Iain Duncan Smith wrote to The Times to express his disapproval with The Dark Knight’s 12A rating. He said “I was astonished that the board could have seen fit to allow anyone under the age of 15 to watch the film. Unlike past Batman films, where the villains were somewhat surreal and comical figures, Heath Ledger’s Joker is a brilliantly acted but very credible psychopathic killer, who extols the use of knives to kill and disfigure his victims during a reign of urban terrorism laced with torture.”
Sue Clark, spokesperson for the BBFC, told the BBC that the classification board considered giving The Dark Knight a 15, but thought that on the whole they’d receive many more complaints that way from children who couldn’t see the film (and presumably their bedevilled parents). Bizarrely, the scene everyone seems to be fixating on is the one when Batman beats up the Joker in his prison cell to get him to give up the address Rachel is being held at – which, okay, was violent, but there were other scenes which were far more disturbing and, arguably, explicitly nasty.
Still, the BBFC reckons that most of the violence was off-screen, masked from the camera, and there was no visible injury. Clark explained that it’s all comic book violence, and that “Batman can jump off buildings and fly and the Joker is not a realistic character and bounces back with a smile on his face.” That doesn’t tally with the BBFC’s stated guidelines for a 12A, though, which says that imitable techniques “should not … appear pain or harm free.” Somehow, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this – anyone know if Gordon Brown’s seen The Dark Knight yet? Or maybe some Lib Dem MPs would like to comment, since we’ve heard from both Conservative and Labour MPs?
Should the Dark Knight really have got a 12A?Batman puts the boot in on Dark Knight trailer
