| 3 young males overheard by Doug: “Wasn’t it so cool how Harvey 2 face turned from good to evil?” More and more it seems that conventional heroes have lost appeal in the youth demographic- replaced by either anti-heroes like Batman, Dexter, Spawn (short for Hell-spawn), as well as villians. It seems that now more than ever young people see morality as relative, and are more interested in good stories and good graphics than good guys. |
| Exchange between Barbara and Jason B: The movie was sensory overload from 30 seconds in. How can we compete with that as teachers? Will kids be able to experience “quiet” anymore? J: Maybe quiet will be something different altogether. |
| Kerry noted: “If we, as art teachers, do not talk about movies like “The Dark Knight” with our students, who will?” Througout the years youth culture has so often been ignored in classrooms, either because teachers are uninterested or unaware of pop and subcultural influences that are having an effect on the collective ethos of a generation. A movie like this is packed with some complex and conflicting philosophies and ideas which, in the classroom, could be very valuable discussion fodder. A short list of concepts addressed in this film include; nihlism, draconian justice, vigilantism, self-image, anarchy, existentialism, right and wrong, darwinism, and others. |