The Dark Knight Trilogy - Renegade Cut

what is justice this question at its core is among the most fundamental we need to answer for ourselves because how we perceive justice defines how we believe the world should operate this question is also broached in christopher nolan's trilogy of films about batman those being 2005's batman begins 2008's the dark knight and 2012's the dark knight rises bruce wayne's quest is narratively related to justice the films explicitly state their intentions and themes in unsubtle unambiguous phrasing but the mere existence of a batman cannot help but touch upon how we view justice because his existence is illegal his actions unsanctioned these films collide with a variety of different philosophies as they relate to justice and the rightness and wrongness of behavior moreover if the audience cheers for batman what does that say about us does batman's brutal treatment of the criminal element of gotham city satisfy a part of ourselves that desire such treatment against those we condem batman is sometimes portrayed as a paragon of good but if he were not who would he be accountable to batman as depicted in nolan's films is far more sympathetic than the more recent film version but even so many superhero movies contain an unknowingly fascist outlook in batman begins bruce wayne plots to murder joe chill the man who murdered his parents thomas and martha wayne someone else murders chill before he is able to do so when he reveals this to a longtime friend rachel dawes he claims that his parents deserved justice the word justice is loosely defined as the administration of what is fair by impartial means this is admittedly not particularly helpful rachel claims that bruce is not talking about justice and that he is actually referring to revenge bruce claims that sometimes they are the same thing rachel strongly disagrees stating the clinical definition of justice is about impartiality and also setting up the central conflict of the trilogy not the conflict between the protagonists and the various antagonists of the three films but the thematic conflict among the various ways in which people view justice when bruce wayne plotted to murder joe chill as punishment for his shattered childhood he was trying to enact what is called retributive justice this is the theory that the best response to a crime is a proportionate punishment this theory of justice is ancient the sixth king of the first babylonian dynasty said anu and bell called by name me hammurabi the exalted prince who feared god to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land to destroy the wicked and the evildoers codified laws existed far before that though among the oldest known evidence of a law code are tablets from the ancient city ebla and they date to about 2400 bc approximately 600 years before hammurabi's code when the gotham city police department arrests criminals for heinous crimes and the justice system sentences them to long prison terms this is not retributive justice since it does not meet out punishment in equal barbaric fashion capital punishment may be considered retributive justice as it meets out an exact punishment based on the crime but if bruce wayne had murdered joe chill would that be any kind of justice retributive or otherwise he is not an agent of the law rachel claims that revenge is not about justice and that it is actually about making the perpetrator of revenge feel better this may have some weight especially as it pertains to bruce if bruce believed it would be morally right for chill to die then he would not have been that upset that it was not he who pulled the trigger he wanted to be the one to do it to make himself feel better but that brings up another question bruce wayne never becomes an agent of the law even when he becomes batman is nothing he is doing just batman obviously develops a more altruistic philosophy after the death of joe chill he genuinely wants to save gotham city and he does that multiple times but regardless of his motives and outcomes he is still waging an extra legal assault on a city with no oversight or authority mandated by the public batman's symbol is the duality of man and animal and this theme surfaces throughout the trilogy especially in the dark knight batman and the joker growl and bark in the dark knight gangsters bring rottweilers to a drug deal the gangsters don't stand a chance against batman but the animals injure him the joker admits that he is a beast claiming that he is like a dog chasing cars he unleashes a pack of attack dogs on batman during the social experiment with the two ships we get a clue into batman's philosophy one ship is named liberty and filled with random civilians and the other is named spirit and filled with convicted criminals the joker's goal in batman's own words is to break the city's spirit when it fails batman tells the joker that gotham still has spirit meaning that human beings are not animals batman's conflict between liberty and spirit in the dark knight trilogy is protecting what he believes is the spirit of the law while violating said laws the difference between laws that protect us liberty and the nature of human beings regardless of law spirit batman is portrayed as the best case scenario for a vigilante one that can only exist in fiction vigilante justice is typified by lynch mobs hate groups and terrorists more than caped crusaders so what are these movies saying about justice and what do they say about the audience's perception of what is just one could argue that the film actually does take a stand against batman's methods by having bruce wayne retire suggesting that the world does not need a batman and should not have a batman but then detective blake is shown in the bat cave with triumphant music playing indicating that he will be the new batman and we should all be happy about that lucius fox admonishes batman for taking control of gotham city's cell phones to find the joker calling it unethical but the film does not conclude this only fox does for one thing everything fox has done to assist batman beforehand has been unethical batman is an illegal vigilante for another he still doesn't he goes along with batman's illegal surveillance dismantling the machine only afterward but the film does not present batman's surveillance as wrong if it shows that it conclusively worked and that nobody was harmed because of it the film presents illegal surveillance as troubling but incredibly effective and necessary in witnessing this the audience is seeing the philosophy of consequentialism in action which states that the morality of an action is judged solely by its results if batman can violate the rights of every citizen of gotham city but attain a positive outcome and frankly not get caught and suffer public outrage then consequentialism would say that he did nothing wrong a similar view is utilitarianism which posits that an action is based on whether or not it maximizes utility in this case the well-being of the people 19th century english philosopher jon stewart mill once said of this the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals utility or the greatest happiness principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness by happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain by unhappiness pain and the privation of pleasure maximizing happiness sounds all well and good but utilitarianism has also been used to justify unspeakable things like slavery because it maximizes happiness for the vast majority all while dehumanizing a minority it should be noted that utilitarianism as a broad philosophical and political concept does not factor in the extra-legal activities of a vigilante he has no real authority to make decisions with wide-reaching implications no authority to enact his utilitarian goals and what of those goals primarily batman wants to keep criminals off the streets but our justice system does not accommodate a batman when he defeats scarecrow in the beginning of the dark knight for example tying the criminals up does not mean they will be prosecuted when the police arrive they may be able to arrest those who have active warrants out for them major figures that are on the run like scarecrow himself but batman catching a criminal in the act is not tantamount to a police officer catching him in the act they may not be able to arrest them based on simply being tied up by batman and even if batman left some evidence behind that would implicate them the criminal justice system can remove evidence from the equation if it had been obtained illegally like say if found by a brutal vigilante with no legal authority evidence has been thrown out for far less than that a batman copycat with zero useful skills asks the real batman what's the difference between you and me batman makes a joke and the audience is meant to laugh but legally speaking there is no difference actually in this particular instance there is no difference in efficacy either because those criminals cannot be prosecuted by being arrested by a vigilante the hypothesis for a utilitarian philosophy for batman might come into question when he holds on to more idealized morals like the unwillingness to kill if batman were a true utilitarian or consequentialist then wouldn't he believe in the overall rightness of the death of the joker batman retains some deeply held altruistic principles almost kantian in nature 18th century german philosopher emmanuel kant once said live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law kantian morality is incredibly strict as there are few if any exceptions to our morals batman refuses to as he puts it become an assassin yet when people ask why doesn't batman just kill the joker it misses the question that should precede this that being what authority does batman possess to kill the joker he has none that is not a condemnation of batman at least he recognizes this but the audience that asks this it's a bizarre question because it presupposes batman's responsibility let's pretend batman has legal authority to do what he does he does not but let's just pretend we'll say he is testedly endorsed by jim gordon who eventually becomes commissioner so let's pretend he has roughly the same authority as a police officer with the same people who wonder why batman does not murder the joker also ask why don't the police murder more and more criminals why shouldn't they murder all the criminals one should not even have to answer that police are not meant to be executioners we understandably get very upset when some police officers abuse their power unilateral executions are far too much power for anyone to possess justice is distributed over a variety of systems law enforcement legal prosecution the right to a defense a judge a jury correctional facilities etc batman has no authority to be batman but at least he recognizes that what he is doing is not entirely right he claims he is no hero at the end of the dark knight and refuses to use his dubious position to its most extreme ends because even he knows that is not justice going back to bruce's conversation with rachel he claims that the system she has so much faith in is broken therefore justifying in his mind at least violating the letter of the law to preserve the spirit unilaterally granting himself what is roughly the authority a police officer has but batman cannot justify murder based on these grounds because there is nothing even within the spirit of the law that would claim agents of law enforcement are authorized executioners it is tempting to state a complete moral equivalence between batman and the villains of gotham city based on their unlawful behavior but admittedly this ignores both their intentions and the consequences of their actions so let's give batman a break for a moment and focus on characters who are almost objectively worse batman classically claims that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot but over the course of the trilogy he comes into contact with those who would have grander motives in spite of what batman says his rogues gallery is populated with men and women who commit their crimes for reasons contrary to what he believes in batman begins ra's al ghul and the league of shadows contend that the decadence of gotham's elite and the scum of gotham's underworld are so great and so vile that the only solution is to wipe the city off the map destroying it to save the rest of the world logically speaking this does not make sense this is like solving a hostage situation by killing the hostages however razal ghul and by extension talia algul and bane in the dark knight rises are enacting a form of justice that has less in common with the laws of man and more in common with divine retribution a supernatural punishment by a deity that circumvents human law and conventions destroying an entire city or civilization is a common occurrence in religion and mythology the flood narrative appears in the epoch of gilgamesh it famously reoccurs in hebrew scriptures as the abrahamic god condemns humankind for its wickedness there is a version in hinduism as well not to mention biblical accounts of individual cities destroyed by the wrath of god for its residents alleged wrongdoings the condemnation of gotham city by ras al-ghul has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with biblical destruction but the difference between secular justice and law inspired by religion is not so clear and not so divided even in governments that do not sanction an official national religion and maintain some level of separation between religion and the state religious doctrine influences secular law due to the individual beliefs of politicians and their desire to conform the laws of man with the laws of their god regardless of the many beliefs of their electorate a man familiar with both law and theistic philosophy 19th century lawyer and writer robert g ingersoll once scathingly said why does this same god tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his al ghul may not be a god but he does operate much like one he claims immortality whether that is true or not he believes himself having greater authority than the laws of humankind he condemns allegedly wicked cities to destruction and he never questions the rightness of his actions assuming his will must be correct moving to another figure in batman's rose gallery selena kyle tells bruce wayne that there's a storm coming and that when it hits he and his rich friends will wonder how they thought they could live so large as she puts it and leave so little for everyone else although she does not explicitly name it selena kyle is referring to distributive justice the just allocations of goods in a society egalitarian distributive justice or equality-based justice states that everyone should receive roughly the same needs-based justice states goods should be distributed based on individual needs and a meritocracy or merit-based justice states that goods should be distributed unequally based on what someone allegedly deserves this is commonly associated with capitalism the dark knight trilogy exists with something close to the third because it is set in america but kyle's assertion is that bruce wayne did not earn his wealth which is true there is no distributive system that is entirely fair he has done many altruistic things with his wealth the wayne foundation for example but his mere existence as a billionaire casts doubt on merit-based distributive justice if by definition justice is meant to be impartial and fair then this kyle would argue is not justice harvey dent is physically and emotionally scarred he adopts a version of justice that results from a flip of a coin stating that it is perfect fairness as previously said justice has its roots in the concept of fairness but dense coin flip though impartial is also random if someone built a randomizing computer program that shows a random person to be murdered one could argue that it is fair and impartial but could not argue that it is just fairness is part of justice but not the sum of it as for batman's most famous nemesis the concept of justice in the abstract simply does not exist in the dark knight trilogy batman's belief about the alleged cowardice of crime is expanded to mean he believes criminals are desperate due to the poverty referenced in batman begins but when he encounters the joker a man who does not appear to want anything tangible it shakes his worldview he spent years infiltrating the world of criminals even remarking that he understood them but when confronted with the joker he does not know how to react alford famously tells batman that some men simply want to watch the world burn but that is not entirely accurate the joker's sadism certainly contributes to who he is but that is not his core his philosophy everything the joker says and does suggests that he subscribes to nihilism an extreme form of skeptical philosophy that declares that nothing has inherent value nihilism has various branches like metaphysical nihilism that states that physical objects may not even exist epistemological nihilism which is skeptical of all knowledge but in terms of the joker he is the embodiment of existential and especially moral nihilism the former stating that nothing has true value and the latter stating that actions have no true value no rightness or wrongness there is kind of a hopelessness that comes with nihilism but joker upon realizing what he believes to be the truth of the universe and of humankind has instead opted to play along with the game to laugh at it he tells batman that society's morality society's code is a bad joke he finds that the only natural thing to do with a world that makes no sense is to laugh in its face 19th century danish philosopher soren kierkegaard said much of the same when i was young i forgot how to laugh in the cave of trophonius when i was older i opened my eyes and beheld reality at which i began to laugh and since then i have not stopped laughing i saw that the meaning of life was to secure a livelihood and that its goal was to attain a high position that love's rich dream was marriage with an heiress that friendship's blessing was help in financial difficulties that wisdom was what the majority assumed it to be that enthusiasm consisted in making a speech that it was courage to risk the loss of ten dollars that kindness consisted in saying you are welcome at the dinner table that piety consisted in going to communion once a year this i saw and i laughed distinct from existential nihilism is moral nihilism the view that nothing is inherently right or wrong and that actions do not contain value this is sometimes confused with moral relativism which states that actions have situational value only but the joker places no value no rightness no wrongness to his actions regardless of where he is or what he is doing his philosophy is therefore moral nihilism in the beginning of the dark knight we are introduced to the joker as he robs a bank one of his victims demands to know what the joker believes in he replies i believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger this is not a meaningless introduction or random quote the original quote that the joker is appropriating that which does not kill you makes you stronger was said by 19th century philosopher friedrich nietzsche a historical figure commonly associated with nihilism he said the highest values devalue themselves the aim is lacking and y finds no answer nihilism is not only the belief that everything deserves to perish but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plow one destroys nihilism particularly moral nihilism has a few fundamental flaws that make it untenable from an abstract existential standpoint and from an applicable day-to-day perspective a fundamental flaw in nihilism is that value is impossible to be reduced to nothing a reductionist view of value cannot eradicate some level of value that we at least assign to objects and actions if the joker truly believes nothing has value why is he still alive why is any nihilist still alive even if someone's life is the absolute worst by choosing to remain conscious within the universe one is testedly assigning value to existence over non-existence value cannot be reduced to nothing the joker is wrong wrong philosophically and wrong in action he is a mass murderer and a terrorist and he is not meant to be sympathetic no matter how many contrarian memes claim otherwise he is an excellent character but he is a monster in the dark knight trilogy we see that even the most noble among us the harvey dents of the world the white knights are potentially corruptable that is something the film trilogy does well it allows us to question how good our heroes really are where it fails is its messaging on how we should applaud batman it casts doubt on the need for batman and that's good but at the same time the finale of the dark knight rises implies that detective blake will take on the mantle of the bat in bruce wayne's absence and the framing of this clearly wants the audience to be excited for this the trilogy occasionally admonishes batman's actions but also shows those who do so are also complicit in said actions and when he goes too far he always ends up saving the day by doing so at the end of the dark night an innocent child says batman didn't do anything wrong you can't condemn something and show the perpetrator is always right in the end the message gets muddied the film does not make the audience agree with alfred pennyworth about bruce wayne giving up being batman it has us root for batman because he's so cool and he punches bane really hard and has the best car the best and if batman cripples someone then hey they probably deserved it because he's batman he doesn't have to play by society's rules all that bureaucracy just gets in the way of what really matters violence in one of the trilogy's most famous scenes jim gordon says that batman is not the hero gotham needs right now but the hero gotham deserves what kind of hero do we deserve hi everyone if you like what i do consider clicking on the orange patreon link below that's how this show happens it's also a way for you to request an episode so check it out see you next week you

Channel: Renegade Cut

Views: 173,137

Rating: 4.8584199 out of 5

Keywords: christopher nolan, heath ledger, christian bale, batman, joker, the dark knight, batman begins, the dark knight rises, the dark knight trilogy, film, movies, analysis, philosophy, justice, god, nihilism, kierkegaard, nietzsche

Id: PcNzmftjk3o

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 27 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/JimmysRevenge]

I love this except Joker. Joker knows that Justice exists more than any of the rest. He knows that Justice doesn't need to be created, it cannot be man made. It is a law. It exists regardless and simply acts as a door opener to help people see this.