The Dark Knight Rises: When Hype and Tragedy Intersect

The events surrounding Christopher Nolan's final Batman movie are hard to swallow and disentangle. Last weekend my desire to see The Dark Knight Rises was lost. After I heard about the horrible murders in Colorado that Friday morning, I couldn't work, and the last thing on my mind was whether the movie was going to be good.

I was already disgusted with the hype surrounding The Dark Knight Rises. Batman fans attacked critics who gave the movie a negative review, even though these fans hadn't seen the movie. The attacks escalated to death threats. Then Christopher Nolan, a supposed artist, gave his savvy, all-business take on the extreme reactions: "I think the fans are very passionate about these characters the way a lot of people are very passionate. Batman's been around for over 70 years and there's a reason for that. He has a huge appeal, so I think you know people certainly respond to the character." Perhaps one could defend Nolan, as this writer did, but I wouldn't. Even if Nolan hadn't heard about the death threats, his comments are not those of an artist but of a peddler. Regardless of how much someone loves a character, that doesn't give the person who hasn't even seen the movie the right to attack a critic for a negative review. It's shitty, immoral discourse, and Nolan, as a supposed artist, should not excuse or encourage it. None of us should. 

Enter James Holmes, a maniac who killed 12 people and injured dozens more (estimates vary by news source) in a Colorado theater. This man claimed that he was inspired by the Joker from Nolan's second Batman film, The Dark Knight. When Holmes appeared in court, he was in a strange daze, not unlike Heath Ledger's Joker when the character is taken into a police station for questioning. Regardless of whether you would draw a causal relationship between the film and Holmes' violence (I can't), it seems the man was a fan of Nolan's movie.

Christopher Nolan issued a statement to express his sadness about the murders. Even though we all expected him to do this, I have no doubt he was sincere. At the same time, it saddens me it took this tragedy to get Nolan to speak out against deranged fandom. I certainly can't equate Holmes to the people who lashed out at the critics, even those who made death threats. But I am still disappointed in Nolan's delayed moral response to mania. 

It's time to change our film culture and challenge businessmen like Nolan to do better. There's nothing wrong with being excited about a character on the big screen, but if the movie isn't good, you don't have to like it. If someone else says the movie isn't good, you don't have to be outraged. I'm not pointing a finger at any specific reader, but a big chunk of our overall film culture is more about hype than quality. 

It's time to ask moral questions about films, as Americans did in the 1960s and 1970s. James Holmes' appreciation of the Joker was obviously not the correct moral response. The fact is that he's not the only person who loves Nolan's Joker in the wrong way (I say with shame that I was one of those people initially). True, most fans like this won't kill people. But why does this strange appreciation occur? Does it have anything to do with a film that doesn't let a superhero be, well, a hero? The Dark Knight is a bleak film with no clear moral point. Does the sequel to this kind of material deserve our hype and excitement? 

Our culture needs more moral clarity, not more bleakness. Satirical Facebook tributes and comments about the attractiveness of James Holmes are examples of our culture's lack of moral restraint. Even if all of these comments about Holmes being cute or being a hero are meant to be funny, they display a remarkable lack of understanding about what transpired in Colorado. People are dead, you fucking morons. Mourn them like any upstanding person should do. And as Facebook defends its users' freedom of speech, I must ask the Facebook Team a question: if the victims were your family members and friends, would the tributes to James Holmes be allowed? Hell no, they wouldn't.

What is up with the darkness surrounding Nolan's last two Batman films? Heath Ledger might have died even if he hadn't locked himself in a hotel room for weeks to become the Joker, and James Holmes might have killed people in a theater even if he hadn't seen The Dark Knight, and fans had threatened the lives of critics for negative reviews of movies before The Dark Knight Rises. So while it would be hard to argue that Nolan's films caused people to lose their fucking minds, it's possible these blockbusters aren't cheering us up the way the original Star Wars trilogy did.

Will any of Nolan's next films address these cultural issues? Will many of us expect any of his next films to do so? God I hope so. 

This article is dedicated to the memory of those who were killed in Aurora, to the families who suffered these losses, and to the people who were injured. Might the rest of us strive to make this world a better place.