The Joker Is Satan, and So Are We: Girard and The Dark Knight

This essay comments on The Dark Knight from the point of view of Rene Girard's theory of violence. The notable Girardian resonances of the film are mentioned in connection with such themes as socially mediated desire for money, romantic rivalry, and scapegoating. The Joker is interpreted as a particularly powerful Satan figure, who illuminates Girard's conception of the satanic basis of human culture. This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss1/5 The Dark Knight is a movie that is breaking box office records. Why? Because it is a powerful expression of theological ideas. I need to elaborate a bit on this apparently odd statement. Let's list, in no particular order, some of the main themes of the movie: The Joker's main goal is not acquiring money, but sowing chaos and destruction; Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent are rivals for the affection of Rachel Dawes; the police force is filled with corruption; Batman's exploits have produced copycats, imitators; the "law-abiding citizens" and the "criminals" are distinct groups of people . . . aren't they? . . . or are they all in the same boat?; a symbol of "justice," such as Harvey Dent, can be seduced to join "the dark side"; criminals often kill each other, taking greed to an irrational extreme. These themes can be elucidated very effectively with reference to the writings of Rene Girard. If you are not familiar with Girard, I will provide a brief outline of his theory of culture. The theory begins with the concept of desire. Human beings have basic natural desires. If my stomach sends hunger signals to my brain, then I have a desire for food. But because human beings are highly social creatures, our basic natural desires very quickly become overlaid with complex patterns of social mediation. I may feel hungry, which is an internal, natural desire, but if I see a commercial for Burger King and decide to satisfy my hunger by eating a Whopper, then my desire has become socially mediated. 1 Bellinger: The Joker Is Satan, and So Are We Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2016 Girard uses the phrase "mimetic desire" to describe this bedrock phenomenon of human psychology. We may think that our desires are internally generated, but most of the time we do not know what we should desire until we look around at others and see what they are desiring. We mime, mimic, imitate the desires of others, particularly those others who appear to us as models of successful living. The models strike us as having a greater fullness of being than we have; in order to be like them we must desire to possess the things that they possess. There are many examples of mimetic desire. If two small children are in a room that has many toys in it, what will happen? One child will start playing with a particular toy and the other child will then want that toy also, and a tug-of-war will ensue. This will happen even if there is an identical or equivalent toy in the room. This is a perfect example of the phenomenon of mimetic desire, which is not predicated on scarcity; the scarcity of objects is not relevant because an artificial scarcity is created by the process of mimicking another person. When children grow into adults, mimetic desire does not fade away; it simply takes more sophisticated forms. I have already referred to advertizing as a key shaper of socially mediated desires. In general, the strategy of advertisers is to present happy, beautiful, successful people who own or use a certain product. You should own the product also if you want to mimic their success in life. In many ways the stock market is a mimetic phenomenon, as is fashion. The concept of "fashion" is not limited only to clothing; it also includes lifestyle items such as iPods, cars, computers, and avid devotion to 2 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 13 [2016], Iss. 1, Art. 5 http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss1/5 sports teams or NASCAR drivers. The phenomenon of the romantic triangle, two men fighting over a woman, is a common theme in literature, television, and movies. In his works of literary criticism, Girard traces the roots of romantic rivalry as it is unveiled in the works of key authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Flaubert, and Dostoevsky. This concept of rivalry is the second major element of Girard's theory of culture. If human beings are copying the desires of other human beings, the stage is set for envy, rivalry, conflict, and violence. If I am imitating someone else's desire for an object, then by definition I am setting myself up as a rival and potential enemy of the other person. If mimetic desire is the bedrock of human social psychology, then human society is always a conflictual field of mutual antagonisms which can lead to generalized chaos. If I imitate others then those others are always stumbling blocks for me, impeding my ability to get what I (and they) want. The phenomenon of the stumbling block is designated by a very precise term in the Greek language of the ancient world: skandalon. Mimetic desire and the rivalry to which it leads are inexhaustible sources of scandal, which Girard interprets as our inability to break free from the entangling webs of imitation and the violence to