Officer Blake Needs Batman’s Help: A Genre Analysis of The Dark Knight Rises
Genre is like a vehicle carrying individual members of a like-minded group. It acts as a device that separates works into groups that share similar content and meaning. Each genre can have genres within genres, and other genres within those genres, so genre as a whole is malleable and varying in nature. People use genre to categorize various forms of media in their subconscious. My artifact to exemplify genre is from a Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. In the movie The Dark Knight Rises, the third movie in the Batman trilogy, there is a clip where a Gotham police officer named Officer Blake confronts Bruce Wayne about needing his help in the city again, somehow knowing that he is Batman. He plays on Bruce’s emotions in order to persuade him to help the city. This clip exemplifies genre in a way such that its outlet, music, context, tone and storyline all come together in a dramatic, fictional, persuasive argument, demonstrating the many layers and aspects that genre is capable of presenting. This works to prove that the importance of genre is to attract a broad array of audiences in order to allow the maximum amount of enjoyment, utilization, and exposure for a piece of work. In general, the genre of The Dark Knight Rises would be advertised as Drama because of its large amount of emotional and over-dramatized scenes. But as the movie is dissected, I learned that multitudes of genres are expressed down to the scene and the aspects of each scene. This scene displays drama, mystery, and tragedy, and within those genres it displays emotions, tension, and persuasion. The emotional persuasion and tension that contributes to the idea that this scene is a drama, reveals the aspects of this specific drama, which would be fictional drama. As Officer Blake is trying to convince Bruce that the Batman must return, his strategies include playing on Bruce’s emotions when he speaks of his childhood as an orphan and how that mirrors Bruce’s childhood. He also suggests that he knows Bruce’s secret that he is the Batman since he is telling Bruce that Gotham needs Batman to return, creating tension between the two. These emotional and tense aspects of drama are means by which someone can further be able to separate this scene from other scenes by genre. This allows an expansion on the common definition of genre to include the idea that each genre has aspects that allow the genre to be further separated. This is important because since each scene can be differentiated by their specific dramatic parts, as seen here with tension and emotions, different audiences are drawn to those types of dramas, ultimately broadening the possible audience and amount of people that can enjoy this film. The clip posted on YouTube has well over 600,000 views, and it mainly focuses on a monologue spoken by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or Officer Blake. Some groups of possible audience members could be fans of Joseph Gordon-Levitt who wish to view his acting skills as they are portrayed in Officer Blake’s character. Another group could be avid YouTube viewers from this particular YouTube account. The fact that there are certain groups of people searching for and viewing this clip, leads me to believe that something as simple as a group of people with a common interest in the clip can be considered a genre since it is a means by which this clip can be categorized. This is important because it is a way in which genre can be broken down and analyzed, revealing just how many different audiences can be attracted to this specific clip, therefore utilizing it to their interests and motives, leading to the exposure and possible enlargement of audiences. The environment of a work can greatly contribute to its genre. During this clip, the characters are in an isolated, dimly lit room. The fact that they are alone suggests that the subject matter of the conversation is important and must be conversed about in private. This sense of privacy and secrecy further categorizes this dramatic scene from other scenes of drama, allowing for a new genre within the genre of drama to emerge within the scene, which would be a suspenseful drama. Also as the scene progresses, the music in the background becomes prominently important. It begins subtly, and gradually becomes more and more intense and in a way tragic and reflective, as the scene has subject matter that is sad and somewhat a flashback of Officer Blake’s childhood. This music reflects the subject matter and successfully separates it from other scenes with more of a tragic drama. Bruce Wayne appears disheveled and unkempt because of his leave from his batman duties. His disheveled presence aids the fact that this is a realistic fiction. Batman doesn’t have any real “powers” he just uses his power of money. These aspects of his appearance along with the overall environment of the scene, make this scene unique in a way that portrays Batman in a different light. This is completely different from his demeanor in the rest of the movie, which reveals that the smallest details can be considered in the ac of uncovering genres inside of other genres to improve upon the dynamicity of genre. Music along with environment within a movie, within an episode, within a scene, is another genre in and of itself. It separates scenes by serving as a crutch to aid the context and how the audience interprets the scene. This allows the audience of a work to be able to better interpret and infer from the work a greater meaning. This is important because all of these aspects reel in the tastes of multiple audiences which leads to the possibility of an expanded audience that is able to enjoy this film, proving that every small genre within one main genre can aid in bringing in more viewers or readers that can enjoy it. This artifact stands out to me in relation to drama because although it is only a little over 2 minutes and only one conversation, the scene is very dynamic because of the many levels of Blake’s monologue and the environment. He speaks of his past, and of helping the city, and suggesting he knows that Bruce Wayne is the Batman, and how he figured it out. He also includes a persuasive argument, and all of this within the span of two minutes. This really makes this artifact a perfect vehicle to exemplify genre with. Because genre is so complex, like this clip, there are many layers to it, each layer connecting with the other layers and aspects to create several genres within a broader term of genre. The music, the setting, the conversation, the characters, and the concept all separate this scene, and any scene, from any other scene, movie, TV show, or piece of work. We need genre and all of its parts to be able to utilize it in the process of bringing in as many audience members as possible. The audience of works are the whole reason that works exist, so the more audience members that can enjoy a work, the more that piece of work can become known and related to, and even used to reflect on and to learn from. Genre paves the way for artists or creators of works to assemble and build a group of audiences that can enjoy and utilize their works.