Three Villains

Like much of America, I went out opening day to see "The Dark Knight." I found it to be a fascinating and unique film whose themes and ending I am still processing. I was impressed by the way it was willing to dive into the personal darkness of the characters, how it did not present an ending that neatly wrapped up everything, how it presented sticking up for one's ideals as a process that is not easy to do. The hero isn't necessarily the benevolent man who always does the right thing. As Batman tells Sergeant Gordon, "I can be whatever you want me to be."

As a film, I didn't think it was as good or as taut as "Batman Begins" but I liked its focus on the Joker as a symbol of a particularly menacing kind of evil. He's a character who truly doesn't care about anything or anybody else. He's interested in spectacle, "watching the world burn" as Alfred tells Bruce Wayne, and in convincing society that all its rules just doesn't matter. Life is random and unjust, the Joker believes - a joke - so there's no reason to take anything, even life, seriously. He's been called an anarchist in press reviews but even anarchists believe in something - no government. He's just a supreme nihilist who seems anxious to prove a point to society - the antithesis to Bruce Wayne who believes that society can be changed, that people are inherently good and that life is most certainly not a joke.

But I have grouped the Joker along with Anton Chirgush (Javier Bardem from "No Country for Old Men") and Marlo Stanfield because all three represent a certain kind of villain that we seem to be seeing more and more of: the villain that has no rules, is completely devoid of empathy and places an infinitely small value on life.

In all three movies/shows, the challenge for the heroes is how to effectively deal with someone who really cannot be reasoned with. Nothing is off limits to these guys, they obey no "code" as Bunk and Omar believe in the term (or the guy at the bank in the first scene of "The Dark Knight)". There is no honor, only the code of self-preservation. They act is there the whole world is against them and that absolutely no one can be trusted. While they live purely for their own kicks, none of these three seem particularly interested in money (even though that is Anton's mission). It seems that what motivates them is righting some past wrong, showing the world that they are "for real" and that no one better get in their way.

I think that in all these features, there is an undercurrent of comparison to terrorism. The hardcore members of al Qaeda cannot be bought off, they do not want the same things that we want. The challenge these characters present is, "how do you deal with villains like these?" I think that their presence is also not enough to throw society off its rocker. They scare us, but we shouldn't let that change the way that we dispense justice.