"If I were 10 years old, would I be badgering my parents to take me to see
the [2008 version] Batman film, The Dark Knight? You bet I would.
It's the latest and biggest release in the superhero genre ...
"If I were the parent who relented and took a 10-year-old child to see The
Dark Knight, would I be sorry? Once again, you bet I would. It's different from
other superhero films.... But the
greatest surprise of all ...has been the sustained level of intensely
sadistic brutality throughout the film.
"...the film begins with
a heist carried out by men in sinister clown masks. As each clown completes a
task, another shoots him point-blank in the head.... A man's face is
filleted by a knife, and another's is burned half off. A man's eye is slammed
into a pencil. A bomb can be seen crudely stitched inside another man's stomach,
which subsequently explodes. A trussed-up man is bound to a chair and set alight
atop a pile of banknotes.
"A plainly terrorised child is threatened at gunpoint by a man with a melted
face. It is all intensely realistic. Oh but don't worry, folks: there isn't any
nudity....
"It's all a comic-book fantasy, and comic
books are well known for their surreal, cartoonish bursts of violence. But the
director, Christopher Nolan... has tried instead to make the violence and
fear as believable as possible, and in this he has succeeded.
"The Dark Knight, however, has been rated 12A by the British Board of Film
Classification, which means that although the BBFC believes it is best suited to
children aged 12 and over, any under-12 can see it provided he or she is
accompanied by an adult....
"Casino Royale (2006), the most recent James Bond film, was also given a
12A certificate: young boys in particular are attracted to Bond.... But Casino Royale... was in fact a new kind of Bond film, shot like a
realistic action thriller. Parents and their open-mouthed children found themselves watching a scene in
which a bloodied Bond, stripped naked and tied to a chair, is tortured by having
his genitals beaten with a length of rope.
"A friend of mine was somewhat
dismayed afterwards to witness his two young boys, aged nine and seven,
diligently re-enacting the torture scene with an outsize teddy bear strapped to
a chair and a flail constructed from a knotted dressing-gown cord....
"... there is some distinction between violence which is
clearly fantastical in origin, such as that in
Harry Potter, and that which is
realistic and sadistic in tone, such as that in The Dark Knight. The former
might well bother younger children afterwards... but the latter is more likely
to taint their fundamental vision of the world and adult norms of behaviour.
The intensity of violence in The Dark Knight is a grimly logical progression
from the sort of distilled brutality that has rapidly become the norm
in films
rated 15 and 18: the only difference is that now small children are permitted to
watch it, too.
"...Quentin Tarantino was the edgy enfant terrible of Hollywood. Now he is a
member of its establishment, encouraging younger, mainstream 'torture porn' directors
...to push the boundaries of explicit, ingenious
cruelty ever further....
"'... in the US, where any film
critic who expresses measured dislike of The Dark Knight faces hundreds of
intensely hostile online responses. The more violent the source of
entertainment, the more vitriolic its fans grow in defence of it: there is a
whiff of the enraged mob at Tyburn, furious at anyone who attacks its right
to thrilling, primal pleasures....'
Are we facing the end of civil discourse in America? Could factual debates
soon fade from the public square? Will irrational rage and spreading violence
quench our voices and destroy our freedom?
I'm tempted to say yes, but I don't really know the answers.
Yet, I am confident that we can trust my
sovereign Shepherd and King to lead us. No matter what happens in coming years,
He will surely guard His sheep and care for His people! What a joy to be
part of His family!
