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THE LIGHT KNIGHT Like the rest of America I saw "The Dark Knight" and thought it was great. Heath Ledger's performance was preternatural, maniacal, scary. Bale's Batman was gruff, saturnine, kickass awesome. And Bruce Wayne was perfectly played, for once, as a convincing cocky millionaire playboy. Then, in real life, Christian Bale beat up his mom or his kid sister or something. Hooray for the complicated hero. But enough of that—here's something else. Let's perform a thought experiment together. Read the following paragraph out loud. Try not to smile. Here we go: Coming soon to theaters! "The Light Knight." Starring Christian Bale as Batman, our hero triumphant, defender of the fair citizens of Gotham City, embodiment of courage and valor in these, our troubled times! Watch as Batman combats the Joker and his evil machinations, and henchmen. Watch as he rescues a young district attorney from himself. Watch as he protects his wife and high school sweetheart, Rachel Dawes! Rachel is a beautiful young woman; she shares a life with Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne, community businessman, softball coach, taxpayer, father of four... So did you smile at this tripe? I hope you did; I sure chuckled as I wrote it. Nothing is less plausible, less chuckle-worthy, than a good hero. By that I mean a true-blue, honest-to-goodness hero; a pure, unstained, and respectable hero, of the rare and unbelievable kind. Because ours is a world of pimps and dirty priests and Mexicans. We like our heroes tough and sweaty, with strong jawlines, big guns, knee-deep in whores and indulgences. We don't want our heroes clean; clean is twice as implausible as squeaky-clean, and twice as boring. The modern hero has collapsed into the antihero, crushing those dated notions of honor and principle, goodness and virtue and the rest of it. This is how we like it around here. We have no saints today. Good. Excuse me a moment. What is authenticity, America? Authenticity is Barack Obama—that is, to the college undergrad, up late on a school night, eyes sullen, a glow stick in his pants pocket, standing in line for the bathroom at a Death Cab for Cutie concert. Or perhaps authenticity is strength under fire. Like John McCain, who did we mention was a prisoner of war in Vietnam? Seriously. Dude can't even raise his arms all the way, the gooks messed him up so bad. Meanwhile the rest of us, who also have cable television, who watch the exact same news broadcasts, who read blogs, blah, blah, blah; we look on, tongues planted firmly in one cheek or the other, bored, unconvinced, and unimpressed. What's the problem here, people? We suppose it's a sin to see the world in black and white. I guess it is, but that's not our actual problem. Black and white are beside the point if everything is gray. Clever agnostics complain that the United States is a theocracy. Clever Christians complain that it's Sodom. It's neither, and all of this is soup. If we were half as Manichaean as we are said to be, we would beg either for Sinai or for Gomorrah. We would lock up Bill Maher for blasphemy. We'd perform live abortions on street corners. We'd stone both the adulterer and the corrupt politician. We'd break up families for sport and hand awards out afterward. If we cared about seeing the world in black and white, we'd live only for God and everywhere for ourselves. Instead, we've asked for a box of crayons. Let's live with each color equally, we've said. Let's make our fears and dreams and hopes and nightmares in every hue and tone and shade of gray imaginable. As in without the intensity and definition that real contrast provides. We race to outdo ourselves in cynicism and indifference. We roll our eyes. Our world is gray. Not one of us is committed. Not one of us is sincere. No, I'm not through complaining yet. We're a generation of professional scoffers. We are so given to malaise that we rehearse it daily, in our speech: ever disturbed, and forever prone to disturbance. To complain is to exasperate the problem. To discuss the situation is to resign ourselves to it. We bemoan our condition, while sinking deeper and deeper inside... Oh, this malaise! It sucks; it inheres all over the place. My eye is keen enough to notice it, to identify it, and to write about it. It's not nearly strong enough to escape from it. This malaise is too great for me. As I said earlier, I really liked the new Batman movie. Which was dark as hell, and that excludes me from saving the day. But not everyone liked the new Batman, I hope. Someone must be tired of complicated heroes. I'll wait for that person who hates antiheroism for all the right reasons. Where are you out there? My happy, well-adjusted moviegoer, who pays taxes and stands incredulous, unconvinced, at dark knights the world over. Forget Batman. Give us hagiography. Give us a superhero we don't need to apologize for. We know that human nature is unspeakably corrupt. We know that it is good. We read that Hitler was kind to his dog, Blondi; that Martin Luther King, Jr. had a mistress. We smile, with sarcasm on our lips, embarrassed at the truth. We are good and we are wicked. Neither black nor white but gray. Arrrrrggghh. No. Surely this cannot be the whole truth. If it is, then the truth must be rejected. Now show us a saint. -murrayjames 08/18/08 |