http://www.womenonscreen.com/rachel-dawes-woman-in-refrigerator/
If you're a blockbuster movie lover, and/or a Batman/comic book fan like me, you've probably seen the latest trailer for The Dark Knight. I've watched it quite a few times since Sunday--yes, I am a geek--and something about it keeps bugging me. Namely, it is the brief shot of the Joker throwing Rachel Dawes off a rooftop:
At first, I thought, 'Well, Batman will just swoop down and catch her.' But then I read the interview with Aaron Eckhart in the L.A. Times. I noticed that Eckhart says something a little worrisome: "...Harvey Dent has an extremely strong sense of justice. His fiancée is killed. He's horribly injured. But he is still true to himself."
It's possible that he's talking about a fiancée who existed before the current Dark Knight time frame. (The movie's not following established continuity, so I doubt that he's talking about Gilda Dent either.) The way Eckhart phrases it all in present tense makes me think that he's talking about Rachel. In addition, Chris Nolan movies, in my opinion, suffer from a paucity of good female characters, as well as a few questionable casting choices in women's roles. When I consider all this, it wouldn't surprise me if Rachel really will be killed off.
Does this mean that Rachel might be about to join all the other women in comicdom who've been afflicted by Women in Refrigerators syndrome? The phrase "women in refrigerators", coined by Gail Simone, refers to the trend of women in comics--usually superheroes or love interests--dying to further and develop male-centric plots.
In the trailer, Rachel tells Bruce to not make her "the only hope for a normal life". If that is indeed what Bruce does, Rachel dying might make Batman and Two-Face's crimefighting more personal than it already is/would be. But it's hardly necessary, especially in the case of Batman--he has more than enough motivation. It might help emphasise the parallels between the men, and more significantly, also provide a reason to turn Two-Face against Batman, but is it worth making the only major female character in the reboot thus far into street splatter?
It would have been interesting if Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent were already friends or acquaintances (the way they are sometimes depicted in other media, such as some comics and the animated series) by the beginning of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, I'm hard-pressed to think of many mainstream superhero movies where male friendship drives the narrative or provides an impetus the way that dead or imperilled love interests do. Let's hope that Rachel survives. A series this promising deserves a good female character (or two, or three...).
At first, I thought, 'Well, Batman will just swoop down and catch her.' But then I read the interview with Aaron Eckhart in the L.A. Times. I noticed that Eckhart says something a little worrisome: "...Harvey Dent has an extremely strong sense of justice. His fiancée is killed. He's horribly injured. But he is still true to himself."
It's possible that he's talking about a fiancée who existed before the current Dark Knight time frame. (The movie's not following established continuity, so I doubt that he's talking about Gilda Dent either.) The way Eckhart phrases it all in present tense makes me think that he's talking about Rachel. In addition, Chris Nolan movies, in my opinion, suffer from a paucity of good female characters, as well as a few questionable casting choices in women's roles. When I consider all this, it wouldn't surprise me if Rachel really will be killed off.
Does this mean that Rachel might be about to join all the other women in comicdom who've been afflicted by Women in Refrigerators syndrome? The phrase "women in refrigerators", coined by Gail Simone, refers to the trend of women in comics--usually superheroes or love interests--dying to further and develop male-centric plots.
In the trailer, Rachel tells Bruce to not make her "the only hope for a normal life". If that is indeed what Bruce does, Rachel dying might make Batman and Two-Face's crimefighting more personal than it already is/would be. But it's hardly necessary, especially in the case of Batman--he has more than enough motivation. It might help emphasise the parallels between the men, and more significantly, also provide a reason to turn Two-Face against Batman, but is it worth making the only major female character in the reboot thus far into street splatter?
It would have been interesting if Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent were already friends or acquaintances (the way they are sometimes depicted in other media, such as some comics and the animated series) by the beginning of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, I'm hard-pressed to think of many mainstream superhero movies where male friendship drives the narrative or provides an impetus the way that dead or imperilled love interests do. Let's hope that Rachel survives. A series this promising deserves a good female character (or two, or three...).
