I will start this by plainly stating two things:
- There are few Batman fans bigger than me.
- These are developing opinions.
I grew up in Aurora, Colorado about two miles from the theater where last week’s shootings took place. I’ve probably been there dozens of times.
When I first encountered Batman, it was watching the campy 1960s Adam West series with my dad. The violence was a joke, marked with brightly covered “whams” and “bams” written on the screen.
When I was about 9 years old, I happened upon a library copy of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The “holy gee Batman!” whimsy was replaced by a grizzled old man, drawn out of retirement by urban terrorism and an authoritarian goverment who used Superman as their stooge. Along with Watchmen, Miller’s work is generally considered the first step toward making adult themed graphic novels mainstream media. I haven’t put comics down since.
The portrayal of violence in the media has grown along with Batman, from cartoony cowboy fist fights and shootouts to the development of the horror subgenre startlingly named “torture porn.” The Joker has gone from a cartoony character who steals kid’s homework for fun to a terrorist who “just wants to watch the world burn.”
When I heard that the shooter in Colorado came into the theater with a riot helment, gas mask, gas cannisters and an automatic weapon, all I could think was:
It sounds like something out of a comic book.
Gandhi once said that “the only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as non-violent are Christians.” When I go back and reread the Sermon on the Mount, and I compare it to Jesus’s life, it’s seems impossible to miss: There is no cure or power in violence. I find this criticism easy to accept, and use Christ’s teachings to back me up when I point out the problems with just war theory or capital punishment.
But is it okay to stop there? Is it a sin to consume violence rich media? I’m not sure. I’m not quite ready to put away my comic books. But I wonder if we’ve become obsessed and insensitized.
What kind of people would we be be if we filled our minds with images of peace, and set out to settle disputes as Christ did? It’s easy to call oneself a pacifist. It’s harder to spend one’s life meditating on peace, and trying to build it in the world around you.
photo credit: laverrue via photo pin cc
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