“Batman’s Passion: Worldview Conflict in Film”

Opening Convocation Address to the Students and Faculty of Montreat College

22 January 2009
Dan Struble, Ph.D.
President, Montreat College
© 2009 Dan Struble

Before I could be commissioned an officer in the Navy, I had to pass the “Abandon-Ship” test.
The test required a jump from a 10-meter board with my legs crossed and arms folded,
presumably to minimize the chance of injury in the event of landing on floating debris. Of course
there was no debris in the diving well at the Naval Academy, but the sure way to guarantee a
failing grade was to allow your arms to flail about while falling. I promised myself I would not
flail.

I approached the end of the platform, crossed my arms over my chest, and stepped off
confidently. Unfortunately, I dragged my back foot as I stepped, imparting a slight forward
rotation during my descent. In the split second when I could have arrested that rotation by
flailing my arms, I thought only about my promise not to flail. My fate thus sealed, my body
rotated 90 degrees during the 32½ foot descent and struck the water absolutely parallel to the
surface.

It is hard to describe the sensation. The slap of skin on water was the loudest slap I have ever
heard. My body never went below the surface. The air rushed from my lungs, and I hurt from
head to toe. I thought: “This must be what it’s like to get hit by a train.”

Watching last year’s movie Batman: The Dark Knight1 was, for me, the emotional equivalent of
that jump. The trauma of watching one inhumane act follow another in rapid succession drove
the emotional air from my body and left me speechless. Yet I was certain that there was much
more to this movie than senseless violence. I watched the movie again, this time with a remote,
playing and replaying each scene to get the full meaning from the film.

I was not disappointed. The Dark Knight emerges as a secularized passion play that illustrates the
interplay between philosophy, culture, and the Gospel. The storyline presents striking parallels to
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and paints a clear and compelling portrait of contrasting worldviews
quite literally at war.

How can worldviews be at war? Remember that a worldview is a set of assumptions (things we
believe but cannot prove) through which we interpret and interact with the world. While there are
many different worldviews with fine distinctions and variations, most Americans operate from a
modern, secular worldview, one that is rooted in our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, yet
shorn from its supernatural foundation. In other words, most Americans believe in right and
wrong, truth and justice, worth and dignity, but they may or may not believe in the God from
whom these values find their origin and meaning. 

Postmodern philosophers are calling the modernists’ bluff. They very rightly point out that there
is no universal basis for these values if there is no God, no ultimate law-giver, and that these
values most assuredly coerce people to behave in certain ways. If there is no God, and if we are
to limit the coercing of people, then we must limit codes of behavior to smaller communities of
like-minded people. Laws on morality, rather than being justified by historical values, become
open to political redefinition. Herein lies the root of the ongoing culture wars, and sets the stage
for the literal war we see played out in The Dark Knight.

The movie revolves around three main characters: Batman, the Joker, and District Attorney
Harvey Dent. Remember the old cartoons where the main character, confronted with a dilemma,
has a devil figure pop up on one shoulder, encouraging a diabolical choice, and an angel figure
pop up on the other, encouraging the ethical choice? In The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent is the
man with the dilemma, the Joker is the devil figure, and Batman is the angel figure.
Let us begin with Harvey Dent, the crusading District Attorney who is out to place Gotham’s
criminal element behind bars. Harvey is handsome, idealistic, and brave. Early in the movie,
when a mobster pulls a gun on him in court, Harvey fearlessly punches the thug. Later, when
Harvey decides to use conspiracy laws to try the entire mob, the mayor asks him if he’s ready for
the attacks that are bound to follow. Harvey doesn’t even blink; he is determined. Harvey is
made in the image of God; he is Gotham’s white knight.

However, we also see a flawed Harvey Dent. Our clue is his use of a coin with heads on both
sides. He pretends to make decisions by flipping the coin, but knowing that it will always come
up heads, he thinks he is in control. In his terms, he makes his own luck. Harvey is a secular man
who does not recognize his dependence on God.

Harvey becomes a pawn in the Joker’s cruel game and ends up with the skin on one side of his
face completely burned away. Harvey becomes Two Face—literally and figuratively. Seen from
one side, he still looks handsome. Seen from the other side, he is hideously grotesque. He is
Gotham’s crusader for justice, but he is also fallen and—as we see later in the movie—capable
of great evil. Harvey Dent is Gotham’s Adam.

The Joker is Gotham’s Devil. He places no value on human life. He is not motivated by greed. In
one memorable scene, the Joker sets a 20-foot pile of money on fire—with the mob’s money
man, Lao, tied up on top of it. Before the viewer can even realize that this man is going to burn
to death, along with the millions of dollars that the mob bosses worship, the Joker turns from the
burning Lao and orders a mob boss cut to bits and fed to the dogs.

The Joker is the movie’s Father of Lies. He tells three different stories of how he has come by
the scars that have disfigured his face into a perpetual smile—each time with intense sincerity.
Also, he presents Batman with a choice to save one life—Harvey Dent or Rachel Dawes, the
woman Batman and Harvey both love. The Joker then lies by telling Batman that Rachel is
where Harvey actually is. Batman saves Harvey in his attempt to save Rachel, plunging both
Harvey and Batman into depression.

The Joker has no rules. Though the mob bosses make a deal with the Joker to take out their
nemesis Batman, they come to fear the Joker far more than Batman. At one point Batman collars
one of the bosses for information on the Joker. Dino, the mob boss, says: “Nobody’s gonna tell
you nothin’. They’re wise to your act. You got rules. The Joker’s got no rules. Nobody’s gonna
cross him for you.”

While the Joker’s stated intent is to unmask Batman, he is really out to unmask the underlying
assumptions of our civilization. This point becomes most apparent when Wayne Enterprise’s
young attorney, Reese, comes forward to reveal Batman’s identity in order to stop the senseless
killing. The Joker turns the tables on him by announcing that if Reese is not killed in 60 minutes,
the Joker will blow up a hospital—taunting all those with loved ones in a hospital to commit
murder. The Joker wants to push everyone towards his view, that morality is a sham.
In a chilling scene, the Joker tells Batman:

I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob
dealers? No, no, no, no you, you complete me. . . . To them you’re just a freak, like me.
They need you right now. But when they don’t, they’ll cast you out, like a leper. Their
morals, their code, it’s a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as
good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these, ah,
these “civilized” people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of
the curve. . . . The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules, and tonight
you’ll have to break your rule. You’ll have to play my little game.

The Joker’s little game takes place on two ferry boats, each rigged with explosives. One ferry is
loaded with prisoners, the other with fleeing citizens of Gotham; the Joker gives each ferry the
detonator to the other ferry. He announces, “Tonight you are all part of a social experiment.
Blow up the other boat or die at midnight. Criminals or civilians, which is it? Better hurry, the
people on the other boat may not be quite so noble.” What better way to force people to choose
between self-interest and their purported morality?

The Joker is indeed ahead of the curve. He has learned more quickly than the rest of us the
lessons of the philosophers who teach that there is no God (except, perhaps, whatever we create
for ourselves). He drives us to the natural conclusions of an atheistic worldview. In a world with
no Creator, a world that is the accidental result of random natural causes, there can be no
meaning, no purpose, no direction. Life has no innate value, only what we choose to give it.
Truth is whatever we make it. Rules in such a world are arbitrary expressions of power by one
group over another. The Joker is the embodiment of meaninglessness, and he is utterly consistent
in his worldview. (Please understand that I am not suggesting that atheists must inevitably
become like the Joker. Many atheists adhere to higher standards of morality than do many
Christians. It is just that there is nothing in an atheistic worldview that requires one to act in any
particular way.)

The Joker understands that all it takes is a little “push,” and we too can become monsters. He
gives Harvey Dent that little push in the hospital, while Harvey lies in physical pain from his
injuries and emotional pain from the loss of his fiancé. The Joker gives Harvey a gun and urges 
him to get back at the schemers who put him there, to become his own agent of justice. Harvey
Dent falls. This fall is a figurative one: Harvey Dent the crusading District Attorney becomes
Harvey Dent the vigilante. Harvey takes up his two-headed coin, now charred on one side (just
like his face), and he sets out to dispense justice to those who hurt him and killed Rachel.
Harvey’s fallen version of justice illustrates the famous postmodern dictum that our fates are
determined by “the iron hand of necessity, shaking the dice box of chance.”2 Harvey confronts
each of his betrayers and determines whether to kill them or not by the flip of his coin. Harvey
screams at Commissioner Gordon, whom he holds responsible for failing to save Rachel: “The
world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance—unbiased, unprejudiced, fair.”
There is still hope. Batman comes and saves the day, but the victory leaves us in shock. Batman
wins, but rather than emerging as the victorious hero and giving us the satisfaction that we have
come to expect with modern cinematic vengeance, Batman becomes the villain. Batman’s
passion for justice becomes, instead of our human desire to repay evil with evil, something akin
to the passion of Christ, in which the innocent one takes on the sins of another and pays the
price, being accused, brutalized, and condemned.

Batman does not fit the usual image of Jesus Christ, yet there are strong parallels. Gotham’s
savior is more like Jesus when He crashed the money-changers’ tables with righteous anger than
Jesus when He counseled turning the other cheek. In Bruce Wayne, Batman is fully human, but
he is something more as well. His omniscience and super-human capability are achieved through
the use of technology, not supernatural power. He is, in the Joker’s lament, “incorruptible,”
declining to kill the Joker both times he has the chance. Batman is not bound by the rules of the
prevailing human order, but neither is he without rules. Batman represents truth, but does not
claim to be Truth. Batman loves, but does not claim to be Love.

Early in the movie, Batman is clearly Gotham’s hero. The people of Gotham are counting on him
to clean up the city and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. He gives them hope, and many
strive to emulate his example. When confronted with the Joker’s indiscriminate brutality,
however, the people are eager to unmask Batman and send him to jail to stop the violence.
Finally, the fallen Harvey Dent “convicts” Batman with a flip of his coin, and shoots him.
Batman is knocked down, apparently dead.

The emotional and symbolic forces of the movie come to a head following Harvey’s shooting of
Batman. Harvey Dent holds Commissioner Gordon’s son and, with a gun to the boy’s head,
commands Gordon: “Tell him it’s going to be alright, even though you know it’s not. Tell him!
Tell him!!” Harvey flips the coin, and while it is flipping through the air, Batman swoops in and
saves the boy. Harvey takes a fall (this time a literal fall) to his death. Batman, holding on by his
fingertips long enough to hand the boy to safety, falls too, landing next to Harvey.
Commissioner Gordon, once he learns that Batman lives, sees in the fallen Harvey the
destruction of all his hopes of saving Gotham. Fallen from hero to villain, Harvey’s prosecution

of all the mob leaders and their thugs will fall apart, resulting in the release of all those criminals
back onto the streets of Gotham. From one man’s sin, all of Gotham will fall.

Batman struggles to his feet and says:

No. I committed those murders. . . . You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me. Set the dogs on
me, because that’s what needs to happen. . . . Sometimes people deserve to have their
faith rewarded.

Batman takes on the sins of Harvey to save all of Gotham. And the chase begins.
Of course, Batman cannot be killed, because that would rule out a sequel; and we cannot carry
the parallels between Batman and Jesus too far, because Batman is most certainly not God—
though he comes close in secular terms. But the movie is a powerful illustration of the struggle
between good and evil and our place between the two. The Joker’s and Harvey Dent’s actions
and statements illustrate how some of our postmodern assumptions can lead toward
dehumanization, undermining the principles that have built and sustain Western civilization.
So what are we to make of Batman: The Dark Knight? More than a thrilling movie, more than a
secular passion play, I believe that The Dark Knight is a chilling warning. If our society
abandons the beliefs that steer us towards compassion and hope, the presuppositions that restrain
us from acting out of our baser nature, what will we become? Can people carry in their minds
and hearts thousands of pages of statutes to guide their behavior? Certainly not.

Earlier I told you that Batman gave the people hope, and he did. The most hopeful scene in the
movie, however, did not include Batman. Before closing, let us return to the two ferry boats,
where the people on each boat know that if they do not blow up the other boat, they will die at
the hand of the Joker. Even though the passengers have voted to blow up the others, when it
comes time for one person to turn the detonator key, no one can do it. It was the law written on
their hearts that keeps them from committing mass murder.

Let us go forward with the understanding that we have hope, a hope that comes from Jesus
Christ, fully God, yet fully man, who lived among us, died for our sins, and rose again to
conquer death. It is God Who created us, Who gives us purpose and meaning. In the incarnation
of Jesus Christ, God has imbued us with a dignity beyond measure. Through His Word, God
writes the Law on our hearts. The greatest of His commands is to love God with all our hearts,
with all our strength and, yes, with all our minds. Let us not remove God from our learning; let
us not rely purely on abstractions, like the modern philosophers, nor banish God altogether and
rely on ourselves alone, like the postmodern philosophers. Let us place our faith in and base our
learning on Jesus Christ, Who took on our darkness; for He is a silent guardian, a watchful
protector, our Dark Knight.

Citations

1. Batman: The Dark Night, directed by Christopher Nolan (2008).

2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1982) no. 130, p. 81.