Batman and Christ

Again and again, I have noticed how popular culture gives us the messiah we want. The latest Batman movie, the Dark Knight, shows us another glimpse at that messiah. Batman fights the demons that threaten civilized society. In this case, Batman must challenge the Joker who represents nihilism and the dark nature which lies just beneath the surface of civilization.

Batman simply understood is a messiah figure. He is a savior who mercilessly destroys the forces of evil through intelligence, brawn and superior firepower. Where the police, National Guard, and average citizens cannot defeat the bad guys, a figure from above saves the day with an arsenal from Wayne Industries.

Note that this messiah is not a Christ figure. In fact, Batman is the messiah that we have always wanted. Unlike the Jesus who died at the hands of the occupying Roman forces, the messiah that we desire would kick those Roman bastards out of the Holy Land.

What is exciting about this new movie is that the Joker forces Batman to explore the darker side of his nature. What is the difference between Batman and the Joker? Both utilize violence effectively. Both have faces which are hidden. Both stand outside of societal norms. One is a defender, and the other a destroyer. Again and again, the Joker attempts to provoke Batman to reveal that the difference is ever so slight.

Batman sees the danger himself. That’s why he “believes in Harvey Dent.” Batman wants to empower Harvey, the District Attorney, to be the hero who plays by the rules. Likewise, near the end of the movie, there is a moral dilemma of using incredible power to locate the Joker. Batman puts the power in the hands of another to protect himself from temptation. Even Batman realizes that he must be careful less he becomes what he fights. That’s the problem with our worldly messiahs. The defender again and again becomes the destroyer.

Jesus Christ suggests another way. When facing the principalities and powers, he refuses to fight by their rules. In fact, he dies as a criminal on a cross charged with blasphemy and sedition. What he did makes no sense to us. It certainly is not the stuff of a summer blockbuster hit. As Paul writes, “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Somehow through that very act of sacrifice and suffering, Christ becomes triumphant. As Paul also states,

[Jesus Christ], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

Jesus accepts the burden of our sins to succeed over them. He pays the price because only he can. Jesus triumphs over the principalities and powers precisely because he is not seduced by them. Joker’s temptation is to play the game. Once you play, you have already lost.

Dark Knight and Joker

I saw the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It was incredible. It actually transcended the genre of superhero movie. Clearly, Heath Ledger’s Joker is the star of the movie and is the movie’s most intriguing character. Jack Nicholson’s 1989 portrayal of the Joker was funny and macabre. This new Joker is twisted, dark and nihilistic.

The movie plays on the tension between civilization and barbarism. It basically accepts a psychology in which human beings are inherently sinful. Society establishes structures and procedures which keep our sinful nature in check. Without the veneer of civilization, our lives, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, are “nasty, brutish, and short.” One of the ironies of civilized life is that controlled violence (in the form of police, the military, or a superhero) keeps the barbaric forces at bay.

The Joker sees the inherent contradiction and concludes that civilization is simply a sick joke. We wear a painted face with a smile that hides the dark truth about our nature. He spends the rest of the movie chipping away at the façade. He goads the District Attorney, the police, and Batman to show their true colors. Standing in front of a burning pile of money, the Joker states, “This town deserves a better class of criminals, and I’m going to give it to ‘em.” Even the criminal who is motivated by greed is inferior to the one who realizes that civil society is farce. After all, the money desired by the petty criminal is in fact a product of civilization. As Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred, observes, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. He can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

The Dark Knight explores the same issues that many war movies, police dramas, and even some westerns take up. How can the civilizing forces of violence fight the bad guys without becoming the bad guys themselves?

Star Wars and Pretension

Yes, the thirtieth anniversary of Star Wars is a big deal. Before I knew Aristotle, Nietzsche, or Wittgenstein, I knew Yoda. Before I knew Athanasius, John Calvin, or David Bosch, I knew Obi Wan Kenobi. For better or worse, the movies helped define me. I understand the heroic partly thanks to Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. Yes, I am a geek.

As pretentious as that last paragraph, I was overwhelmed tonight by the History Channel’s special, Star Wars Revealed. They trudged out religious scholars, classicists, film critics, journalists, and the rest. Everyone spoke such grandiose and intellectual cheese that I needed a good reality check.

The story of Luke Skywalker and the redemption of Darth Vader is more based on westerns, war movies, and pulp science fiction than heroic myths and biblical motifs. If the movies connect on larger themes found in classical literature, that only acknowledges that our culture is saturated with those themes. George Lucas, when he is at his best, is simply a good story-teller. When he is at his worst, Howard the Duck.

He also grabs and borrows from everywhere. Tatooine, The desert homeworld of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, bares a striking resemblance to the planet Dune in the books by Frank Herbert. Coruscant, the political center of the Star Wars universe, is cribbed from Trantor, a planet in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

Unfortunately, Joseph Campbell came along and claimed that Star Wars fit his broad generalizations of the world’s mythologies. Although interesting, many of the connections seemed forced. Steven Hart does a pretty good job deflating much of the myth of Campbell’s analysis. At one point, Hart writes,

If this is the level of analysis at work, then why should this myth-mongering stop with Lucas? The original "Rocky," released the year before "Star Wars," follows Campbell's mythic template much more closely than "Star Wars": just imagine Burgess Meredith as the wise old sage, Burt Young as the guardian of the threshold and Carl Weathers as Darth Vader. (Pop quiz: Where do the pet turtles fit in?) Campbell's approach can give any adventure story, from "Bulldog Drummond" to "The Perils of Pauline," a place in the pantheon. In fact, his acolytes are hard at work doing just that with such movies as “The Matrix” and “The Wizard of Oz.” It adds up to little more than a party game for drunken grad students, or a smoke screen for filmmakers covering their tracks.

Star Wars helped define my generation, but it isn’t profound. It’s a Rorschach test on celluloid. For many, Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers stand in for Hitler and his Storm Troopers. One black film critic from the History Channel special noted that Darth Vader reminded him of pimps from inner-city Detroit. As viewers in Prague saw Star Wars for the first time in 1991, there was no doubt that the evil Empire was the Soviet Union. The Emperor Palpatine is George W. Bush, Clifton Kirkpatrick or Dean Wormer depending on your perspective.

Unfortunately, as George Lucas added the prequels and modified the originals, he has actually muddied the waters. The Force which was never very coherent, now makes little sense. “Trust your feelings,” we are told, yet a Jedi must set aside his emotions. The midi-chlorians turns the Jedi from a order of space Jesuit/Ninjas, who have received the proper training and discipline, to a group of supermen with the right blood.

Still, I love the movies. I enjoy sharing them with my son. Perhaps, the best advice is Han Solo’s to Luke Skywalker as the Millenium Falcon makes its escape from the Death Star, “Don’t get cocky, kid.”