So this has been some year, huh? Whew. There’s been some good news, but by and large, just downer after downer. Wow.
The thing is, though, we still laugh, because we have to. That’s how you deal with the darkness; you laugh it away. Ask anyone in a high-stress job about some of the jokes they have with their coworkers. I have several friends who are nurses, and boy, the jokes they tell. EMTs. The dark humour of combat troops is well established.
The problem with the current rash of Gritty Reboots is that they don’t seem aware of that fact. They’re all grimdark, and they don’t ever lighten the mood with a joke. There are exceptions, but one of the things that makes, for example, The Dark Knight work is that it knows when to throw in a moment of humour. Not slapstick, goodness knows, not silliness, but a wry observation or a moment of wit. Something to break the tension for just long enough so you aren’t suffocated by it.
I think it’s one of the most important reasons for having the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) as a recurring character in the series, for example. I have said ever since I came out of the theatre on opening night all those years ago that he got the funniest line in The Dark Knight, when Batman says he isn’t crazy and the Scarecrow drawls, “That’s not my diagnosis.” Because of course Batman is crazy. Now, so is Dr. Jonathan Crane, and we all know it. But he’s still not wrong.
To go in a slightly different direction, let’s look at Schindler’s List. Actually, relatively early in the movie, one of the characters observed that he’d dreamed the night before that he was living in a room with ten people he didn’t know, then woke up to find that he was living in a room with ten people he didn’t know. Asked why he’d laugh at that, his response is that he has to laugh. Spielberg knows that we do, too, and so he gives various of the characters lines that they may or may not know are funny but that we definitely do.
I think it’s one of the things DC isn’t learning from the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—indeed, as established, from the success of the Nolanverse Batman movies. The movies aren’t really allowed to be funny. I mean, I’m not asking for Silver Age Jimmy Olsen, here, where they’re more ludicrous than anything, or the Adam West Batman. But the Burton and the Nolan allowed humour with their darkness, and while you can argue with the proportions, you can’t argue with the success.
It can be a delicate balance. One of the reasons I’m not particularly fond of Life Is Beautiful is that it’s trying to shoehorn wackiness into the Holocaust, and the only person who’s ever come close to succeeding at that is Mel Brooks in The Producers, because he knows who you should be laughing at. Also, he doesn’t set the movie during the Holocaust. Any way you look at it, though, it can be difficult to get the tone exactly right.
I guess I just think more people should try. The Gritty Reboot is such a common and ridiculous attempt at relevance these days, which is probably in large part due to the success of the Nolanverse, the darkness of the later Harry Potter movies, and a few others. But pretty much without fail, those are still funny in places. Even light—think of the sheer joy of Harry and Hermione dancing together. But isn’t it, in the end, light that casts shadows and shadows that define the light?
