“You’re too funny.” “Why? What did I do?” She was laughing too hard to be taken aback. “What do you mean?” Snort. “If I was too funny, then I wasn’t just the right amount of funny. When did I cross the line?” Her hysterics subsided. “I’m not sure.” She instinctively reached for his hand. “I simply showed you the comic, which I thought was simply funny, and then reiterated that I like the man in the last panel would be thinking about how the bear might defend himself from…”
I went and saw the Dark Knight again. This time I went with my parents. My mom is a pretty devout woman with a decent artistic sensibility. Afterward she was still trying to process the experience, and it was good to get her take on things. One thing she said that struck me: “Everyone says it’s lots darker than Batman Begins. I hate that. It’s not dark, it’s sadistic.” In one sense, she’s right.