Chapter 875: Accept Humbly, Never Change

Many events have left an indelible mark on the history of North America, and Duke and the Batman Series were bound to do the same. Whether history would judge them in a positive or negative light, however, was something no one could predict. Furthermore, this society-wide debate over cinema and violence would never reach a definitive conclusion.

Current events shaped public opinion, and public opinion in turn influenced the direction of current events.

Perhaps when Duke was truly old and gray, he would look back on this massive media debate about movies and find it quite amusing. As a director, whether drawn into the incident actively or passively, he was destined to leave a bold mark on the course of American history.

The debate had already expanded beyond the scope of The Dark Knight Rises, dragging all of Hollywood into the fray. Moreover, the moral crusaders pushed forward by certain conglomerates had even added the driving forces behind the film to their list of targets.

In the eyes of these moral crusaders, the entire film industry was guilty. They took to the media to list out the "Seven Deadly Sins" of Hollywood movies!

The First Sin of Cinema: Inspiring Villain Worship.

"Hollywood is a film industrial system designed to provide spectacle—not just through visual effects, but through the spectacularization of stories and characters. To achieve a narrative that is logically unfathomable yet pushes the conflict between good and evil to its absolute extreme, Hollywood's screenwriters and directors rack their brains."

"Audiences demand thrills and entertainment. Hollywood evolved its villains from early homicidal maniacs into the psychopaths of its middle period, and then from the cautionary figures in Seven into philosophical thought-criminals like the Joker. During this evolution of the antagonist, the protagonists have hardly changed, allowing the villains to gradually seize the initiative in dramatic impact."

"Whether it is Michael Peterson in the movies or Charles Manson on the silver screen, these are figures who have been elevated to the altar in a context where heroes either do not exist or have been reduced to mere tools for political propaganda. The more exaggerated films magnify this mythological aura, coloring their crimes with apocalyptic overtones. Whether it is pure brutality, simple revenge, cautionary awakenings, or even the philosophical musings of the Joker, these films lead viewers from morbid curiosity to fondness, from appreciation to worship, and eventually, in sporadic cases, to imitation."

The Second Sin of Cinema: Glorifying the Spectacle of Violence.

"Cinematic plots demand contradiction, conflict, and drama; therefore, violence has become an indispensable element of Hollywood commercial films. On the one hand, the vivid depiction of violence has expanded the public's appetite. Hollywood must continuously up the ante of violent crime just to avoid obsolescence. On the other hand, real-life violence constantly inspires Hollywood. Charles Manson's followers ruthlessly murdered Roman Polanski's wife, and in the hands of Duke Rosenberg, the charismatic and influential monster that was Manson has been blended into the personality and mannerisms of the Joker. In turn, this upgraded on-screen Joker has influenced today's youth, driving one to commit an even more outrageous and heinous act."

"On-screen violence is fundamentally just a narrative element. Once the theater lights come on and the credits roll, the violence should end. However, mass media serves to magnify and exaggerate it. Violence that should never have spilled into real life crosses the line, and this out-of-context display inevitably leads to the abuse of violence."

"Oliver Stone used Natural Born Killers to satirize media violence, yet in a cruel twist of irony, the film inspired the infamous Columbine High School massacre. Martin Scorsese used Taxi Driver to chronicle Vietnam War trauma and dramatic violence, but it also directly resulted in American youth John Hinckley's obsession with Jodie Foster and his subsequent assassination attempt on President Reagan."

The Third Sin of Cinema: Glorifying Vigilante Violence.

"Meeting violence with violence, or combating violence through violence, is a common trope employed by directors. In these films, when confronted with atrocities that the law cannot punish, answering violence with violence becomes the only option. The more subtle approach of combating violence with violence serves as the directors' ultimate narrative tool—waving the banner of the law to rebel against the law itself."

"However, not everyone can grasp this deeper meaning. As a result, many film fans fall in love with the meticulous John Doe in Seven, admire the unfathomable Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, marvel at Agent Smith in The Matrix, obsess over the captive-bolt-pistol-wielding killer in No Country for Old Men, and grow enamored with the Joker in The Dark Knight. Meeting violence with violence may be viscerally satisfying, but the unbridled imitation of such brutality only transforms it into a vessel that harms society and humanity. When violence steps off the silver screen and sheds the romantic halo of the dream-making machine, all we are left with is tragedy."

The Fourth Sin of Cinema: The Mass Spectator Effect.

"Public spectacle and swarming discussions infinitely magnify the social significance of violent incidents. While there is nothing wrong with the media exploring the societal factors behind these figures, under the lens of entertainment-driven narratives, this exploration transforms into another form of deification and morbid voyeurism."

"Remember the criminal's demand to the president in Black Mirror? He kidnapped a British princess solely to extort a global live broadcast of the president having sex with a pig. His extraordinary crime, intertwined with the public's morbid curiosity and apathetic spectatorship, morphed into a piece of performance art. This absurd tale heavily illustrates the responsibility borne by all modern media, films included: by fueling such an intensely fervent mass spectacle, they inadvertently breed malicious crimes committed for the sake of grandstanding and attention-seeking."

"A single, independent film bears no inherent responsibility. Yet, under the catalyst of mass media and social issues, cinema—or rather, the cinematic text—inevitably becomes a crucial link in tragedy after tragedy..."

These critics laid out a total of seven sins for Hollywood films, a move that unequivocally condemned the entire industry in one fell swoop. To some extent, however, this was actually a good thing for Duke and The Dark Knight Rises. The major Hollywood studios banded together almost instantly, uniting on a common front to refute these claims, which in turn alleviated the pressure of direct attacks on The Dark Knight Rises.

Whenever anyone threatened the collective interests of Hollywood, the major studio conglomerates would naturally form an alliance to protect their bottom line.

They even weaponized Duke's own words in their rebuttals, acting as if the recent media siege against The Dark Knight Rises had absolutely nothing to do with them.

"Movies do not kill people. We love cinema, and we love the worlds it creates. Films allow people to feel in their own unique way. As long as we stand together against this foolish and extreme rhetoric, acts of violence cannot destroy people's love and faith, nor can they destroy cinema and art."

These words from Duke's recent interview were plastered across prominent positions by numerous media outlets.

Rallying behind Duke's statement, media outlets with close ties to Hollywood launched a sustained and vigorous counterattack against the claims that cinema was to blame.

"First of all, films do not kill people. The history of human violence long predates the history of cinema. In this massacre, film occupies a murky, ambiguous position. Forcing cinema to foot the bill for these crimes smacks of scapegoating."

"In reality, on-screen violence is rarely proven to directly influence human behavior. Richard Walter once pointed out that whenever a violent film hits theaters, real-world violence actually decreases. What is a movie theater? A movie theater is a gymnasium for the emotions. Just as we can engage in physical conflict in a sports arena, we can experience psychological conflict inside a theater. What exactly is wrong with that?"

"Secondly, violence stems from the human heart. To claim that The Dark Knight Rises and the Joker caused this tragedy is a massive exaggeration. The core theme of The Dark Knight condemns violence, yet what James Holmes extracted from the film was merely crime and slaughter. Different minds take away entirely different messages from the same film. It was the individual himself who, through a series of personal choices, placed himself in the shoes of a criminal."

"Cinema merely reflects or artistically processes the social conditions that already exist in reality. Even if it were as pure as driven snow, resolutely abandoning all scenes of violence, obscenity, and sin, people would still learn about violence and crime through countless other avenues. In the real world, the true source of violence in a person's heart stems from societal imbalances, life pressures, and failures in education."

"Lastly, this tragedy reflects the underlying issues of our entire era."

"In the wake of this tragedy, Duke Rosenberg formally announced his departure from the Batman series and issued an impassioned declaration: 'We love cinema, and we love the worlds it creates. Films allow people to feel in their own unique way.' The innocence of the director and his film serves as indirect proof of a larger truth: this Joker-esque, real-world tragedy was a product of our times."

"In Duke Rosenberg's Batman films, the criminal figures always embody a sense of anti-civilization, anti-establishment madness—an extremism completely devoid of personal regard or rational demands. When the Joker burns the city down, he sticks his head out of a car window and cackles wildly into the wind. When Bane destroys an entire football stadium, he casually hoists a flag and tosses aside a shattered Batman mask. These are no longer wars of nations, militaries, or politics. They are fiercely individualistic, primal, and rebellious. On one hand, they question the established order and the ruling class; on the other, they act as the very avatars of fear and anxiety."

"James Holmes's original motives may never be known, but to this day, the 25-year-old continues to spit at prison guards, feigning madness while eagerly asking how The Dark Knight Rises ended. He shows utter disdain for his own crimes and for human life itself. His criminal disposition belongs entirely to this era, and film and culture merely serve as a mirror reflecting that infamy. Even as Warner considers trimming the violent scenes from their upcoming films, Obama and the U.S. government are frantically debating gun control laws. So why should the silver screen be forced to foot the bill, self-reflect, and take all the blame? Every ounce of reality, law, education, and injustice in this world and in this era—as well as every member of the general public—is intimately and inextricably linked to this tragedy."

In the face of public scrutiny, Hollywood was not just pushing back. They also adopted another stance entirely: accept humbly, but never change.

In other words, Hollywood would simply make whatever genre of film yielded the greatest market value. Perhaps for the time being, the studios would place a few minor restrictions on their production content, but in the grand scheme of things, their ultimate goal would always remain the pursuit of maximum profit.