All cultural commentary that purports to find deep meaning in popular culture needs to begin with the null hypothesis: the possibility that what we are watching is in the end mere entertainment, or worse. Brant Hansen makes a succinct case for dispensing with critique and going straight to condemnation of the movie du jour. My gut tells me he's right.

re: condemnation, gestures and postures, movies, pop culture

Andy

:

At one level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise.

But there is a second deeper level.  At that level, “The Dark Knight” is a discourse on the nature of evil.

And then . . . there is a third, still deeper, final level. 

At that final level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise. . . .

“The Dark Knight” is cultural rigor mortis.  It’s what happens when we are done, and we are done.  Jacques Barzun had it right, when he wrote a history of western culture up through the 1990s, and said, certainly, that our age is defined by boredom.  We are excited by nothing, really, but maybe for a moment here, or a moment there, we can try to be turned on.  Sex can do it (or fake sex, much more likely) but brutal violence can work, too, if for a short time.