RambLings on The Dark (K)Night: PrescripTion JeLLybeans and CanDied PiLLs

DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE WATCHED THE DARK KNIGHT AND/OR ARE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS.

SPOILERS!!!

**********************************you'vebeenwarned***********************************

I just came back from watching The Dark Knight and was profoundly disturbed and moved towards picking apart all of this - sure, about "what does this all mean" but more like, what does this mean to me? Because I think I know how mainstream audiences who watch this simply for entertainment value sees this, "How tragic, this huge sacrifice Batman made on behalf of the people" - unconsciously, "the people" standing in for "democracy" - but for me, "the people" standing in for the sheep. For sometimes sheep are in wolves' clothing and vice versa.

There are a bunch of thematic mini critiques and some missteps along the way, but all in all an interesting film that should be dissected "as is."

The thing is, I did not find the Joker to be the villain of the piece. My housemate goes so far as to glorify and romanticize the Joker, but I don't go so far as that. I don't think this piece has any villains. Perhaps I've been watching too much Zeitgeist, listening to too much Jordan Maxwell and looking too much into the Mayan calendar, the foretold 2012 and how this all ties in with a New World Order versus the New Paradigm. I'm still processing a lot of it with its connections to planetary movement and how much weight our world leaders put in symbology, but gahhh!

Okay, let's start with symbology and why there are no villains in The Dark Knight.

Like Horus vs Set, there is initially Batman and the Joker with their copycat counterparts. The only difference is that the Joker has control over his counterparts by a total disregard for rules and agreements whereas Batman has no control over his copycats by his own codes of moral conduct and "honor." Sometimes, like Lee Adama in the courtroom, too much self righteous nobility can be a sinister thing, indeed.

But the writer and Christopher Nolan complicate the Horus vs Set/Day vs Night order by inserting Harvey Dent -- who starts out as the "White Knight" who fights crime by day while Batman fights crime by night -- who descends into darkness/madness after Rachael is killed. (OyL. Can Hollywood STOP using heterowomyn as SYMBOLS of nationhood and social justice to be fought over?! We're people, too!! Gah!)

Like the introduction of the Joker's crones and Batman's copycats, nothing is as it appears. The 1st clown we see is not the Joker and the 1st "batman" we see is not Batman.

Gotham City is as topsy turvy as it ever was, even with the futile enforcement of law to keep the city under "control," under some kind of order. But there is no order and the Law turns out to be just as illusory as the money the Joker burns up at the end. What I find interesting is that we never find the identity of the Joker, though we know the identities of 2 Face and Batman in their civilian attire. Perhaps a critique of those who have a foot in both worlds... and perhaps not. In either case, having a foot in both worlds leaves one vulnerable because under one guise, one must play by the rules of social order in order to survive under its rule.

Basically, what keeps a city running but its laws? Its illusions? It's just as vulnerable to anarchy as those who can see through these invisible reigns of order and justice. Like money. It's not real. It doesn't hold real value. It's just paper that's a Symbol for value.

And here's where we descend into real Darkness. When we spend too much energy fighting for Symbols. But symbols are only as powerful as you believe them to be. The Joker has power as long as there is a Batman and vice versa. One cannot be imbued with meaning without the other.

Yes, when Joker pretends to play by rules, by a set of instructions, civilians are uncomfortable, but swallow his execution of fellow citizens. But once the Mayor's life is on the line, oh, lord, "heaven help" the Joker. Because the Mayor is a Symbol, you see. The Mayor STANDS for something.

Why does Batman take the fall in the end? Because Harvey Dent STOOD for something. Because the people/sheep need something to believe in. Because without sheep, our illusions and daydreams cannot be built into a concrete "reality" of skyscrapers and H&M's. Because Symbols are what keeps things in some semblance of order. Even the Joker, in the end, has to respect that. Because he, himself, is a symbol of total Anarchy. And therein lies his Achilles Heel -- that he has become more of a Symbol than the ones he is using to destroy the System by which the city and "society" runs by. Basically -- he must fight Anarchy in order to enact a controlled semblance of Anarchy. If that makes any sort of sense.

But let's pay attention to that... to the Joker, I suppose. With the Joker, the only thing consistent about him is his inconsistency and his craving for the darker side of the willy nilly. You can consider him the black, snuffed out side of Harvey Dent's coin, the ravaged side of Harvey Dent's face. Even as how he got his scars, how he got "crazy" -- you never know because the story always changes. In letting go of order, the Joker is able to control the structured, ordered world around him. Pull people's strings. Know how to push them over the edge.

His saving grace is that he knows how to disrupt the system...though, in the end, I don't think that's what he REALLY wants. He only toys with the idea with never taking it across the line. That, he leaves up to the sheep. If anything, the world is his stage -- he gives life to his puppets and let them duke it out and take full responsibility in the end. He only sets up the circumstances.

That's what I admire about the Joker. He forces people to take responsibility for their choices.

Here's where Ideology versus Tools duke it out.

Ideology is a set of beliefs or dogma one adheres to so that one is absolved of ever being truly responsible for one's own choices. One is responsible for the upholding of the belief, but never the self. "Well... I voted for him cuz I'm leftist..." or "I'm protesting that cuz I'm a feminist." or "I blew up the abortion clinic because Christ compelled me to."

People who adhere to ideology let ideology take the fall for their actions. Their arrest? It was in the name of something. The shooting of civilians? It was for the "belief" in "democracy." But it's never really, "I killed" or "I hurt," you see? It's the belief in something. That's where I disagree with Batman.

He doesn't like his copycats because his copycats are putting themselves in danger -- this messes with Batman's ideology. So he smacks them on the wrist - "I'm supposed to protect you. You're not supposed to protect yourselves. You're sheep." Batman's choices are ruled by his sense of justice. As much guilt as he feels for the death of Rachael, he can at least, at the end of the day, justify it with the excuse that he chose Harvey for the Greater Good. Because Harvey was a Symbol that stood for Something.

Here's the interesting critique: what happens when those Symbols fail us?

The thing about the Joker is that he doesn't use a gun to kill people, really. Or he doesn't prefer them. And he doesn't kill people unnecessarily -- there is a method to his madness. It is to reveal to humans how dark they really can be. It's to see what happens when the coddled and sheltered are given responsibility, REAL responsibility.

With the bank heist, he gives his underlings guns - and a choice: to shoot each other for a bigger share of the money. They could have chosen not to follow his instructions. But like sheep, following instructions lead them to their own slaughter. With the boat -- he put the Tools, the detonators -- in the hands of the people. (Here's where I think the writers fudged a little bit by romanticizing the good of the people) But it's not the Joker himself who goes about blowing them up, he sets up the circumstances to see what they would do. To see if nobility would survive or if they would turn into animals in the face of Death.

He gives them Choice. He gives them Responsibility. If the other boat blows up -- they know it's because They pulled the detonator. It is Their responsibility, and that's a choice they would have to live with every day.

What's cool is that he gives Batman a Choice: to annhiliate the Joker (on several occasions) to protect the people, or to let the Joker live so that he can continue to uphold the Law. It was a choice Batman was responsible for. In the end of the first few scenarios, the Law won over the protection of the people.

Basically, Laws and Symbols and Ideology cannot protect us. Nothing external can really protect us. We can only look out for ourselves. And it's not a matter of being selfish, but it is a matter of being responsible. The only control we have is over ourselves, really. And if we don't, we must destroy ourselves in order to reconstruct (a very Fanon idea) who we want to become in our next incarnation.

Harvey Dent doesn't survive in the end because he never is able to make a choice for himself. He is never responsible. In the beginning he is beholden to the System, to the set of Laws that supposedly protect society (from themselves). His descent into madness is due to his grief over Rachael. He is never truly responsible for himself and his own choices. Good or "bad," his choices are framed in the name of fighting for something. In the end, when he is about to make a choice, he never really gets to. Because he was never meant to. Because, in the structure of the film, Harvey was a Symbol.

Harvey was the Coin. When we leave things to Chance or Fate or Ideology -- is that real justice? Justifying when bad things happen to "innocent" people (I'm skeptical of the word "innocent") is something that happens when we do it in the name of a "greater good," when we use it to absolve ourselves from responsibility. WAKE UP. Own up to it.

I know I have to.

But in the end, Batman is given a choice and he takes responsibility for it. In order to continue to fight for the people, he must disregard Law (break ties with the cops). He must take responsibility. At the same time, he does an injustice in that he does it in the name of Harvey's "good side." Only half the story. He absolves Harvey of any responsibility. How frakkin noble.

The Joker is never really a person, but a spook, a demon, an entity that forces society and the individual to take a good look in the mirror. What do we see? What will we allow ourselves to see?

If we see only our faces, then the Joker, ironically, has failed. The thing is, we're trapped in a consensus. In the name of the collective, we become blind to the blood we've stained our hands with. Votes and protests are not enough. Resistance is not enough.

The whole resistance -> rebellion -> revolution paradigm never sat well with me. Mebbe because intuitively I know that the way that people go about it, revolution won't ever come. Revolution is never here or waiting upon our doorstep. Or as soon as we fight for it, it vanishes. New figureheads replace old ones. Look, did France ever REALLY, TRULY have a revolution?

Resistance is such a defensive stance. A seat at the lunch counter. And it's too easy to get up in the cogs of "social justice." Protesting on behalf of Sean Bell is not gonna do it. Maybe the very fact that resistance and "free speech" is allowed is something we should really, truly think about.

So how can we create a "revolution"? Don't. Because it's as elusive as democracy ever was. Why settle for a "better" paradigm when it's just a mirror of the old one?

Creativity.

Create.

Imagine.

Simple, naive-sounding, but profoundly honest. Not true, but honest.

Create a new paradigm. Why waste energy in resisting when energy can be utilized in imagining? In the creation of something new? The thing is, when engaged in battle, we play by the aggressors rules. So if we win, it's almost impossible to NOT become the aggressor.

When playing a game of "resistance" we're merely taking a coin toss to another level. Different faces, wholly opposite - heads and tails - but both are still a part of the same coin. One side cannot exist without the other and is only a flip, a photographic negative. But the original image, the fingerprint of its hologram is still there.

So if there is a war of a coin toss, instead of waiting for your turn to flip the coin, why not ignore the coin and imagine a new game? Why not break out a roll of toilet paper? A smelly shoe? An electrical outlet? Something beyond binaries!! Something beyond Good vs Evil and Right vs Wrong.

No matter what new paradigm takes over, there will always be a darker or more complicated side. It won't ever be a true Utopia. But that's not what we should be fighting for. That's not the point of human existence.

Why struggle? Why feel pain? Why sex?

The thing is, struggle, pain and pleasure reveal things to ourselves. It's when they become routine that we lose something and feel hypnotized by pleasant patterns. Cease to learn. Grow stagnant. That's why if a so-called "revolution" ever happened, it'd be the same thing and we'd never really learn anything new or grow or fundamentally change.

The toilet paper in lieu of the coin, however, is a new paradigm with new complications. And, in the end, will teach us new things about ourselves in this newer struggle. It's a learning curve, the surprise that's in store for us in our new incarnations. As of now, we're deadlocked in the coin toss which is why resistance really is, fundamentally, futile. This is not the voice of nihilism, but the voice of Choice and Responsibility.

The human brain has such a large and infinite capacity that it's sad we only use such a small percentage of it. And perhaps this will always hold true because we're conditioned to utilize it in only a conditioned set of ways. So we never really get to reach those other parts of our brains within the whole scope and span of our collective lifetimes.

We need a new struggle, a new paradigm so we can reach a greater potential instead of stagnating in this repetitive cycle of lather, rinse and repeat. Aren't you tired of it? The redundancy? The disembodiment of the human soul? Doing things only for the sake of the ShouLd? The things we think we "should" be doing?



In the end, is Gotham a safer city? Sure "evil" is temporarily "vanquished," but is it ever permanent as symbols and their binaries are allowed to survive? And perhaps therein lies another power -- the struggle towards permanence. In the name of permanence. Sigh. Always fighting for the wrong/same things.




On another note, if the Joker truly took his false ideology ALL THE WAY, Gotham would have transformed into a new society. Not a "better" society -- pay attention -- but NEW. Different. Fundamentally transformed on a profound level. A breaking of a spirit is profound, indeed.

But he allows for Batman to survive. He needs Batman to survive, so the Joker can live to play another day. The killing of Batman was only a ruse to get Batman to show his true colors, to make a fundamental choice when his own, structured ideology can no longer protect him. He can't blame it on the Law, he can't blame it on Love, or Grief, or Society -- the choice was with Him. So, in becoming the Dark Knight, he was wholly responsible. (and for that, I do give him props).

In the end, the Joker doesn't really truly want to DESTROY society, but have fun in his own sadistically diabolical way to get the city to own up to ITSELF. To really catch at least a GLIMPSE of its true reflection in the mirror. And, I suppose in THAT aspect, the Joker is at his most human.

Because on a deeper level, he, too, needs a sense of order and structure so he can play pretend at destroying it.

I suppose, in the end, no one wants true Anarchy. Even "villains" need their sense of order.

I do believe in a sense of order, but not the upholding of the Imaginary. These hotels, these cars -- none of this is really real. And not even in a pretentious, academic sense. I mean, they are only as real as we allow them to be. We become our Jobs when we Let it.

Oy(L), I've more to say, but ze bobbLebot must get thee to bed.