*Spoilers from here on out.
It's unfortunate that what I would call the most popular movie of 2008 a complete and utter failure in terms of the Bechdel test. The Dark Knight made $997,027,799 at the box office and is also regarded as Heath Ledger's best role as well as his last as the joyously sadistic Joker. It's already picked up a Golden Globe and is certainly on the road toward Academy Award territory. Rather sadly, The Dark Knight fails to address its female audiences with any real seriousness.
Our lone female on the scene--Rachel Dawes, played in this sequel by Maggie Gyllenhaal--is a sore departure from her adventures in Batman Begins. That Rachel, portrayed by Katie Holmes, is a sharp lawyer who takes on the mob in the name of justice. True, she is saved by Batman multiple times but she seems to have some semblance of independence. This new Dark Knight Rachel is reduced to the well-meaning sidekick (and girlfriend) of do-gooder district attorney Harvey Dent. She is reduced to sitting on the sidelines, watching him take on mob bosses in court and following him around to nag at him. The only scene where she seems to act both strongly and alone is when she interrogates...Lau, the Chinese businessman, and it doesn't take much for him to crack. She does get to knee the Joker in the balls at Bruce Wayne's fundraising party for Dent, but just in time for the Batman to save her.
To get to the point, Rachel's major purpose in the movie is to die, getting blown up by the Joker after she and Harvey are kidnapped in a sick game. Her death leaves Harvey heartbroken, disfigured, insane and ripe for villainy, and devastates Bruce Wayne/Batman. Dent becomes "Two-Face," a mad villain with an incredibly warped sense of justice who must take his revenge on Batman for failing to save his love. Thus unfolds the rest of the movie, with lots of violence and gross deeds done in Rachel's name. End scene.
The Dark Knight was filmed in Chicago, taking a leap from gothic mysticism onto the grimy, all-too-real streets of the windy city. It's a great technical choice by director Christopher Nolan, but the audience sees it as a man's world. There just don't seem to be any strong female characters that can survive in this environment: they're either martyrs, betrayers, or just on the sidelines. A female policewoman on Detective Gordon's staff sells them out to the mob. Gordon's wife sobs when policemen bring news of her husband's death and curses the Batman. A "tough" judge gets blown up by the Joker before we ever get to see her in action. Rachel dies for a plot twist. Women are only victims in this sooty city. And it doesn't have to be that way. It's ludicrous to assume that a harsh urban environment is only conducive to female dependence on the opposite sex.
Oh, there's one more female character who appears for a line or two: a mob boss' whore. She complains in a loud club that she would rather go somewhere quiet. The mob boss replies, "What makes you think that I want to hear you talk?" The Dark Knight seems to have similar aspirations for it's female characters. And since the sparse women in this film don't actually talk to each other, much less about something other than the Batman, The Dark Knight fails the Bechdel test.
THIS IS A WELL THOUGHT-OUT AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING REVIEW, NIGHT HAWK. I APPROVE. NOW, GO WATCH "GRINDHOUSE" YOU LAZY BASTARD!
ReplyDeleteAs much as I admire The Dark Knight and what it did, it fail in having proper female characters. Do I fault the movie as much as you do for that, no. The movie is about three men and their positions in society and how they affect each other. You're right; Rachel served as a catalyst for some of their emotions (or lack there of). Perhaps once Noylan finally gets to work on the third film, he'll have a complex woman character that can serve a purpose beyond affecting Bruce Wayne's issues.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. Working at Blockbuster, I had to promote this movie endlessly and listen to customers and co-workers gush about it... but not a single person I talked to said "Hey, I think this movie is kinda sexist" despite the lone woman in the movie being nothing but a victim. Superhero movies and comics have never had a good history, but TDK doesn't even try, for all its padded length.
ReplyDeleteI'll just be over here, hoping the third movie will star Catwoman and/or Poison Ivy. :/
Oh thank god. I had a really difficult time trying to explain to my friends why this movie bothered me (I still liked it, but...), and you just said exactly what I was thinking.
ReplyDeleteIt's a superhero movie, and superheroes don't have a very good track record with women, but still.
Thank you for this thoughtful and direct review.
ReplyDeleteTo me, as disturbing as the fridging of Rachel was the portrayal of Jim Gordon's family. Gordon's son, who previously had little to no significance to the canon, is given a small but emotionally significant arc, the audience's surrogate for processing and accepting the duality of the Batman's existence. Meanwhile, Gordon's daughter is barely glimpsed, has no lines, and could have been removed from the movie entirely and leave not a ripple.
His daughter? The future Batgirl.
Why, writers? WHY?!
I'm going to make a sweeping generalization and say, I guess that most films which fail the Bechdel Test have been made by people who don't even notice the lack of strong female characters in their work.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't believe that 'failing the Bechdel Test' is the same as 'failing to address the female audience'.
There are some films which will naturally include very few female characters, such as something like The Shawshank Redemption - set in a high-security male prison. If something like that were to pass the Bechdel Test it would have to be on a technicality, because the story being told is within an all-male environment. But it is still powerful for female audiences, I believe.
I don't think that's any excuse for most films and film-makers, however!
I think that this film was excellent and I agree that the females had pitiful roles in the story. But arguably this is very fitting for the Gotham city environment. It's a horrible, terrible place. The story is told from the male point of view. I think it's more a narrative thing than the 'reality' of the female characters in this world. I don't know if I'm being coherent, but the females are portrayed exactly as they are viewed.
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying that for a film to be good, writers have to shoehorn women in somehow? Excuse me, but it seems that throwing something in just to be politically correct is not only selling out, but also sexist, because it's basically saying, "women won't like this movie because it has too many men in it." Really now? I think applying this test to The Dark Knight ignores the context of the movie entirely. It's ABOUT BATMAN. It's not about Rachel Dawes. She's a side character. If a man had been used in the same role she filled, no one would complain. In fact, very few people complain now. If the writers had tried to force more female characters into the work (Harley Quinn for example) it wouldn't have fit at all. It would feel forced and unnecessary. I think the Bechdel test is a nice idea, but it needs to be altered to address the context of the work, not just "Oh, it doesn't have women? Then it's automatically bad."
ReplyDeleteOh, and for the record, I think Barbara Gordon is an infant when this film takes place. So yeah. Not exactly prime dramatic material.
ReplyDelete