For: strong relativism and moral confusion, and strong languageThe Dark Knight is a spiritually disturbing movie, and that has nothing to do with the fact that the diabolical villain is by far the strongest and longest lingering memory when the film is over. Loaded with all manner of grisly, sudden and intense violence, The Dark Knight’s grimmest point turns out to be the ending, when the heroes attempt to fight evil with evil, self-consciously rejecting truth, condemning the righteous and justifying the wicked, and thereby descending into diabolical villainy themselves.
Strong Relativism and Moral Confusion
The Batman’s final lines, as he finishes mutilating his public and private representation of good against evil, right against wrong, are the jolting declaration, “the truth isn’t good enough… people deserve more… people deserve to have their faith rewarded.” Truth may or may not be absolute in Batman/Bruce Wayne’s mind. It’s a comparatively minor question. What he says is that to lie is better, and that he is the moral authority who decides when truth works and when it doesn’t. With the millions of Gotham having wrongly set all their hope on the natural goodness of the public figure D.A. Harvey Dent, Batman/Bruce Wayne—one of only a handful of surviving witnesses of Harvey Dent’s maniacal killing spree—having accidentally caused Harvey’s death just moments before the next victim was to be murdered, plots with Police Commissioner Gordon to, not only implicate an innocent man in Dent’s graphic homicides, but “hunt” him down and “condemn” him… “because that’s what needs to happen” to prop up Gotham city’s already unbiblical and unfounded belief in the basic goodness1 of a single depraved man. Both Batman and Commissioner Gordon are willing to bear false witness in a homicide case2—to condemn the righteous in order to justify the wicked3. They aren’t even sacrificing a life for the sake of another life. Their only goal is to deceive millions of people into thinking that a villain was a hero. The two of them commit to going all the way in their scheme, barring personally handing over the innocent man for execution (preferring to let him be gunned down by the police on sight).
The nihilistic pronouncement, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” is repeated by both Harvey Dent and Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Batman/Bruce Wayne taps thousands of private citizens’ telephone calls without their knowledge or consent. If Bruce Wayne was working for the government, this would be perceived as immoral. It’s perceived as immoral by other characters, as well, but is excused on the grounds that he doesn’t do it on a regular basis.
Batman/Bruce Wayne goes to Hong Kong and kidnaps a Chinese citizen, beats up several other Chinese citizens, and blows up the side of a Chinese sky scraper, in order to get the man back in Gotham’s jurisdiction where he was wanted on suspicion of crimes. In real life, if the man had been an American citizen, and the masked kidnapper a Middle Easterner, beating up other Americans and blowing up American skyscrapers, he (Batman) would be considered a terrorist.
The Batman is said, by attorneys, to be “an outlaw” who (emphasis added) “will have to answer for the laws he has broken.” Batman/Bruce Wayne is not merely misunderstood in The Dark Knight, he’s a criminal even before the ending.
Batman tortures, by beating, a man being held in prison, to get him to confess.
Strong Language
J---s
J---s
J---s
J---s
G-d
G-d
G-d
G-d
d-mn
d-mn
h-ll
h-ll
h-ll
h-ll
h-ll
h-ll
b-tch
a--
a--
bl--dy
bl--dy
bl--dy
bl--dy
1 See Romans 3:9-18
2 To show how seriously God takes perjury, under biblical law (given by God, and therefore morally flawless) anyone caught bearing false witness against someone was to be sentenced with whatever sentence had been hanging over the innocent person’s head (see Deuteronomy 19:16-21). In this case, Police Commissioner Gordon is committing a capital crime. If the conspiracy didn’t go as planned and they were caught, biblically there would be no just reason to lighten the penalty if he was given the death sentence. If the conspiracy did go as planned, Batman/Bruce Wayne—who was the “innocent” man being charged with all of Harvey Dent’s murders—would himself be gunned down or executed, making Commissioner Gordon an accessory to murder. Assuming it was stopped before anyone was injured, the conspiracy itself, and actions involved in it, would at minimum guarantee prison sentences for both Gordon and Batman/Bruce Wayne, under U.S. law… if justice was served.
3 Proverbs 17:15
