I saw The Dark Knight yesterday, and it's still on my mind. My initial feelings about it were pretty intensely against it. Thinking about it now, I think that I just felt really shaken. The fact that the movie was able to shake me that way is pretty impressive, I think it definitely points to something about that movie being really well done. To give credit where it's due, this movie was really fascinating, with really interesting, well developed characters, incredible acting, amazing special effects, etc.
However, maybe it's that I was feeling especially sensitive yesterday, or something, but the movie just felt like too much. It was too demented, too dark. I think what troubled me most while I sat there watching it was realizing that there's something about the shock value of horrifying stories and images that's actually attractive to us. What is it that attracts us to movies like The Dark Knight? What's with the morbid fascination with the Joker? Why are we so impressed by the amount of horrific mayhem the Joker is able to carry out without the bat of an eyelash? There's essentially no humanity left in him, something that to me, feels really scary. The extent to which we are privy to all the details of his schemes seems to cross a line to me, pressing dangerously close to glorifying evil and not simply showing it as a part of reality.
Moreover, I think that the kinds of issues presented in TDK were just depressing to me. City dynamics, crime, murder, mental illness...these are all things I personally really care about and am trying to learn to have hope about. If anything, maybe this movie was an exaggerated glimpse of the evil that inhabits the city - if there is anything that's real in Gotham City, it's evil and corruption. In the real world, there is definitely evil. But there is also God, and love, and hope, and redemption, and healing. Maybe 2.5 hours stuck in a godless and hopeless world where faith is dependent only on flawed people and structures (under the false impression that they are perfect) was just too much for me. Furthermore, Batman, the guy who is supposed to be the good guy, had very little redemptive influence in the movie for me. (spoiler: The people on the boats who didn't go through with blowing each other up and the prisoner guy who threw the remote out the window, though...that I really did appreciate.)
I'm glad I watched it, to know what all the hullaballoo was about. But I really can't say that I liked it. Entertaining, sure. Good for my heart? Not so much. The past couple of months have been full of me really trying to approach my moviewatching (and song listening, book reading, etc.) with as much discernment as possible, trying to avoid the whole mindless entertainment thing (which I'm really starting to believe can't be real good for anyone's well being, anyway). Along with that, though, has come a lot of confusing feelings about what is honoring to God to think about and watch and listen to, etc., if that can be different from person to person, and so on. I think it's become something I'm really interested in and care about on both a spiritual and psychological level. I still have a lot to feel and sort and pray through, but I'm sure life will present me with lots of opportunities to keep on processing this kind of thing.
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