A good friend of mine introduced me to a movie recently that was slated to be quite the 'eye-opener'. Claiming that it awoke him to many things in the world that had been going on, he quickly shifted from a state of 'you should watch it' to 'you must watch it'. Eventually, his excitement broiled over and soon I received the specific website details on my handphone.
Since puberty, I'd always been a tad wary of half-fuck animations and videos claiming to offer salvation to the weak-minded and spinning off conspiracy theories. More so those that claim to reveal a particular truth.
ZeitGeist however, offered a fresh perspective. I had to admit that this wasn't your usual doomsday cult offering you salvation in the form of life with the stars or meeting willy wonka in his choco butthole factory. This was pretty good shit.
Good shit - Still shit.
While normally I'd embed videos within my blogs, I figured that it would be best that you understand my experience, as well as hundreds of thousands of others' experiences by heading for the actual website featuring the video. (http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com)
OK, if you aren't comfortable with watching 2 hours odd of 7 inch size video, I'll run you through what happened.
I know this comes a little late (to be exact, 4 months late), but this has got to be the best scene ever:
Ok, you've watched the show, you know that this isn't your usual blockbuster action movie. Having opened a little after Iron Man, it not only beat Iron Man pants down at the box office, but it also set a new standard for the action hero industry. Ten stars minimum for the Dark Knight for me mates.
I said that then, and I will continue saying that for a long long time. But realising now that it's been almost four months past it, I am beginning to rethink exactly why the movie to me was such a great show. I know I sound crazy, perhaps a little too crazy, but really - this scene and the rest of the movie, it just spoke to me.
I like the deviation from the suual juxtaposition of good versus evil, light versus dark etc etc... But really I don't think anything has quite achieved this comparison of one extreme of insanity vs another... You can't disagree with the joker - that maniacal, anarchist mode of thinking that civilised man is just a farce. You can't quite agree with him either - But let's assume that he's right. Indeed, what on earth makes the Batman any better than him? Both possess hideous means of violence at getting what they want - just that the meat of their prey have a different taste in the mouth.
Let's present the moral argument for the Batman's existence - I think thus far it is quite certain that he believes he has this obligation to remove the criminals of Gotham by force because no one else can achieve it - He does so because of a traumatic childhood experience, watching his parents mugged and shot at a corner in Gotham after the theatre.
So because his parents were killed by people who never knew them, were probably hungry and desperate, turning to violence as a means of last resort, he takes it upon himself to go through years of absolutely mental training, spending millions through Wayne enterprises to create weapons and vehicles that inflict a speedy and terribly traumatic end to those he perceives as evil.
No need for a fair trial, no need for the public to have a say in what's wrong or what's right - Or even determine what's a fair retributive sentence to be passed down. Swoop in, in the middle of the night, viciously punch out the living daylights from the drug dealers, robbers, muggers, money launderers, and then ignore whether they live to be able to talk - Just get them. Inflict enough pain to scare them from even venturing out of their homes at night.
Let's turn the argument now to the Joker - We don't know what kind of trauma he went through. He's insane, clearly, by our standards, but he chooses to believe and manipulate, unfortunately, people's perceptions to see that it is state control that causes evil - He is merely liberating the modern human mind to accept anarchy.
Which is why - "Why, so serious?"
Man is a laughable species, one moment propounding his opinion of what is fair and just, and the next moment shredding the one next to him. Don't bring justice to the people - Because you can't. Bring their minds towards you, shape their minds, change the way they think , and before you know it, you're in control - Aha, until the Joker comes into the scene to liberate and free people from their illusory safety zones in society.
Who's the nutcase now? Or can't you tell?
Notice how the Joker keeps trying to bring man (both Batman and eventually sizeable chunks of Gotham city residents) into the classic human dilemma of choice - Choosing who decides to live - Laughing at how the insane decision of who deserves more to live is made. His argument is sound. You can't choose- You aren't qualified to choose. You live by self imagined morals and various arguments...that are agreed upon by a majority and hence make up what is legitimate for society at the point in time.
That leaves us with the biggest victim of the entire argument - The only human being who lives within his abilities and doesn't try to exceed what society demands of him.
Harvey Dent.
I love the name. I've loved the character of Two Face since young, I don't know why, or rather I didn't know why. I loved pitying him - The one who has this angry streak inside who doesn't know how to control it, and has no choice but to leave it to simmer and grow because for all of society's devices, there is just nothing to satisfy the thirst of the human spirit in Harvey. It is growing, it is expanding and it is waiting to blow. It blew eventually - I think Harvey Dent broke when he threatened the manipulated guard-of-honour who shot Commissioner Gordon (or we thought he did) with his life.
We are all like Harvey Dent. We're ticking time bombs, waiting for that vicious darkness to blow up and consume us until we can't tell what we look like. Unless and until we all come to a consensus, reach within us and admit that we would rather accept the lot of our own life and avoid trying to MAKE lots for others' lives... We will become Two Face eventually.
