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for five years, argues, however, that the sequence ‘makes a mockery of the pain, humiliation, and degradation felt by the real victims of sexual assault.’ The torture scene in
The Dark Knight, which originally derived from a kids’ cartoon strip, was rated acceptable for a 12A under the classification ‘fantasy violence.’ Batman our superhero abuses his power and uses surprise as a tactic to extract information from the Joker. A bright light comes on in the cell and the Joker’s head is slammed down onto the table. Batman, revealed behind him, slams a fist into the Joker’s face and punches his hand. The good men of Gotham looking on through the glass window visibly recoil and when Batman props a chair against the wall so that no-one can enter, the Commissioner seems unsure when he mutters, ‘He’s in control.’ Repeated high angle blows goaded by the Joker splatter blood on the white tiled walls and lead to a confession of the
hiding place of the District Attorney Harvey Dent and his girlfriend Rachel Dawes. The Joker here is flippant and wins some sympathy (Heath Ledger’s brilliantly charismatic Joker won Best Supporting Actor in the Oscars this year) while Batman is a grim-faced bully beating a defenceless man. At 12A this clip seems to
condone torture as a means of extracting truth. The ‘ticking-bomb’ scenario, in which torture is justified if there is a limited period in which to prise from a suspect information to avert a catastrophe, is the argument of choice
for torture apologists everywhere.
John McCarthy John Surnow, co-creator
of the thriller series 24, told an interviewer recently: If there’s a bomb about to hit a major US city, and you have a person with information ... if you don’t torture that person, that would be one of the most immoral acts of your life. The 12A rating is justified
by the proviso ‘fantasy violence’; but the effect of this slickly-shot and edited film is a far cry from reading a DC Thompson comic, and surely demands a 15 classification. A parent could take an eight-year-old
to watch the clown-masked villains casually murder one another in the opening sequence. The slickness of the ‘Wanna see a magic trick? I can make this pencil disappear’ sequence, the neat dialogue, the three frames of the pencil on the table, the accuracy of the shot when the head is thrust onto it, and the absence of pencil is gob- smacking for a viewer of any age. There are no sound-effects of pain from the victim. Perhaps an eight-year-old would miss the whole sequence. but perhaps s/he would have nightmares. The DVD is a 12 and
carries the warning: ‘Contains strong fantasy
violence and sustained threat.’ The trailer is a 12 and ‘Contains scenes of moderate personal threat and violence’; this misleads the viewer as to the extent of the sadistic violence in the film. Tarantino’s infamous ear-
removal scene in Reservoir Dogs choreographs the torture attractively to the upbeat soundtrack ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’, as Michael Madson jokes and dances round the police officer before cutting off his ear. The technique is the same as the torture sequence in Casino Royale; the sound-effects suggest the ear being amputated without the viewer actually seeing it since the camera
66 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre
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