In case you missed it, the best movie ever came out this weekend. After years of anticipation, The Dark Knight appeased comic book nerds and action flick aficionados alike.
But Batman and The Joker have a long history, one that goes far beyond Heath Ledger's killer performance.
The finest illustration of the duo's relationship came in the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke. The Joker tells Batman an old joke that mirrors their respective philosophies: Two inmates escape from an asylum by jumping from roof to roof. One does so successfully, but the other is too afraid of falling. The first inmate proposes an idea: He'll shine his flashlight across the gap and the other guy can cross the beam of light. But the second inmate says to him, "What do you think I am, crazy? You would turn it off when I was halfway across."
The first inmate is The Joker, a man without regard for consequence. The second is Batman, a man struck by a skewed sense of responsibility and a hint of paranoia.
Of course I've had Batman on the brain because of The Dark Knight's release last week. But the similarities of Batman and The Joker's relationship strike me whenever I consider the relationship between Penn State's student activists and their unreachable president, Graham Spanier.
Spanier doesn't have the maniacal, sadistic agenda of The Joker (that we know of). But his administration does have a mocking, flippant attitude toward people like Safeguard Old State's Tom Shakely, members of the Penn State Student Labor Action Project and United Students Against Sweatshops (SLAP/USAS) and University Park Undergraduate Association President Gavin Keirans.
Their do-gooder, vigilante efforts seem to have little to no effect on Spanier's agenda.
Each has had their idealistic battles with the administration in recent months. Shakely's is more of a long-standing philosophical one, while SLAP/USAS are like gnats to Spanier, consistently annoying the crap out him because he won't behave the way they want him to, much like Batman to The Joker.
These idealistic stalwarts have justice on their minds, if not for themselves, then for the people they represent. But it's their ideals that undo them, just as is the case for the Caped Crusader.
And yet, much like The Joker, the only time most Penn State students will see Spanier's face is when he's performing hackneyed magic tricks.
Everything seems great when Spanier's pulling multicolored scarves from god-knows-where.
While the activists play their own tricks, they're all done for the sake of a belief. SLAP/USAS want to play with Spanier, but you can't mock someone whose behavior you ultimately want to influence and still expect winning results.
The Joker succeeds in aggravating Batman, because he makes no excuses or explanations for his motives. And Batman, like Shakely and Keirans, takes his ideals too seriously to negotiate with a madman.
Like The Joker to Batman, Spanier cares not what impassioned students think of his decisions. He's shown that he doesn't take their ideals seriously, so their protests fall on deaf ears. His "focus groups" aren't transparent and clearly don't represent the views of the students who care enough to speak up.
Batman may be the "good guy," but the beauty of The Killing Joke -- and, oh yeah, the real world -- is the duality of good vs. evil. Spanier's got duality down to a science, keeping the Board of Trustees beaming while he swats away the passionate student vigilantes. But there comes a time when Batman has to break his own ideals for the sake of Gotham. That's something the Dark Knights of Penn State have to come to grips with.
Kevin Doran is a former Daily Collegian reporter and editor and is the Monday columnist. His e-mail is kevin.a.doran@gmail.com.
