2nd assignment for Mass. Comm.

Today’s current motion pictures are still addressing social, political, and cultural issues of our time. We can currently see movies that focus on government conspiracies, gay rights, illegal activities, and America’s recent wars. Some of these films primary objectives are to create a moment of emotional acceptance of whichever side of an issue they are rooting for. The movie The Dark Knight is full of liberal undertones which attempt to get you think of issues in a certain way.

The Dark Knight is all about the Batman figure’s attempt at stopping a crazed evil villain and the insane asylum prisoners he frees to help him. The Joker is a new kind of bad guy, he’s not out to make money or become famous. When you are fighting a brilliant psychopath it doesn’t help that he just wants to prove that the world is as corrupt and selfish as him. Bruce Wayne, the real identity of Batman, can’t let the Joker go through with his diabolical plans. More importantly Bruce realizes he can’t be Batman forever and needs to find a way out of his self-sworn duty. The city’s District Attorney Harvey Dent has been putting more bad guys in prison than anyone else. Batman sees an opportunity to use the law for justice in a big way by trusting that Harvey Dent will always be the shining warrior, or knight, he is right now. The Joker has a plan; he takes the life of Harvey’s love and spawns a character from the Batman comic series, Two Face. In one broad move Batman and friends must cover up the evil, corrupt man Harvey becomes before dying and Two Face is never known of because Batman takes all the blame.

All of the major points of The Dark Knight can relate to current issues. The Joker is meant to represent the Taliban that America has come to hate over the last 10 years. The Joker makes demands on our people and tries to say that we are the oppressed by our own social and political governing. The Joker demonstrates how serious he is about trying to make a change in this city by killing on camera and blowing up a hospital. Does any of this sound somewhat familiar? The issue of government officials being corrupt by the Joker and mob bosses having judges and other state officials in their pockets is displayed, also. One can see Patriot Act issue shown to be a scary thing by the use of Batman’s cell phone tapping to hear where the Joker is. The director tries to portray that even in the fight to find our enemy, people will consider this too much power for a select few to hold on to and will want it destroyed. Batman’s technological advisor brings up this issue and it is uncanny at how this was a representation of the debates over our Patriot Act and whether it should be in place still. There are some Americans who think that our government selectively chooses what to tell us and how it happened. Covering up what really happened to Harvey Dent was an obvious representation of that. It seems as though it was intended to be seen as it should be accepted that our government does these things because it’s for the good of our country.

Just as we’ve been studying in Mass Communications, films can be used to convey a message that the director wants to get across. Whether it’s a political idea or a push for social acceptance in a certain area, motion pictures are opening our ideas to certain viewpoints that we may have not identified without their help. Just as Joker phrases his objective, “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message.”