“The Dark Knight” was a great movie. I saw it 4 times in theaters, the last being in IMAX. I think the movie is by far the greatest Batman movie ever made and wanted others to see it. But, I feel the world fell in love with it for the wrong reasons.
Ask people what they like about “The Dark Knight” and you will most likely hear the Joker brought up. Some like the character because of the performance by Heath Ledger, and they should; Ledger portrayed the Joker better than anyone else has. Others say they like the character because of how bad he is, and they should; the Joker really got to cut loose in the movie. But, I have yet to hear someone say they like it because of Batman.
Is that sad? You might not think so. But, to me, I see this as a problem. We have elevated the villain character above the hero. Why? Batman was performed by Christian Bale, who is the best Batman to date, and who is a great actor. Batman got to be more like Batman than any other film. So, why do we love the film for the villain?
I can understand why we do enjoy a good villain. They get to be evil, which we don’t get to be. They tend to be more charismatic, have better lines, and break more things. I also believe without a good villain, it’s hard to have a good hero. “The Dark Knight” has a great villain, so why don’t we say it has a great hero?
I worry sometimes that we are becoming a society who looks for evil as entertainment. I don’t mean this as in we seek out evil media like movies and tv, but the content in these films. Why do we have six “Saw” films and more to come? Why do we hope the Joker kills more people than before? Why do we not want the heroes to succeed anymore? Have we become so jaded on true heroes that we can even pretend with fake ones? Do we love the Joker because he fits the world as we know it better than Batman? Have we really reached the point where villains are easier to relate to than heroes?
0 comments:
Post a Comment