Why superhero films are so serious

This weekend, The Dark Knight Rises opened in theaters, concluding a darker, more brutal, and simply more real-life rendition of the Batman saga that has ever been seen. Nolan's final film, like the sequel, depicts some pretty realistic violence, madness, and anarchy.

So, is it too brutal?

The tragic (some would say ironic) shooting in a CO theatrical premiere of The Dark Knight Rises has, not surprisingly resulted in the film industry being expected to answer for the crimes of a real-life madman. My thoughts on this must be rooted in two concepts I hold to be universally true: First, that humans are impressionable, especially to the suggestions of digital media. Second: our responses to tragedy are often too soon, too irrational, and usually crippled by paranoia.

How can the on-screen violence be explained in the wake of the actual crime? Is it culprit or coincidence?

What I find interesting is that the worlds of superheroes are merging with ours. It says a lot about us and our desires when you watch the transformation that Batman has made from Adam West's tame WHAM-POW 1960's Caped Crusader, to a crime-focused cartoon series of the early 90's, and now a thinly veiled commentary of our modern society's ills in the Dark Knight saga. Perhaps you could make a case for basing this on the degradation of American culture between now and then, or that the change has been fueled primarily by a technological revolution that has taken us from cartoonish onomatopoeia to Operation Sky Hook. But I don't think either of those things are the reason we are here.

We see the worlds of Superheroes merging with our own, not as much because we want to corrupt the digital universe, but because we want to bring heroes to our own. Perhaps it's no coincidence that movies are starting to look like our front-page headlines. At least in movies, Bruce Wayne is there to do something about all the evil and destruction. I think we make movies like this because we can create and interact in a world that is actually corrupt, quite like our own, but where people capably stand in the gap between the evil and the innocent. Even if it takes superpowers and bat-arsenals to do it.

We already know how messed up our world is. Movies help us to think that there is a brighter future to our own dark days. And the darker the days are in our films, the more real the hope seems.

It can't hurt people to start buying into this idea that they need a savior. Maybe it will help them to adapt when they realize they've got one.