Bruce Wayne has learnt that the Joker is on his way to the party to collect Harvey Dent. Bruce renders Harvey unconscious and secrets him in a hall closet just off the area where the fundraiser is taking place.

Rachel goes "WTF" as Bruce overpowers Harvey. Note proximity of party.

Bruce has personal time with Harvey prior to hiding him in the closet.

Following a fistfight, the Joker gleefully drops Rachel out a window at Batman’s request.

"Very poor choice of words."

This was not his only poor choice. Batman impulsively flings himself after Rachel, and they both plummet at least 15 storeys, thankfully saved from impact by an unusually soft taxi cab. They then have the following conversation:

BATMAN: Are you all right?

RACHEL: Let’s not do that again. Is Harvey okay?

BATMAN: He’s safe.

RACHEL: Thank you.

Really? Harvey Dent is safe? Batman left him unprotected and unconscious in a conspicuously barred closet some 15 storeys up, in a penthouse with the Joker and his goons, and he thinks that’s safe?

Nobody will notice that AT ALL.

“But Rents,” you say. “The Joker doesn’t find Harvey. Batman does save him. Hooray, and suchlike.” Harvey is not found for the same reason Batman doesn’t inadvertently kill a carload of children as he blasts his way through the city on the Batpod: senariographos ex machina. It is not in the script that the Joker finds Harvey, so he does not. Presumably, he and his goons leave the party peaceably after the exeunt of Batman and Rachel. “No Batman? Well this is no fun. Let’s go home and clip coupons.”

Realistically, Harvey would be found. Realistically, Bruce and Rachel would be an oozing gob of mush on top of the cab, too, so maybe that’s not the best way to write a screenplay.

But still.

Come on.

A little effort is all I ask.

Such a waste! One Long Halloween Batman + acrylic paint + string = Dark Knight BRIAN action figure!

Look at me, Brian. There's a good Brian.

You remember Brian. He liked to dress up like the Batman to show that the good people of Gotham didn’t have to be afraid of scum like the Joker. He lived long enough to find that he was wrong, blessed be. Brian likes to swing from his noose behind some glass in my kitchen.

Side note, the iPhone camera sucks and I really should get my Nikon repaired.

The image, created by Chicago Photoshop dabbler Firas Alkhateeb, has been embraced by the right-wing protesters who slapped “Socialism” under the image and have been using it to confuse the rest of us for the past few months.

Upon viewing this, most people would have the following thoughts, in roughly this order:

1. “Oh good lord that is hideous.”
2. “Is that supposed to be a racist play on the minstrel’s blackface?”
3. “Are they saying the Joker is a socialist? I don’t remember that.”
4. “Maybe they’re saying Obama represents the destructive side of anarchism. But that doesn’t make any sense.”
5. “Man just because you CAN use Photoshop doesn’t mean you SHOULD.”

And so on.

I got tired of speculating as to its meaning, and set out to question one of its propagators. It proved less enlightening than I had hoped, but here are my findings.

Don Leigh (maybe his real name, maybe not) distributes a variety of Obama Joker flyers including this variant:

Rents: Are you saying with this poster that the Joker is a fascist?

Don: Obama is a criminal along with his gang, as well as the past Bush administration. The Joker didn’t really steal 23.7 trillion dollars and give it to his friends, Obama did.

Rents: But that is just arguing that Obama and the Joker have nothing in common. So… why use that imagery?

Don: The Joker is a criminal, and if you follow the president’s policies, you would know he is a criminal. He isn’t the only one either, he has a gang.

Thats because people don’t follow policy, they follow news bites, and vague slogans as, HOPE, CHANGE, etc.

People don’t even know that as soon as he entered office, he launched predator drones in afgan killing many civilians. He has increased the number of troops in Iraq, 20 to 30k troops in Afgan. He’s continuing the war. The majority of people voted for him to get out of the war. He has lied about every promise he made throughout the campaign, political talk is just talk, good policy is what makes a true patriot.

That is why there is an increased effort to get people into local government all the way up to Washington with a constitutional mindset, and end big government.

Rents: You’re being very simplistic though. So what if the Joker is a criminal? Don’t you think that he is a very, very different kind of criminal to Barack Obama? Slogans are not criminal, and the Joker does not use them. YOU, however, are using a slogan in this flyer. YOU are more like Obama than the Joker is. Do you have a reason for your artistic choice here?

Don: Because it shows who he really is, a criminal.

Rents: Then why not show him in prison stripes? No no no, you need to explain why you are equating him with this particular fictional character. Is the Joker a fascist or a communist or whatever you’re calling Obama this week? Is Obama symbolic of the destructive side of anarchism?

Don: Also I could add that popular culture helps to get the attention of the sheeps, unfortunately many can’t get past the idea of Obama with white face paint, thinking this is some type of racist hate speech.

Rents: Which is kinda is, and you’d be negligent to dismiss it. Why not choose an image that the “sheep”, as you call them, could better understand?

Don: You must be a sheep as well, cause you couldn’t understand it. Do you want me to give you your baby bottle and pat you on the back? Do I need to spoon feed you? Obviously you don’t know anything in regard to geopolitics or how the real world operates.

When someone calls you a sheep, the discussion is pretty much over.

There are a few nagging issues I have with the film, however. Here’s a short list.

1. The Joker can walk away from a flipped semi with only slight disorientation.

HUGE AMOUNT OF KINETIC ENERGY! TEARING THROUGH YOUR BODY! Even if you’re “okay” and don’t have any serious injuries like broken bones or internal bleeding, you’re still not moving above a crawl for a while. Trust me, I’ve done this. Every part of your body just sits there going “hey man what the fuck” and you feel like a junkie stuck in a k-hole and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But okay, it’s a movie, and on top of that it’s a comic book movie. Fine, whatever, I’ll suspend disbelief. Also on that note…

2. How is Two-Face not septic?!

I could not get over this the first time I saw it. Okay, like I said, I’ve been there. Not “half my face burnt off” been there, but “in the ER after massive kinetic energy from a truck” been there, so I understand that the body can be very good at ignoring or blocking or just not registering pain. But good lord, man, what about the risk of infection here? He’s got half his face exposed to the elements, he’s barely started to heal, and he’s not taking any painkillers or antibiotics or or or… motherfucking eye drops?!

Dude you will at least need some eye drops. Basic biology.

But fine, comic book movie, he looks awesome, whatever.

3. People actually believe that Harvey Dent is Batman.

Let’s review this briefly. Here’s Batman:

And here’s Harvey Dent:

Notice anything? No? Look look look look look harder look harder LOOK HARDER.

Harvey has a cleft chin. It’s genetic. Batman does not have a cleft chin. Ergo, Harvey Dent is not Batman. The Joker must realize this, as he met Batman up close and personal at the fundraiser party in Bruce Wayne’s penthouse. How up close and personal? This up close and personal:

Which makes the whole chase scene during which “Batman” was being transferred to County not so much a ruse as a farce. Speaking of…

4. Gordon is completely incompetent.

Now, it’s not that I mind incompetent cops. I prefer them, if you must know.

What bothers me here is that the mayor promoted Gordon to police commissioner after what quite possibly may have been the biggest government-run disaster in city history: the aforementioned chase scene, which caused countless millions in property damage, placed the lives of civilians at great risk (ooo, more on that…), and resulted in the death of at least half a dozen people… and for what? To capture the Joker as he wanted, allowing him to break the accountant Lau out of jail and also to arrange the abduction of Harvey Dent and Rachel while he was at it.

And we are supposed to cheer along with the cops on the elevation of the hero, and smirk inwardly as we see the iconic comic book character fulfill his destiny. At least the Joker has the right idea about all this.

Go you. Well done. You sure got the better of me.

5. The Batman never kills anyone.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? One day, when I am both very bored and very stoned, I will count all the times he puts people at risk for grievous bodily harm. In the chase scene alone, Batman:

1. Self-destructs the Batpod within killing distance of at least a dozen civilian road workers.
2. Blows up parked cars just because he wanted to ride his bike there. How does he know the cars are unoccupied? What if he had blown up the one with the two boys?
3. Drives his bikey through a… uh… well I don’t really know what that is, but it reminded me of the Blues Brothers scene where they’re driving through a mall. The Blues Brothers, however, was a comedy, and Batman is just being a selfish dick.
4. “I’ll just blow up that garbage bin so I can drive here. It’s not like any homeless people sleep in alleyways or anything.”

The only reason he gets away with this is because civilian deaths at the hands of Batman were not written into the script. Also, everyone in Gotham is retarded (see Point #2 above) and don’t mind some jackass tearing through their city destroying everything in sight just so he can beat up some drug dealers with his bare hands.

The Dark Knight serves to remind me why I hate Batman and the cops, and why I’m only interested in the villians in the stories.

My favourite Joker weapon is his cute little Cupid OTF (out-the-front) knife. It’s small, but not too small; it fits nicely in his hand as if it were an extension of himself; and it just seems to say, “Oh hello sweetheart. You missed me. I can tell.”

The OTC is most prominently displayed in the party-crashing scene where he wields it at Rachel “Suicide for Satan!” Dawes. (That’s the second Cecil B. DeMented reference I’ve made this week. WTF.)

Note the symmetrical blade with serrations at the base, the lovely blood groove, and the pointed hilt. Cupid, or Cupid clone. It’s an economical (but not cheaply made) and 100% California legal switchblade-like knife: the blade deploys straight out the front automatically with the push of a button, but it must be retracted manually. Unfortunately, we never see the Joker deploy the knife in the film. WHY, filmmakers, WHY!!!

Let’s see some more pictures from the film! *dance*

Poor Rachel is trying make herself very small.

Oh to be young, alive, and clinically psychotic.

ohai

Here we can see the knife from another angle. Sometimes it looks like the blade isn’t symmetrical, but it just depends on how it’s being held.

In this shot you can see the Cupid lying on its front, the side with the button. Let’s zoom in and you’ll be able to see the clip at the bottom of the handle (useful for keeping the knife on your belt, in your pocket, or securely in your messenger bag).

I know, not the best picture, but it was the best I could get.

In my next post I’ll show some pictures of my own Cupid, and if I have enough beer on hand we’ll even see it in action.