Comic Book Morals

As I mentioned in my "Dark Knight" quick response, I'd like to revisit the idea that, when placed in the realm of fiction or fantasy, people will support policies that they otherwise would vigorously fight. Probably nothing too earth-shattering, but if you were here looking for earth-shattering, you came to the wrong place.

Allow me to illustrate. In the Dark Knight, and generally throughout the Batman enterprise, here are a few actions taken by "the good guys":

- Warrant-less surveillance of the entire Gotham universe through cell-phones.
- Blatant lies to the press about the nature of Harvey Dent.
- Mass murderers who have terrorized millions are in solitary confinement, all but assuring that they will escape to kill again.
- A citizen acts as judge, jury, and executioner, eschewing the majority of human-created institutions for the sake of his own view of justice.
- Police ignore a thousand other small procedural laws, each of which by themselves would serve to acquit any criminal.

And that's just stuff off the top of my head in the past 2 minutes. If this were to happen in the "real world", there would be millions of DailyKos posts, Special Comments, CaffertyFiles, and Facebook groups talking about ending "regime change", stopping "Big Brother", or bringing back "the rule of law." Across the board, it seems, these very same people raucously cheered for their caped crusader.

The question is, "Why?" I mean, from the way that I've heard it, the Bush administration is "evil" for their activities. Is it not possible that the Bush administration is, like Batman, over zealous in its pursuit of its goals? Why ascribe malice?

I think we all know that reality is much more banal: the joyful security of a world unshackled by nuance proves too alluring for many. Hell, that's why comic books have always been popular: the escapism is only partially composed of dreams about superpowers. Just as strong is the dream of a world where black-and-white do exist. Even Frank Miller's production of Batman can't dilute the fact that the Joker is evil. Batman is most assuredly conflicted and human, but the idea that the Joker should be defeated is axiomatic to Batman.

It's not so easy out here in flesh-world, however, where our villains rarely broadcast themselves to the public, where our heroes make thousands of mistakes, and where our efforts often fall flat.