Am I alone in thinking this Batma... sorry, "Dark Knight" business is kind of silly?

You're about twenty-five years late to the "Is dark and gritty Batman silly?" conversation as the gritty Batman comics are probably the ones that sell best for DC at this point (outside of events) and they've been selling the best since Frank Miller got his hands on Batman. Though Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" a couple years later certainly helped as well.

God, I fucking love Batman. Campy Batman, animated series noir-ish Batman, gritty Batman, insane Batman, I'll take it all.

@Grimhild: You're not alone and you're not wrong. But does this mean you find everything fictional funny/silly and not worth serious consideration? I imagine not, right?

Things that are silly like superheroes can still be a great way to communicate stories. Batman in particular has been interesting to people because when the superhero was such a known quantity, he (er, his writers) were among the first to ask: What would someone in this position really be like? How crazy is he? Is he even a good guy? Etc, etc, etc.

It's been said before but superheroes are just modern myths. Laugh away, but I hope you can enjoy some of it too. There's much that's worthwhile wrapped in a package that could be laughed at.

@Little_Socrates said:

You're about twenty-five years late to the "Is dark and gritty Batman silly?" conversation as the gritty Batman comics are probably the ones that sell best for DC at this point (outside of events) and they've been selling the best since Frank Miller got his hands on Batman. Though Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" a couple years later certainly helped as well.

God, I fucking love Batman. Campy Batman, animated series noir-ish Batman, gritty Batman, insane Batman, I'll take it all.

Not to mention the absolutely astounding A Serious House on Serious Earth. A great novel with incredible art that finally talks about Batman's psyche. Batman has been among the best examples of really good, really serious storytelling.

@Hunkulese said:

@Grimhild Are you just a wee lad? A grown man should never giggle.

Nope, I'm a grown woman. Do I have permission to giggle now?

@Little_Socrates@MariachiMacabre

You're about twenty-five years late to the "Is dark and gritty Batman silly?" conversation as the gritty Batman comics are probably the ones that sell best for DC at this point (outside of events) and they've been selling the best since Frank Miller got his hands on Batman. Though Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" a couple years later certainly helped as well.

God, I fucking love Batman. Campy Batman, animated series noir-ish Batman, gritty Batman, insane Batman, I'll take it all.

I probably should've emphasized "serious" more than I did in the OP since like I said earlier, I don't have this reaction when watching the dark and gothic Tim Burton versions since they're so hyper-stylized. Again, (honestly getting tired of repeating myself) it's when I'm expected to take the Nolan portrayals as being deathly serious, that I just find it funny, for the reasons I listed earlier.

@GERALTITUDE said:

@Grimhild: You're not alone and you're not wrong. But does this mean you find everything fictional funny/silly and not worth serious consideration? I imagine not, right?

Things that are silly like superheroes can still be a great way to communicate stories. Batman in particular has been interesting to people because when the superhero was such a known quantity, he (er, his writers) were among the first to ask: What would someone in this position really be like? How crazy is he? Is he even a good guy? Etc, etc, etc.

It's been said before but superheroes are just modern myths. Laugh away, but I hope you can enjoy some of it too. There's much that's worthwhile wrapped in a package that could be laughed at.

Again. As stated in my OP, I think the Batman IP is fun. I do enjoy it. But when they try to make it "serious and adult" while still having the trappings of whimsical tights, capes and a grown man running around in a bat costume, it doesn't convey the emotion that they are intending, for me. It looks completely out of place, and the movies only slightly hint on the topics of "How crazy is he? Is he even a good guy?" when it's the giant pink elephant in the room for me when I watch it.

Like I said before, every one of my friends have the same reaction that a majority of the people getting extremely defensive are on this thread, only not as venomous about it since they're not behind a screen. Was just putting it out there since I was starting to wonder if it was really that uncommon to find the whole realistic "serious business" take on Batman as odd as I do.

I really wish people would actually read what I wrote instead of immediately assuming that I'm taking a jab at every Batman enthusiast ever. It's really pretty amazing to me how much misdirected angst is getting thrown my way over this. Apparently Batman is serious business.

Nolan is a fantastic director and he can make a gravely-voiced guy in a bat costume seem serious and important.

That combined with the countless excellent Batman stories have made him one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

I'd enjoy the films if it wasn't for his voice

@TheJohn said:

The Bale gravelvoice broke "The Dark Knight" for me

Edit for clarity: I agree with OP. "Dark" knight is silly. I like Batman, but I like the kind of Batman that acknowledges that he is silly

I don't understand how this isn't stressed more if the lead character gives a unbelievable performance which then takes me out of the movie how is the movie still highly regarded

As it has been said multiple times, all credit goes to Chris Nolan for making something as ridiculous as The Batman into something semi-believeable and po-faced without losing the awesomeness.

@Grimhild: I very much understood what you meant. TDKR involves nuclear explosions, dealing with the themes and responsibilities of The Batman, and whether or not people even should want a Batman around. Arkham Asylum, my personal favorite Batman book (as mentioned by @MariachiMacabre ), is a masterwork trying to decide if Batman is just completely insane and has absolutely very little room for lightheartedness. It's a brilliant book with a couple of jokes, but they're not lighthearted and the whole book emanates menace like CRAZY. Nolan's movies are not even close to as serious, grim, or dark as the more serious Batman comics, or even the more serious comics of DC and Marvel at large.

That said, Nolan doesn't WANT his movies to be as dark and serious as the darkest and most serious Batman comics. You do know there's a scene in the second film where Batman travels all the way to China to capture one business executive only to tie him up with a sign and leave him literally on the doorstep of Gotham PD, right? Trucks flip over, Alfred and Lucius constantly joke about the whole thing, and The Joker, while menacing, still acts with comedic timing. While there is a serious element to the film, it's aiming for a balance, something I've heard people widely recognize about this third film in preview descriptions.

Batman has the best comicbook based movie. Only iron man is close.

@Grimhild said:

My circles of friends that are into these types of things are pretty zealous about it, and tend to get a little annoyed when I can't restrain a giggle here and there if they happen to be watching one of the movies when I'm over at their house.

That's really fucking rude. If someone obnoxiously began laughing during a film after being invited to my home, I'd ask them to shut up and feel totally justified.

Yes, there is a ridiculous element to Batman. The requirement of suspension of disbelief is probably relatively low, though, compared to the vast majority of films. If you are actually laughing out loud, then I can only imagine it's affected, as opposed to genuine, and smacks of douchebaggery.

...and this is coming from someone who enjoys The Dark Knight less and less with every viewing.

@Grimhild: I like that you're rejecting the very recent, modern, popular notion that Batman isn't at all silly. Of course he's silly. Of course he's all the way silly. You are sane and logical. That being said, however, and please don't take this the wrong way, but thou hast overstepped thy bounds and thou must accept that thou is wrong. Take a look at the long-view, with me: Chris Nolan's going to be a well-liked guy for years and years to come, for Memento, Inception, Batman, etc., and specifically this Batman trilogy will be remembered as one of his biggest, bestest things--he didn't botch it, and it was Batman, Batman, and it was the most impossible thing NOT to botch, but he didn't botch it. He brought genuine humanity to a fictional world, and stylized that world to be completely prepared to handle that genuine humanity, and it was still a bad-ass action trilogy. He treated genius source material with further genius, and hired Heath Ledger and made him be a genius all over it, too, and Christian Bale and Michael Cain were there. Good for Batman. Bet your ass it's silly. It's Batman. But hey, like many silly things, it's also awesome. Awesome beats silly. I think that's it. That's my argument. Good night.

I've always been entirely ambivalent on Batman and most comic book related things, but one thing I've always wondered is how and why Batman became such a weirdly popular thing, with young people, especially. It seemed like the sort of thing that started legitimately on the basis of something totally competent and good, but quickly became increasingly popular for the sake of other people and their friends finding it popular. All of the sudden there's hype for almost anything related to Batman. I still just stop and think about how weird that is and where the hell it came from, sometimes. 

I can't take batman seriously after Batman Begins when he is lit on fire, pushed out a window, rolling around the streets on fire in front of a crowd of people, and then he calls Alfred crying to pick him up

Yes lets laugh at the funny man with the bat costume. Why can't you see who I really am???

p.s. this was meant to be a joke but something went wrong.

BACON? I'VE GOT YOUR BACON RIGHT HERE.

(I clicked the bacon option.)

I clearly remember, in 2008, thinking Hurt Locker was sillier than Nolan's Dark Knight. This is largely because the former took a real topic and fucked with it (not going to go into specifics here, EOD is nothing like the movie) to massive critical acclaim while the latter brought a cinematic edginess to Batman that hadn't really existed before. I'm not going to say the OP is wrong, but I definitely don't agree with their views; its just perspective.