Why We Need to Go to the Movies

For my fifth birthday, my mother took me to Indian Springs Mall. It was in 1989 and this Kansas City mall was well known for it's monthly shootings. That was Kansas City in the eighties and nineties. When you grow up in a ghetto, you don't really notice the dysfunction around you until you're old enough to remember and reflect from another location.

In my kindergarten class, a fellow classmate asked me, quite seriously: "Are you a blood or crip?" I didn't know what either was so I asked him to explain himself, while I pretended to make pancakes on a Fisher Price stove set. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I know my brother's a blood." When I went home that day, I asked my mother "what we were." I remember the troubled look she wore on her face. I never got a confirmation on my gang status.

But that's what we were working with. I lived in a city where you could get gunned down any minute and all I wanted for my fifth birthday was to see Batman, in one of the most dangerous malls in the city. Well, my mother took me to see the non-stop action film about good vs. evil. The obvious good guy was Batman/Bruce Wayne who was rich, had a sense of humor, and was still humble, if not vengeful, because the Joker made him an orphan at an early age.

Some would say that five is rather young to subject your child to such a violent film. (There was also a little sexiness in it too, if I remember. I know the Prince soundtrack was pretty sexy and I was allowed to listen to that cassette from start to finish.) My mother didn't have the best filter for adult films but I am thankful that she allowed me to experience this film, specifically.

I say this because of the ongoing violent turmoil that Kansas City was in. In a world where she and I had very little control of our surroundings, it was nice to escape in a film, based loosely on Any-Urban-City, USA, where the crime was high and only a man in a bat costume could save the people. According to Gerard Jones, author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Superheroes and Make Believe Violence:

"Children can benefit from exposure to fictional violence because it makes feel powerful in a 'scary, uncontrollable world.' The child's fascination with mayhem has less to do with the fighting and more to do with how the action makes her feel. Children like to feel strong. Those committing violence are strong. By pretending to be these violent figures, children take on their strength and with it negotiate daily dangers."

Since that night in 1989, I've seen every single Batman film in theaters (even the George Clooney one). I've done it with the same amount of enthusiasm because Batman is a the kind of hero that cities need. He's not Superman, he wasn't born with magical powers, he's a "regular guy" who is obligated to secretly protect a city. Not everyone appreciates the work he does, but he does it anyway. Because it's his destiny.

Fast-forward to today. 2012, The Dark Knight Rises came to theaters at the time I really needed it: near my 28th birthday. I'm a lot older than the girl that came from Kansas City but with a whole new set of fears. I'm a college grad but working at a dead-end minimum wage job who worries about her future in an economically, politically unstable time.

And to top it off, a lunatic stormed a movie theater on the Dark Knight's opening night. With a small army's arsenal, he shot 70 something people, killing 12. It was Indian Springs all over again but on a much larger scale. It could have been enough to keep me from seeing summer's hugest blockbuster but I couldn't miss this. Right then, I needed Batman more than anything.

My husband and I sat in a theater two days after the Colorado movie theater massacre amongst others who were taking the same chance. We were relieved to see Bruce Wayne take control of his destiny and save Gotham City from herself.

And I was just as relieved as 5-year-old Charish. That Charish, who finally got to spending time with a single mother who worked so much, she barely saw her. They didn't have disposable income to go the movies often, but her mother made time that July night. They both, like the viewers today, needed a movie to tell them that they were in control of their lives.