Gotham Rises
Evil abounds.
It is one of the seminal aspects of the human condition. All human history is told in terms of either conflict or the steadfast attempts to counter it. We have choices: to submit to evil in fear, to rise to challenge it in kind, or to build up fragile defenses against it with false symbols of security--the better to brush it aside for a while.
There are of course, divergent views on the origins of evil, be they sociological, psychological or religio-philosophical; rival factions vying for the supremacy of their systems for understanding our behavior. Thinkers can debate the epistemology of evil to the point of denying its existence but no honest person can deny that at some point, a personal harm or pain has been felt or recognized. Evil is readily identified by the everyday human person through feelings of horror, fear, dread, and sometimes pain. These feelings are often categorized and filtered through tried but true symbols of justice or right and wrong. Perhaps it cannot be objectively argued that any action is "wrong," but most individuals (hopefully) inherently understand that it is unacceptable to sexually abuse a child for example. We know that loneliness is evil because it leads to despair and some would choose death as an alternative to it. Perhaps one can know that evil exists because one knows it is wrong if it happens to oneself.
On July 20th, at 12:39am, James Holmes (aged 24) walked into a packed movie theater in Aurora Colorado and opened fire, killing 12 people and otherwise injuring 58 people--the numbers are changing as the hours go by and more news is released about the status of the victims. The film whose audience Holmes chose to target was Christopher Nolan's third Batman installment The Dark Knight Rises. Holmes' choice was a significant one.
Like all shootings of its kind, the community has been shocked to its core and garnered the sympathy and prayers of the whole country. It is impossible to ignore the echoes of the shooting which occurred 20 miles away at Columbine high-school in 1999 where 13 people lost their lives, not including the shooters, who took their own. After Aurora police apprehended Holmes, he informed them that his apartment was booby-trapped. Upon investigating, authorities have found a rig of explosives so complex that it will take days to disarm them.
Holmes was a good student until he dropped out of the PHD program for neuroscience at the University of Colorado. He is a man with little to no record of illegal activity--quiet, reclusive. At the time of this writing, no clear motives have been officially cited for Holmes' attack.
It is frightening to consider the relative ease and efficiency with which the attack in Aurora was carried out. It could have happened in any number of densely populated public gatherings. I noted with chills through my spine that our own local "Nordic Fest" in Decorah, IA, with its own densely packed crowds, could have easily been the sight of such a tragedy.
Generally speaking, the ordinary American citizen has a level of familiarity with violence. Soldiers die overseas but citizens move on because they have politicians and corporations to focus the blame upon. Gangland murders occur every day in cities across America (upwards of 400-500+ in cities like Chicago and New York according to the UCR), but these rarely make national headlines because the casualties are generally lower per incident. Holmes' actions in Aurora reach sensation because the tragedy occurred to middle-class, suburban citizens during their leisure time.
When nothing makes sense, it makes sense to try and make sense out of it. Since its beginnings, the cinema has been a place where ordinary people sought to escape from the toil and oppression of ordinary life. It rings true to see good overcome evil even though real life so often tells a different story. However, as others have remarked before, this security afforded by the cinema is ultimately an illusion. Americans have come to expect a certain level of peace and comfort and for a while they were rewarded for that faith. However, the institutions and symbols of our prosperity have been gradually dismantled over the decades. Our schools are no longer safe (Columbine), nor are our national icons (9/11), nor is our economy ("too big to fail"). The cinema was a cathartic release for our country during the aftermath of 9/11--again, trying to make sense when everything around us was falling apart. Cut and dried epics about good and evil such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter saga, and the first Spider-Man films found their American audiences clamoring for steady ground. For a while these kinds of films offered a sense of emotional security in the face of fear and doubt. When audiences entered the cinema, they were safe.
Today we know the cinema is no longer safe and not just physically as James Holmes made so heartrendingly real. The irony is that the films themselves are no longer safe. Of course, the cinema is not always a place to simply be entertained. There have always been filmmakers and audiences who used the medium to contribute to serious discourse and address the realities of the times. It is unusual, though not unheard of when the rhetoric of a mainstream blockbuster will take a stance that reflects the darker side of life.
Soon after the wave of cut and dried epics in the wake of 9/11, the audience's taste began to change. The skepticism and doubt which was being pointed at America's government, systems, and culture were now being directed toward the cinema as well. However, mainstream audiences were not so weary of being sold to that they had lost their appetite for catharsis on the silver screen, only now, their expectations had changed. It was no longer sufficient that good should triumph over evil; the heroes must become scarred to reflect the inner turmoil of the audience.The mainstream heroes could no longer emerge from their conflicts unscathed. After the battle is won, the audience must sense that the pain exacted by the villain does not go away. Justice is served, but the protagonist must lose his or her faith in it. When the evil is extinguished, another must simply rise to take its place so that security and peace can never become reality. These are a few of the wounds suffered by the American film audience and they are hungry for them. Nowhere are these scars better exemplified in mainstream cinema than by Christopher Nolan's Batman films.
The world of Nolan's Batman trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises) is sometimes collectively referred to as the "Nolanverse" in order to separate it from the rest of the Batman mythos. The uber-"realistic" and psycho-analytic tone of Nolan's Batman is combined with a relentless attitude of post-modernism to create some of the darkest, murkiest and most beloved summer blockbusters of the last decade. The Nolanverse operates in stark contrast to the broad, operatic, pop mentality of the preceding Batman films (courtesy of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher). These are frequently derided in favor of the apparent sophistication of Nolan's trilogy. Fun, is now passe in Batman's fictitious Gotham City. The days are over when a hero may emerge from a spectacular explosion with naught else but a nosebleed--unless it is done with tremendous irony or with tongue firmly-in-cheek. There is no irony here. Nolan's Batman is a figure of pain and suffering only this time, he never finds release. The Bruce Wayne who throws parties and dates pretty women is a bitter facade in the Nolanverse. It becomes increasingly clear throughout the trilogy that the mantle of the Batman is a burden for Wayne, one which he senses is ultimately a losing battle.
These films tell the story of a city which is so dark and corrupt that it is special in its depravity. Batman is not an entity unto himself so much as he is a product of Gotham City, a living, breathing machine of moral and physical decay. Gotham City is responsible for producing countless criminals and such maniacs as the Scarecrow, and the Joker, as well as providing an ample playing ground for global fascist conspirators like the fictitious League of Shadows. In The Dark Knight, the Joker character claims to be an "agent of chaos," the inevitable result of generations of Gothamites living in despair. The Joker both embraces and magnifies the darkness and does so seemingly with an air of giddy amusement.
How quickly one can draw comparisons between the Joker's behavior and that of the real life James Holmes. The media has already latched onto the fact that Holmes supposedly told the Aurora police that he was the Joker. Holmes seems to have had no motivation, no agenda to help explain his actions and grant meaning to the tragedy. Likewise, the fictitious Joker supposedly has no political agenda, he just wants "to see the world burn." The truth is however, there is always a motivation for one's choices. The fact that Holmes told the police about the explosives in his apartment indicates that he was not trying to make a particular statement with the violence, or he would have allowed the police to trip the explosives. What Holmes sought in his attack on a movie theater audience was an audience for his pain.
For James Holmes, the unmotivated "agent of chaos" paradigm of the Joker character ultimately times out as a falsehood (as it ultimately does with the Joker for that matter). Of course, it is possible that an insanity plea could rule in Holmes' favor, but that is very unlikely to happen. Either way, the homicidal acts of a sociopath find their genesis not from a place of superiority and dominance, but rather through tragic vulnerability and complete weakness. Holmes' actions tell the story of a man who is utterly crippled; a lifetime of pent-up fear and anger coupled with pitifully inadequate coping mechanisms. In The Dark Knight, we are supposed to be stricken with fear and awe at the figure of the Joker because of his superior intellect, randomness, and his nearly endless ability to exact pain and suffering on Gotham City without recourse. The appropriate reaction to such a figure, as with Holmes, is not awe or fear, but rather pity and sadness.
Holmes and his choices did not live in a vacuum. All human beings suffer evil and all people have scars to show for it. Men like Holmes are not special in this regard. What sets Holmes apart in his response to evil is that out of his pitiable weakness, he lashed out and became partisan to that evil. Whatever Holmes' suffering may have been, his reaction was to attack the Gotham in which he lived; the pleasant looking, suburban, and "safe" middle-class of America. Holmes' Gotham is comprised of people who are secure in their leisure and completely assured of their material privilege. The truth is, this sugar-coated dreamworld can be, in its own way, as corrupt and destructive as Batman's own Gotham City. Every person is born into his or her own Gotham and must somehow come to terms with this hostile environment. The stakes are high in the battle for Gotham and the Batman of Nolan's trilogy knows it.
When considering the three Batman films together, one can see that the trilogy is not really about Batman so much as it is about Gotham City. Nolan's Batman is not simply roaming the streets seeking criminals to put behind bars. Batman is waging an ideological culture-war for the soul of Gotham City itself. While Batman is the central figure of the story, the character's own primary focus is on winning the heart of the city, rather than on a self-centered vendetta. This is especially apparent in the third film, The Dark Knight Rises. Batman does not even have much screen-time in this film. Most of the screen-time seems to be devoted to the "normal" denizens of Gotham City who struggle around the more grandiose figures like Batman or Bane. As the climax rolls in, Batman and Bane are on equal plane with the numerous un-masked characters in the film. While Batman and Bane still maintain prominence in the final melee they are positioned as extensions of Gotham City, not towering giants who battle above it. The film could easily have been titled "Gotham Rises."
Batman can be likened to Abraham of the Old Testament when faced with the horror of Sodom and Gomorrah. Upon learning of the imminent destruction of these depraved cities, Abraham begs of God that if there are but a few godly people remaining within them that God should spare the cities altogether. Batman is likewise faced with a dying city which breeds and attracts unparalleled wickedness and yet he opts to fight an uphill battle for its redemption, if only for the sake of a relative few. As long as there are such a few in Gotham City, the city has a soul to fight for. Whether Batman ultimately succeeds is not the point of his struggle. Batman's hope all along was that the people of Gotham City would rise to address their own suffering and save their city of their own accord--or die trying. That is the story of our Gotham.
The community of Aurora Colorado suffered a tremendous evil when James Holmes chose to murder a group of complete strangers in a local movie theater. There are families there who are forever broken and loved ones who will always miss the dear treasures that were taken from them. Holmes' own family will be haunted by his actions for the rest of their lives. Whatever Holmes' motivations were for assuaging his personal pain through the fear and awe of others, his pain will still be there when the dust settles; and it will be increased all the more for the guilt he now bears. Though the pain in Aurora may die out after a while, the scars of this tragedy will remain, as they do for all who survive and live.
It is impossible to determine the exact intentions behind why James Holmes chose The Dark Knight Rises as the venue for his violence without resorting to conjecture. The hope for understanding more about Holmes' motivations might help grant some meaning to the tragedy, but it would be a mere balm for a wound which cannot be fully healed. It could be that there was no significant connection at all. Notwithstanding, Nolan's Batman trilogy presents a picture of the world which in many ways reflects our own: a broken city, a scarred people, evil committed by the hands of the weak, heroes who strive to inspire, and hope for restoration and peace.
Evil, as we name it, will live on. It does not matter how far we run or how sound our defenses are; evil will find us in one form or another. Our betters cannot save us from it. Our culture makers cannot save us. Our government cannot save us. No one can save us. But after we are struck down, we will not be destroyed; our Gotham will rise.
It is one of the seminal aspects of the human condition. All human history is told in terms of either conflict or the steadfast attempts to counter it. We have choices: to submit to evil in fear, to rise to challenge it in kind, or to build up fragile defenses against it with false symbols of security--the better to brush it aside for a while.
There are of course, divergent views on the origins of evil, be they sociological, psychological or religio-philosophical; rival factions vying for the supremacy of their systems for understanding our behavior. Thinkers can debate the epistemology of evil to the point of denying its existence but no honest person can deny that at some point, a personal harm or pain has been felt or recognized. Evil is readily identified by the everyday human person through feelings of horror, fear, dread, and sometimes pain. These feelings are often categorized and filtered through tried but true symbols of justice or right and wrong. Perhaps it cannot be objectively argued that any action is "wrong," but most individuals (hopefully) inherently understand that it is unacceptable to sexually abuse a child for example. We know that loneliness is evil because it leads to despair and some would choose death as an alternative to it. Perhaps one can know that evil exists because one knows it is wrong if it happens to oneself.
On July 20th, at 12:39am, James Holmes (aged 24) walked into a packed movie theater in Aurora Colorado and opened fire, killing 12 people and otherwise injuring 58 people--the numbers are changing as the hours go by and more news is released about the status of the victims. The film whose audience Holmes chose to target was Christopher Nolan's third Batman installment The Dark Knight Rises. Holmes' choice was a significant one.
Like all shootings of its kind, the community has been shocked to its core and garnered the sympathy and prayers of the whole country. It is impossible to ignore the echoes of the shooting which occurred 20 miles away at Columbine high-school in 1999 where 13 people lost their lives, not including the shooters, who took their own. After Aurora police apprehended Holmes, he informed them that his apartment was booby-trapped. Upon investigating, authorities have found a rig of explosives so complex that it will take days to disarm them.
Holmes was a good student until he dropped out of the PHD program for neuroscience at the University of Colorado. He is a man with little to no record of illegal activity--quiet, reclusive. At the time of this writing, no clear motives have been officially cited for Holmes' attack.
It is frightening to consider the relative ease and efficiency with which the attack in Aurora was carried out. It could have happened in any number of densely populated public gatherings. I noted with chills through my spine that our own local "Nordic Fest" in Decorah, IA, with its own densely packed crowds, could have easily been the sight of such a tragedy.
Generally speaking, the ordinary American citizen has a level of familiarity with violence. Soldiers die overseas but citizens move on because they have politicians and corporations to focus the blame upon. Gangland murders occur every day in cities across America (upwards of 400-500+ in cities like Chicago and New York according to the UCR), but these rarely make national headlines because the casualties are generally lower per incident. Holmes' actions in Aurora reach sensation because the tragedy occurred to middle-class, suburban citizens during their leisure time.
When nothing makes sense, it makes sense to try and make sense out of it. Since its beginnings, the cinema has been a place where ordinary people sought to escape from the toil and oppression of ordinary life. It rings true to see good overcome evil even though real life so often tells a different story. However, as others have remarked before, this security afforded by the cinema is ultimately an illusion. Americans have come to expect a certain level of peace and comfort and for a while they were rewarded for that faith. However, the institutions and symbols of our prosperity have been gradually dismantled over the decades. Our schools are no longer safe (Columbine), nor are our national icons (9/11), nor is our economy ("too big to fail"). The cinema was a cathartic release for our country during the aftermath of 9/11--again, trying to make sense when everything around us was falling apart. Cut and dried epics about good and evil such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter saga, and the first Spider-Man films found their American audiences clamoring for steady ground. For a while these kinds of films offered a sense of emotional security in the face of fear and doubt. When audiences entered the cinema, they were safe.
Today we know the cinema is no longer safe and not just physically as James Holmes made so heartrendingly real. The irony is that the films themselves are no longer safe. Of course, the cinema is not always a place to simply be entertained. There have always been filmmakers and audiences who used the medium to contribute to serious discourse and address the realities of the times. It is unusual, though not unheard of when the rhetoric of a mainstream blockbuster will take a stance that reflects the darker side of life.
Soon after the wave of cut and dried epics in the wake of 9/11, the audience's taste began to change. The skepticism and doubt which was being pointed at America's government, systems, and culture were now being directed toward the cinema as well. However, mainstream audiences were not so weary of being sold to that they had lost their appetite for catharsis on the silver screen, only now, their expectations had changed. It was no longer sufficient that good should triumph over evil; the heroes must become scarred to reflect the inner turmoil of the audience.The mainstream heroes could no longer emerge from their conflicts unscathed. After the battle is won, the audience must sense that the pain exacted by the villain does not go away. Justice is served, but the protagonist must lose his or her faith in it. When the evil is extinguished, another must simply rise to take its place so that security and peace can never become reality. These are a few of the wounds suffered by the American film audience and they are hungry for them. Nowhere are these scars better exemplified in mainstream cinema than by Christopher Nolan's Batman films.
The world of Nolan's Batman trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises) is sometimes collectively referred to as the "Nolanverse" in order to separate it from the rest of the Batman mythos. The uber-"realistic" and psycho-analytic tone of Nolan's Batman is combined with a relentless attitude of post-modernism to create some of the darkest, murkiest and most beloved summer blockbusters of the last decade. The Nolanverse operates in stark contrast to the broad, operatic, pop mentality of the preceding Batman films (courtesy of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher). These are frequently derided in favor of the apparent sophistication of Nolan's trilogy. Fun, is now passe in Batman's fictitious Gotham City. The days are over when a hero may emerge from a spectacular explosion with naught else but a nosebleed--unless it is done with tremendous irony or with tongue firmly-in-cheek. There is no irony here. Nolan's Batman is a figure of pain and suffering only this time, he never finds release. The Bruce Wayne who throws parties and dates pretty women is a bitter facade in the Nolanverse. It becomes increasingly clear throughout the trilogy that the mantle of the Batman is a burden for Wayne, one which he senses is ultimately a losing battle.
These films tell the story of a city which is so dark and corrupt that it is special in its depravity. Batman is not an entity unto himself so much as he is a product of Gotham City, a living, breathing machine of moral and physical decay. Gotham City is responsible for producing countless criminals and such maniacs as the Scarecrow, and the Joker, as well as providing an ample playing ground for global fascist conspirators like the fictitious League of Shadows. In The Dark Knight, the Joker character claims to be an "agent of chaos," the inevitable result of generations of Gothamites living in despair. The Joker both embraces and magnifies the darkness and does so seemingly with an air of giddy amusement.
How quickly one can draw comparisons between the Joker's behavior and that of the real life James Holmes. The media has already latched onto the fact that Holmes supposedly told the Aurora police that he was the Joker. Holmes seems to have had no motivation, no agenda to help explain his actions and grant meaning to the tragedy. Likewise, the fictitious Joker supposedly has no political agenda, he just wants "to see the world burn." The truth is however, there is always a motivation for one's choices. The fact that Holmes told the police about the explosives in his apartment indicates that he was not trying to make a particular statement with the violence, or he would have allowed the police to trip the explosives. What Holmes sought in his attack on a movie theater audience was an audience for his pain.
For James Holmes, the unmotivated "agent of chaos" paradigm of the Joker character ultimately times out as a falsehood (as it ultimately does with the Joker for that matter). Of course, it is possible that an insanity plea could rule in Holmes' favor, but that is very unlikely to happen. Either way, the homicidal acts of a sociopath find their genesis not from a place of superiority and dominance, but rather through tragic vulnerability and complete weakness. Holmes' actions tell the story of a man who is utterly crippled; a lifetime of pent-up fear and anger coupled with pitifully inadequate coping mechanisms. In The Dark Knight, we are supposed to be stricken with fear and awe at the figure of the Joker because of his superior intellect, randomness, and his nearly endless ability to exact pain and suffering on Gotham City without recourse. The appropriate reaction to such a figure, as with Holmes, is not awe or fear, but rather pity and sadness.
Holmes and his choices did not live in a vacuum. All human beings suffer evil and all people have scars to show for it. Men like Holmes are not special in this regard. What sets Holmes apart in his response to evil is that out of his pitiable weakness, he lashed out and became partisan to that evil. Whatever Holmes' suffering may have been, his reaction was to attack the Gotham in which he lived; the pleasant looking, suburban, and "safe" middle-class of America. Holmes' Gotham is comprised of people who are secure in their leisure and completely assured of their material privilege. The truth is, this sugar-coated dreamworld can be, in its own way, as corrupt and destructive as Batman's own Gotham City. Every person is born into his or her own Gotham and must somehow come to terms with this hostile environment. The stakes are high in the battle for Gotham and the Batman of Nolan's trilogy knows it.
When considering the three Batman films together, one can see that the trilogy is not really about Batman so much as it is about Gotham City. Nolan's Batman is not simply roaming the streets seeking criminals to put behind bars. Batman is waging an ideological culture-war for the soul of Gotham City itself. While Batman is the central figure of the story, the character's own primary focus is on winning the heart of the city, rather than on a self-centered vendetta. This is especially apparent in the third film, The Dark Knight Rises. Batman does not even have much screen-time in this film. Most of the screen-time seems to be devoted to the "normal" denizens of Gotham City who struggle around the more grandiose figures like Batman or Bane. As the climax rolls in, Batman and Bane are on equal plane with the numerous un-masked characters in the film. While Batman and Bane still maintain prominence in the final melee they are positioned as extensions of Gotham City, not towering giants who battle above it. The film could easily have been titled "Gotham Rises."
Batman can be likened to Abraham of the Old Testament when faced with the horror of Sodom and Gomorrah. Upon learning of the imminent destruction of these depraved cities, Abraham begs of God that if there are but a few godly people remaining within them that God should spare the cities altogether. Batman is likewise faced with a dying city which breeds and attracts unparalleled wickedness and yet he opts to fight an uphill battle for its redemption, if only for the sake of a relative few. As long as there are such a few in Gotham City, the city has a soul to fight for. Whether Batman ultimately succeeds is not the point of his struggle. Batman's hope all along was that the people of Gotham City would rise to address their own suffering and save their city of their own accord--or die trying. That is the story of our Gotham.
The community of Aurora Colorado suffered a tremendous evil when James Holmes chose to murder a group of complete strangers in a local movie theater. There are families there who are forever broken and loved ones who will always miss the dear treasures that were taken from them. Holmes' own family will be haunted by his actions for the rest of their lives. Whatever Holmes' motivations were for assuaging his personal pain through the fear and awe of others, his pain will still be there when the dust settles; and it will be increased all the more for the guilt he now bears. Though the pain in Aurora may die out after a while, the scars of this tragedy will remain, as they do for all who survive and live.
It is impossible to determine the exact intentions behind why James Holmes chose The Dark Knight Rises as the venue for his violence without resorting to conjecture. The hope for understanding more about Holmes' motivations might help grant some meaning to the tragedy, but it would be a mere balm for a wound which cannot be fully healed. It could be that there was no significant connection at all. Notwithstanding, Nolan's Batman trilogy presents a picture of the world which in many ways reflects our own: a broken city, a scarred people, evil committed by the hands of the weak, heroes who strive to inspire, and hope for restoration and peace.
Evil, as we name it, will live on. It does not matter how far we run or how sound our defenses are; evil will find us in one form or another. Our betters cannot save us from it. Our culture makers cannot save us. Our government cannot save us. No one can save us. But after we are struck down, we will not be destroyed; our Gotham will rise.
posted by Your humble servant at 9:31 PM
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