Dark Heroes For A Dark Time

Our heroes speak much about ourselves. Most of us are not the heroic sort of people, but inside of us we hold a certain admiration (and maybe a bit of fear) about the type of people we need to preserve the safety and security most of us hold dear. At times of great optimism, our heroes are idealistic servants of the public good, perhaps of a wealthy background, but at any rate serving within the system to fight against an external system of unspeakable evil (think, for example about the Nazis or the Commies in the writings of patriotic Americans of the '40's and '50's, as opposed to the more complicated writings of those who were themselves Communists and who resented the "simplistic" rubric of good and evil). In darker and more corrupt times, our heroes are themselves darker, torn between the duality of good and evil in their natures (a representative of the tension between dark and light in society and in the people themselves), fighting against corrupt authorities, dark and terroristic villains, and the powerful darkness in their own minds and spirits.

Our heroes reflect ourselves because of the (sometimes rather distressing) fact that we see things not as they are, but as we are. As heroes struggle against the great wrongs that people see in the world around them 9whether internal corruption or external threats), those heroes and their environments are a representation of the hopes and fears of the people they reach. In short, it is possible to reconstruct the concerns of a mostly silent (and not particularly articulate) society through the sorts of heroes that are most popular in a given time. Dutiful, hard working heroes (think of Horatio Alger tales) who succeed modestly based on pluck, hard work, virtue, and connections, speak of societies that wish for modest security and believe in the basic justice of the existing social system. On the other hand, the most recent Batman movie, "The Dark Knight," which I will spend the rest of this entry discussing, gives a much darker picture of our times.

At the heart of this movie are a group of sharply individualized characters who represent, in varying amounts, great idealism and cynicism (sometimes in the same person) in a corrupt society of Gotham City which resembles our own society in many powerful and deeply unsettling ways. Batman himself is a dark vigilante, working outside the law because the law is powerless. By day Bruce Wayne is a wealthy playboy served well by able idealists (like Lucius Fox) and a worldly wise butler. The forces of law are represented by the police and the justice system. Commissioner Gordon is representative of the idealistic but powerless forces of the police who are aware of their own limitations of power (he can't even protect himself, much less the city of Gotham, without the help of corrupt fellow cops and Batman, and he is bitterly aware of this weakness, even as he struggles to do the best he can). Harvey Dent, the supposed White Knight of Gotham (but in reality a two-faced, literally and figuratively, character) and his girlfriend and assistant Rachel Dawes (a former girlfriend of Bruce Wayne, the Dark Knight) represent the hard-working and threatened prosecutors, and the judges and mayors fare even worse.

And these are the forces of good. The forces of evil, ultimately including Dent, after he goes insane with rage over the death of his beloved which he was helpless to prevent, are an event more troubled lot. They include a bevy of corrupt cops who are willing to make deals with mobsters and the Joker (the most evil of the lot, a terrorist in love with chaos who nonetheless represents the moral chaos of the world around, personifying it and seeking to corrupt, terrorize, or destroy any who would oppose his nihilistic vision of destruction). The corrupt cops and mobsters (and, pointedly, Chinese businessmen) are knaves, feeling the pinch from Dent and Batman, who seek to rid Gotham of the corruption and vice they peddle and profit from. Their concern for the grubby profits of evil leads them to be surprised when the Joker, who has no such materialistic concerns and who merely wishes for Gotham to be destroyed, betrays them.

In such a dark world we can easily see our own. The ideals of civil servants can become corrupted by dealing with the evil and venality all around them. Cops abuse their power, politicians are controlled by corrupt business interests, and those who defend the law faithfully cannot even defend themselves. The wealthy live a life of insane privilege far beyond the comprehension, much less the reach, of the people, who inhabit "the lower fifth" and view the police and the wealthy and powerful with barely covered mistrust. The great mass of people trudge from day to day without grand hopes and dreams, merely hoping to make it, and greatly hostile (though nearly entirely helpless) against those who would disturb their drudgery. This world is our own, becoming more and more unequal, riven with intra-elite squabbles and great corruption and oppression of the common people. Who can be trusted in this world? Even the great heroes must wear masks and act outside the law (significantly, in darkness and disguise) to defend the people who mistrust them but cannot live without them. Such is our fate, for the heroes we need are not the heroes we deserve, and the heroes we deserve are not the heroes we need. As Dent says truthfully, "We either die as heroes or live to become what we hate." And so it is with us as well.

All of this bodes ill for our world. It would appear that our redemption is outside of our own hands. Though the movie does not explore the means of this redemption in a systematic manner, we may do so here. For one, hope cannot succumb to despair. The power to deliver ourselves from the powerful and deep evil in our midst (which has infected politics, religion, education, law, the family, media, indeed all of our culture and society) cannot come from ourselves, for all of us are darkened by the dark world in which we reside, often in powerful and complicated ways. But are we so corrupted by our world that we cannot recognize and admire the true hero we need to deliver us, Himself unspotted by the world and above all the corruption that we are mired in? Even so, Lord, come.