The Dark Knight Part 2
Review: This film explores all the moral codes of our society.
With regard to Stephen Hawking’s black hole theory - time and space: Can we predict the future? Does God play dice? Hawking says that: “A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings; a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable…. it was found that elementary particles behaved rather like little tops, spinning about an axis. But the amount of spin couldn't have just any value. It had to be some multiple of a basic unit. Because this unit is very small, one does not notice that a normal top really slows down in a rapid sequence of discrete steps, rather than as a continuous process. But for tops as small as atoms, the discrete nature of spin is very important.”
This corresponds to the Domino theory also. When one domino is tippled over, everything else will follow. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As The Joker points out, this is what happens “when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object.”
The British physicist, John Bell, devised an experimental test that would distinguish hidden variable theories. When the experiment was carried out carefully, the results were inconsistent with hidden variables. Thus it seems that even God is bound by the Uncertainty Principle, and can not know both the position, and the speed, of a particle. So God does play dice with the universe. All the evidence points to him being an inveterate gambler, who throws the dice on every possible occasion. This film blatantly challenges God and his role and asks if it is moral for mere mortals to play God.
The people of Gotham opine that Batman thinks that he is above the Law. However, The Joker wants complete anarchy. He does not care who or what is destroyed in the process. To him, destructing things equates to creating things. Attacking things is like painting to him. Blood is his paint and knives are his paintbrushes. He has a hunger for madness and death. He treats it all as one elaborate game with obstacles and subplots, there is no finishing line for him, and he wants to do it forever. It is like the maze in Alice in Wonderland.
One of the main morals in The Dark Knight is that sacrifice itself can be pointless and cowardly rather than noble and fair. Sometimes one cannot control what will happen, so it is pointless to even try to take charge.
In the hospital explosion scene, The Joker washes his hands with sterilising liquid before blowing up the hospital buildings. This may be an indirect parody of how Jesus Christ washes The Disciples’ feet at the Last Supper before he is betrayed by one of them and ultimately crucified by his own people???
Perhaps, one could argue, this movie ridicules religion and uses the persona of The Joker as a parody as regards superheroes and Jesus Christ. There are parallels between them (the comic book character Superman was based on Jesus.) In the Bible, we are told that Jesus lived on earth as man and therefore was of flawed character; he was despised by his own people at the end; mocked and eventually crucified.
Perhaps Batman’s situation is being compared to his; the way the people of Gotham hunt Batman because, as Commissioner Gordon states, “They know that he can take it.” He is an outlaw, like Christ was in the New Testament. We are given the subtle message that the anti-hero is just as important, if not more important, than the hero. Modern society embraces the anti-hero, he is surreal yet real, in other words; the concept of the anti-hero is abstract yet concrete. Alfred reminds Rachel that Batman is not a hero: “He is much more than that.” Rachel responds by stating: “You’re right. Letting Harvey take the fall is not heroic at all.”
Maybe The Joker is not dissimilar to Judas, betraying people, making a mockery of the system and using the system to basically corrupt the moral citizens standing by that system, but unlike Judas, not showing any remorse for it. “All you people care about is money!” He burns the money with joy. He has no motive for all the madness and death. He just does it because he can. There’s truth but no logic.
All in all, The Dark Knight manipulates and weaves all of these concepts, morals and ideas into one long tapestry. It is up to the audience how to view it. The film can be fabricated into something mask-like and completely different to what appears on the surface, or it can be taken at face value; a face or a mirage, an optical illusion or a reflection.
By: Megan Nelis
Image by lamazone on Flickr.
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