The Dark Knight/Night

So I saw the highly commercialised and highly appraised new Batman movie. It's kinda hard to like a movie that has been so much in the celebrity headlines, surrounded by an armada of gossip, tragic stories/scandals (Heath Ledger's death and the rumours that he'll posthumously be awarded an Oscar; Christian Bale apparently beating up his mother and sis'; Morgan Freeman getting caught in a car accident with his long-time mistress - boy, I guess you could make another movie out of all these stories). But, fact is, I did really like it. And I think if anyone deserves a posthumous Oscar, Heath Ledger is the man (and I won't go into the pros and cons of the presumed quality or non-quality of Oscars at this point).

What I find most interesting about this movie and its "message", is how it debates the whole concept of "freaks". If you've read your Foucault (and those who know me know I haven't merely read Foucault, but consider it as my bible), one of the first associations that comes to your mind is that a society of "normals", the "everyday people", fundamentally need the abnormal and deviant, the freaks. The abnormal is the negative pattern in relation to which we define our "normalness". You know, the whole concept of the oppositions being constituted by each other, A is only A because it's not B, etc. (Saussure, Derrida, Butler, blablabla - you get the picture).

I think Foucault also said that in the modern western world, the abnormal are somewhat integrated in the society of normals; like a "fold" (I love when he writes about folds; one day I'll write a paper about the concept of fold with Foucault) - what he calls, if I remember correctly, heterotopies: If you're sick, you're going to the hospital; if you're a lunatic, you're going to the looney bin; if you're a criminal, you're going to jail. You're locked up, but you're locked up in institutions of the society. We wouldn't like to have people like the Joker (or Batman, for that matter), running around loose (and, obvioulsy, that's what the whole movie is about: capturing the Joker - and Batman to some extend as well -, in order to lock him up. Though why they want to put him in jail is sort of debatable. You could also send him to the looney bin.). But hospitals, mental asylums, and jails are sort of non-places: You're in the grip of society (at the utmost point of its control, actually), but also outside of "the normal life", outside of society. Those places are sign posts to the world of the "normals": if you don't behave like the others, you'll end up in a cell, and get dinner served at 5 pm. (Suzanna Kaysen has a lot to say about this in Girl, Interrupted. The following quote, for example, is very Foucauldian, I think: "It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.")

Let me also dilettantishly divage into the theory of psychoanalysis: One of the main concepts of psychonalysis is about creating a heterotopia within yourself, to speak in Foucauldian terms. The major developmental/cultural assignement is to create a space within yourself where you relegate all the agressive, psychotic, narcisstic, etc. impulses (what is considered "abnormal" and therefore not accepted by culture) into a mental space, the unconscious. A place that, even though it is within your mental landscape and rules a lot of your conscious life without you even noticing, is not accessible anymore, lost forever; a non-place. And should you have the unfavourable idea of regressing towards it, you'll end up in a mental asylum under heavy medication.

In ancient, mythical/religious times or cultures - to give one more example - , communities would select a person, a scaptegoat, that would symbolize all the evil and "abnormal", and kill him or her - sacrifice, as they say. (And maybe this is why the western world - and Christianity - is considered so 'civilized': We don't kill people anymore, we just look them up. Which is a form of social death anyway, to speak with Butler).

Coming back to the movie, here are a couple of things I found noticeable in regard to what I've just said: First of all, I think it becomes pretty clear that we need the freaks in order to feel our own "normalness"; and that works for both the fictional world of characters in the movie, as for the "real" audience watching it. Looking at the Joker, we (or I) tend to have the impulse "Thank god, I'm not like him". Not only in terms of "woa, he's just a psycho, and I'm normal, and I know how normal I am when I look at him", but also because you tend to feel sorry for him (at least, that's what I did). You know, deprived childhood, very literally "marked by life", all that sort of stuff. Secondly, it makes a statement (very banal, if you like, but still) that the line between being a "good" (read: normal) person, and being an outcast is actually pretty thin, if you think about it. (See the quote from Girl, Interrupted above: It is easy to slip into a parallel universe.) Thirdly, what I think is most striking, because we think about it so little: If you're a hero, you're abnormal as well. Batman does not live a "normal" life either (no girl, no friends, money galore). Batman is a freak just like the Joker is. And ultimately, he becomes a scapegoat - he becomes all that society wants him to be; the ultimate abject, the freak. The very last voice-over says something about him being the "dark knight"; him chosing not to be a hero, but a scapegoat, because a scapegoat is what Gotham needs, and its people need it more than a hero (which is a very interesting turn, I think. Maybe the superhero-function of our times is the freak, who, by his abject status can break all the rules, all the boundaries, thus paradoxically becoming a scapegoat. Think about the fascination and the fear we have of terrorists.)

And finally, I think there was (but I'm not sure since I saw the German version and not the original version), a very nice play of homophony about the title: At one point, the star attorney (who is the "white knight" through big parts of the movie) makes this speech defending Batman, comparing the fact that through Batman's actions things might have become worse to some extend (the Joker showing up, criminality getting worse and more fierce, etc.), with the night being at darkest before dawn. So, you know, Batman aka the dark knight symbolizes the absolute downfall, the darkest point of the night before things get better. You have to sacrifice a person in order to make things better; but that moment, when you sacrifice one life to save thousands of others, is the darkest moment.

Oh, and last reason why I loved that movie: Maggie Gyllenhaal. She's a hottie.