smashed to pieces at the end, Gotham City might sleep better, but then the Joker could not come back in a sequel. And that’s what the audience wants: a sequel. They want a sequel, even one with illogical scenes, more than they want a hero. Well, have the sequel, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that Batman behaved as a hero AND have a sequel.
Notes to self:
The movie successfully appeals to pathos in some ways. Heath Ledger as the Joker scared the crap out of me. Part of this had to do with his performance, but it was enhanced by the fact that he died before the movie was released.
The quote: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
The movie was an action movie. It’s purpose was to thrill audiences with the special effects and the constant action and explosions. But this cost the movie credibility, of course. Even a thriller should be logical, as far as I’m concerned. So, is it illogical to see the confusing scenes as poor appeals to logic? Am I expecting too much here?
Is it a flawed appeal to pathos to see Batman as a failed hero? Or is that more a flawed appeal to ethos? Who should I trust in this case? Batman or the producer?
Is there enough summary of the movie? Do I need more of that?
Does it sound like a rhetorical analysis?
In small groups, talk about these issues and come up with some advice that you might give me.
;Genre: Thriller
Setting: Gotham City, a fantasy world.
Audience: probably younger people, but Batman is an icon that has been around for a long time, so it had a broad audience appeal.
The main conflict. Is it between Batman and his morals or is it to get rid of the Joker?
Resolution. Joker is not dead.
Message? What is the message of this movie? Does it have a message? Would we say that the movie is honoring the moral code of Batman, a man who will not violate his personal standards that are higher than everyone else’s? should I say something about his parents and their murder? He has a unique situation.
People may go to this movie to experience a thrill, which the movie does successfully. The thrills are there, and they give us an emotional release, so in that way, the movie does appeal to pathos successfully. Does this destroy my argument?
Your paper needs to have a Works Cited page. Could use Stephen King? Anything else we have read. Could use Aristotle.
Analyze your movie according to his definitions? Include some of them.
Works cited page should include the movie and at least one source that needs to be blended, not plopped. Must be cited correctly.
Add the trailer?