Friday, January 13, 2012

The Dark Night with Postmodernism or not?


The Dark Night exhibited postmodernism ideas in the film, but overall I do believe that the many prisoners on the boat proved postmodernism false. Postmodernism literature ideas were to seek and destroy rules and society values. They also believed in no rules, forms, or ethics, as the Joker tried to prove that everyone has inherent evil in them. Even in his last scene he tries to convince Batman himself that he is evil and ultimately tries to destroy him.
During the scene where the Joker attaches a bomb to two different boats and gives them each a button to press to blow the other boat up, or if they both don’t press the button the Joker will blow both of the boats up. On one boat there was a group of prisoners and the other boat was a group of normal, average, everyday people. Contrary to what one may think, the people society deemed “evil”, or the prisoners, were actually the group that decided to make the correct decision with passion and more quickly then the “good” people on the other boat. The prisoners decided that they were not going to press the button, because they believed that they deserved to die, since they were at fault for wrong doing. This showed that postmodernism ideas that the Joker tried to portray on the society was not true, due to the fact that the prisoners decided to take the sacrifice for the others. The other boat that was full of “normal”, or common citizens also chose not to push the button. Their reasoning was that the prisoners deserved a second chance and they were just humans too.
Overall, I feel that The Dark Night was supposed to show that postmodernism ideology seems like it exists in everyone, but in reality most people would choose the right thing to do.

4 comments:

  1. I found your viewpoint on this scene of the movie very interesting. I believe that society puts certain titles on certain groups of people that distinguishes everyone. However, these titles do not always prove to be true in every situation, as seen in The Dark Knight.

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  2. I haven't watched The Dark Night yet. But still, I find it interesting how you thought of the scene as showing postmodernism. When I watch movies I do not think much of what the movie is trying to show. :/
    With the movie example of the boat scene, I agree with you that the Joker's thinking that everyone was evil was proven false because both groups chose the better thing to do. However, the part where you said the citizens did not choose to push the button because they thought that the prisons should deserve a second chance because they are humans too made me think of the death sentence in our society.
    Or even if the situation in the movie was different like maybe if the prisoners all had some relation to the 'normal' people boat (maybe they killed someone close to the 'normal' person) would they have still chosen to not push the button.

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  3. Brooke, it might be helpful in this context to provide some context on postmodernism since a lot of people don't really know what it is. Where have you learned about it and how would you define it?

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  4. Good analysis of the film. I think that you choose a good scene for this topic as it was one of the most intense and thought provocking. I did not really think of film in this way, but I may want to rewatch it in a different light.

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