Entertainment >
Movie News & Previews
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedDo promotions of the current Batman film, The Dark Knight, exploit the death of star Heath Ledger?
Results so far:
| Yes | 26% | 50 votes | Total: 191 votes | |
| No | 74% | 141 votes |
Yes
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesJudging from the great box office results so far, the answer is yes. We're talking Hollywood here. "The Dark Knight" is the most recent example of this kind of crass exploitation, profiting from the death of Heath Ledger early this year. It's a major factor in promoting the latest Batman film and no surprise. Find any Hollywood producer who wouldn't run over his own mother with a steamroller if it would get headlines and a few more bucks at the box office.
There's a long Tinseltown history of cynical promotion of a movie just after the death of its star. Examples include Rudolph Valentino, Jean Harlow, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Bruce Lee and others. Of course, lots of money goes into making movies, and you can't blame producers for trying to salvage their heavy investments when a disaster could cost them big bucks. But, whatever their motives, I feel the promotion of "The Dark Knight" has a sleazy aura, and the current breathless hype of Heath Ledger's final role is more than a little disturbing.
In addition to the heavy promotion by the movie's makers, the news media is falling all over itself praising "The Dark Knight", and particularly drooling over Heath Ledger in the role of the Joker. With the statistics coming in now, it looks like the orchestrated media hype about Ledger and heavy advertising by Warner Brothers should bring people rushing into the first-run theaters eager to pay the $7.50 or more per ticket.
However, if anyone takes a moment to consider it logically, "The Dark Knight" becomes the old story of the emperor's clothes. Or rather the too-familiar black plastic body suit of the caped crusader. Batman, after all, is not quite Shakespeare, but a very predictable, childishly-exaggerat ed comic strip. The characters have been familiar to most American kids for at least two generations, and getting the actors all gussied up for a new, big-budget movie doesn't make them any more interesting.
We know that whatever the wild special effects and explosions, the hero, even though his black leotards may bunch up once in awhile, will always beat bad guy The Joker in the final scene, and save his pals and Gotham City from certain destruction. For Pete's sake, this is the fifth or sixth Batman movie since the franchise started nearly 20 years ago. Why would anyone want to see it, except for the visceral thrill of knowing one of the stars of the unusual mystery actually died under the usual real life and death Hollywood mystery.
Heath Ledger's previous movie star role was as an American cowboy involved in hidden desires with another cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain. He was born in Australia in 1979, and was found dead in his Lower Manhattan apartment in January 2008. Coroner reports indicate it was an accidental overdose of a combination of prescribed sleeping pills, painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs, including Xanax and Valium. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Ledger also had been a cocaine user, and the mixture with other drugs could have been fatal.
Ledger was a competent actor, but no one could possibly top the original portrait of the charmingly evil genius in the purple suit and clown make-up better than Jack Nicholson. He did the Joker hilariously and flawlessly in the first Batman movie in 1989, and as good as Health may have been, he could never be more than an pale imitation of the scenery-chewing genius of Nicholson.
Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
Simply stated without the use of every 50 cent word I learned on the S.A.T., NO. The Dark Knight does not exploit the untimely and sad death of actor, Heath Ledger. The film and its promotions, do an excellent job of showcasing the talent that was lost with the passing of Heath Ledger.
Over the years, several actors have died during or just after production of a film. What do the producers do? Do they shelve it? Saying, "My we could be exploiting an actor by releasing this"! No, they continue and move forward as intended by the actor when they made the film. It was not produced to be poorly promoted and sit on a shelf. Heath Ledger made this movie with the hopes that it would succeed, as it does not seem to be a practice of many actors to make movies and hope like crazy they fail.
In the film roles that Heath Ledger has taken on throughout his career he has shown extreme versatility and strength in each role no matter what the character her portrays or type of movie he is in. One of Heath Ledger's first movies in which he had a leading role was 10 Things I Hate About You, which was a modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. This type of film was geared more towards a teenage audience and could have pigeonholed Ledger to a teeny bopper actor. However, the year after 10 Things, Ledger starred alongside Mel Gibson in the Patriot playing a headstrong young man who is full of passion and rage. In a Knight's Tale, Ledger plays a loveable and humble character, William Thatcher, who from the time you start the movie you love him and want him to overcome. In Monster's Ball he plays a young man who after years of torment by his father commits suicide. In Candy he plays a poet who is hooked on heroin and love. His most acclaimed role to date was of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain where he plays a homosexual cowboy who is torn between the way he feels and what he believes is the right way to be.
All of these films exhibit Ledger's talent and range as an actor. The last film to have the opportunity to showcase his strength was The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight is a film, as one could probably imagine from its title, was meant to be dark, it was meant to showcase the Joker as a dark menacing force who had no regard for human life and had no empathy for suffering.
The character of the Joker was a serial murderer. The Joker kills without care, question or emotion. So, why Jack Nicholson's portrayal as a smiley faced giggly goon made sense, I will never understand. Serial Killers themselves are not funny, loveable and laughable characters, therefore, Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was more fitting and logical than that of a man dipped in a barrel of toxic waste only to go on to try and kill the city. Ledger's character is that of a mentally ill, possibly abused person who due to his past has left him with little ability to make the correct moral judgments and is left only with a feeling of revenge. The, what I believe, perfect job that Heath Ledger did is what has sold so many tickets to see The Dark Knight and keeps people wanting to see it again. Without a doubt, in terms of accuracy of the type of character the Joker was, Heath Ledger's performance far outweighed that of Jack Nicholson's. Heath Ledger's death is a tragic end to what was only the beginning of a great career. He ended portraying a serial murderer as a cold, morally corrupt psychopath instead of a giggly Prince fan chasing Kim Basinger.
Learn more about this author, Mellisa Lemons.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Movie News & Previews
- Should William Shatner return as Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie?
