More thoughts on Batman and morality and stuff...

When The Dark Knight came out, there were a lot of people who quietly said "hmmm...this movie is too much for me."  However, the overwhelming popular response to the film (of which I was very much a part) was one of unabashed adoration.  It's difficult to express your opposing opinion in the face of that much passion, I understand.  But with the Aurora shooting these people have, I think, felt empowered.  Here is a tangible (and horrible) act that validates how they've been feeling all along: movies about violence beget violence.  

I wrote a blog post a couple of days ago defending the Dark Knight as one of my favorite movies of all time. I tried to explain why I personally did not feel that it was too dark.  I should have made that statement more clear--I acknowledge that the movie absolutely has darkness, a great amount of it.  The point I was trying to make was not that the movie isn't dark, but that the darkness serves a purpose.  A purpose that, to me, is worthwhile.  

I have a couple of friends who have been very vocal about the reasons that they dislike these movies.  One friend, in particular, has shared with me a lot of quotes from LDS General Authorities about the need to keep the spirit present at all times, partaking of good things, and watching what we let into our lives.  If you are interested in reading these quotes, and they are certainly worth reading, you can see most of them here.  

However, as much as I have heard people speaking out against the Batman movies, I have heard just as many, if not more, very vocally opposing them.  Arguments that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" and "bad people will do bad things regardless of the media they watch and the laws we enact".  I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who pointed out that James Holmes was clearly insane and trying to argue that his behavior has anything to do with the behavior of a sane person is absurd.  People make their decisions and trying to control them with gun control laws and censorship is pointless.

I have generally been in the latter group.  My reasoning has been fairly simple.  I have watched the Batman movies, or even Taken, a film that I find much much more disturbing, and I have not taken my .22 rifle and shot anyone with it.  Nor have the majority of the thousands of other people who have also seen those movies, or movies infinitely worse.  The evidence of all the people out there watching movies and not shooting people suggests that violent films do not lead to violence.  

But...sometimes they do.  The fact is James Holmes was "inspired" by the Joker.  Now, you can say "Hey, he made a choice.  The movie didn't make him kill anyone, he chose to kill people."  Yes, technically that is true.  And frankly, I am as enthusiastically opposed to attempts at regulating people's lives as I can be about anything political.  I think trying to fix problems by passing laws is ineffectual and idiotic.  But I can't help but feel like American society has become addicted to ideas of individuality and independence to an unhealthy degree.  The cult of Live and Let Live has taken a choke-hold on our society, right down to the way we raise our children--"I just need to let little Sally and Johnny be who they are!"  Nevermind that who they are is a screaming hellion who will later grow up to make my life and many others miserable.  

Society is growing ever more isolated and we are losing our connections to our neighbors.  Partially this is because it is human nature to bristle against people "telling me what to do!"  But I think there is also another reason.  People don't want to feel responsible; they don't want to feel guilty.  If everyone can do what they want and no one is the boss of me then when something terrible like the Aurora shooting--or the Columbine shooting, or any one of the great host of horrible things that have been done in the history of the world--happens, I don't have to feel guilty.  I can feel sad for the victims, and I can feel horrified at the brutality, and I can feel angry at the perpetrator, but I don't ever have to feel responsible.  I don't ever have to feel as though such a thing, whatever the thing may be, was in any way my fault.  

How does a man become so delusional that he pretends to be the Joker and decides to kill innocent, random strangers without anyone noticing? 

Reality argues that no matter what we do there will always be crazy people doing crazy horrible things.  And honestly, I agree with my friend who said "I admit, I don't feel at all responsible for the Aurora shooting.  I didn't make him pick up a gun."  I don't think that the fact that I love The Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises means that it was my fault that a man 500 miles away from me lost the distinction between reality and fiction.  Nor do I think that the fact that I own a gun and would vote against gun regulation places blame on me for people I've never met deciding to kill.  

But maybe it should?

I don't know.  I really don't.  I wish I had some sort of conclusion to this post.  

But I wanted to write it to say that I understand.  I understand why my friends feel sick after watching movies full of violence.  I understand why the leaders of my church preach against violence and immorality and the desensitization such things can cause.  I agree with them.  I feel that society, as a whole, needs to realize that sometimes you DO have to take responsibility for the bad things that individuals do because, like it or not, human beings are social beings.  

As for my life, and the incongruities and contradictions that, perhaps, it exhibits, maybe I am wrong, or maybe I am living as best I can right now.  I don't know which of those is correct.  I know that I hate being told what to do just as much as anyone (possibly more than a lot).  I know that I truly do love the movies The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises and see legitimate moral values in them.  I know that I'm trying to be a good person.  So...wherever that leaves us...is up to you I guess...