![]() The main focus of this discussion investigates how the Joker through re-enacting his own traumatic wounding creates fear and terror in Gotham City in order to expose the false beliefs of justice and innocence within the structure of the film narrative. Each character ‘acts out’ his original trauma, however only Batman ‘works through’ his, causing fear and/or terror amongst the citizens of Gotham City. ![]() Batman, the Joker, and Dent are all victims of traumatic events that ultimately create who they become - a crime fighter/vigilante, a terrorist, and a ‘judge’/criminal. The Dark Knight’s narrative, I argue, is spoken directly through the wound - the Joker’s scarred mouth. These terrifying images erupt from the victim’s past scarring, such as the Joker, to haunt the present. It is from the gap or the wound that remembering and creating narrative representations of the traumatic events are produced in order to facilitate witnesses of the terrifying events. ![]() The replaying of 9/11 images and reconstruction of the traumatic narrative ‘bares’ witness to the fears and terrors that the original event caused in order to create witnesses. Using the characters of Batman, the Joker, and Harvey Dent/Two- Face, The Dark Night exposes the gap left by the terrorist attacks to critique the black and white binaries established by the Bush administration’s response to the traumatic incidents caused on 9/11. Christopher Nolan’s film Batman: The Dark Knight is an allegory that utilizes the spectacle of 9/11 images and subsequent government policies - the War on Terror - to critique the black and white morality posited in the rhetoric of the Bush administration.
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