Raymond Hsu

Sociology 001
Prof. Prior
14 June 2015
DVD Analysis
The movie that I am going to be analyzing is Batman Begins, by Christopher Nolan.
Batman Begins is set in Gotham city, a fictional city located in America. The movies main
protagonist is Bruce Wayne, the only child of the extremely wealthy Wayne family. However, at a
very young age, Bruce watched his parents get murdered in front of him after leaving an opera
due to his fear of bats and subsequently gets raised by his butler, Alfred. The movie then fast
forward to fourteen years later when his parents murderer, Joe Chill, gets released from prison
in exchange for testifying against the mafia boss, Carmine Falcone. Upon hearing the news,
Bruce attempts to murder Chill for revenge, however, Falcones hired hitman ended up killing
Chill first. Bruce then realizes how corrupted Gotham is, how those with money have all the
power, as it was obvious that Falcone hired someone to kill Chill, and how even if he did kill
Chill, he would have been able to buy his way out of the system. After his realization, Bruce left
everything behind and decided to travel the world in order to obtain the power to confront
injustice. After years of training, Bruce finally goes back to Gotham, in hope to free the city from
the corruption, by becoming the vigilante known as Batman. To become Batman, however, he
would require equipments and technologies to fight against criminals and crooks, which is
where he used his familys money to accomplish that. As Batman, hes now finally capable of
fighting against the injustice and the corruption that plagues Gotham.
Auguste Comte, who was the founder of sociology, would probably watch Batman
Begins to learn about how the people in Gotham interacts with each other. Comte would pay

close attention to the little symbols and hints hidden inside the conversation between the
characters, and then analyze what those symbols mean. From the symbols, Comte would then
try to analyze what it all means for Gotham City and how they all tie together.
If Karl Marx were to watch Batman Begins, he would likely interpret the movie with the
perspective of the conflict theory. The conflict theory states that societies are naturally
unbalanced. There will always be groups who have more power and more resources. In
Batman Begins groups such as men, and people who already has money all proved to have
much more power and resources than others. The conflict theory also states that, because of
this imbalance of resources people will naturally want to rebel and cause conflicts, in order to
incite social change. After Marx evaluates the different groups and the distribution of resources,
he would likely pause the movie, and then attempt to predict how a conflict will arise from
Gothams imbalance of resources, and how the imbalance can be solved.
Emile Durkheim, the founder of structural functionalism, would use ideologies from the
structural functionalism perspective to interpret this movie. As a functionalists, Durkheim would
likely break down Gothams society into different groups based on the different institutions. So
first, he would break Gotham down into crime, politics, the justice system, the rich, and finally
the normal people. Then, he would evaluate the functions of each institution, and how each
institution balance each other out to form a proper society.
In Batman Begins both Conflict theory and Fundamentalist perspective are very
prominent, but if I were to pick one, I would say Conflict theory is the most represented
paradigm in the movie. The Conflict theory states that society is made up of different groups of
people, with different social statuses, and because of the difference in social status and material
possessions, conflicts between the different groups are inevitable; and the same conflict that
rises are the same ones that will help balance the society out. In "Batman Begins", one of the
main problem of the city is the wealth gap, the rich are extremely rich and can get away with

everything, Batman included, while the poor are forced to beckon at their every whim. Mafia
bosses like Carmine Falcone was able to kill Chill and not face any consequences. As for Bruce
Wayne, despite him lowering his status and leaving his wealth to travel around the world and
train as someone without power and resources, it became very obvious that the only reason that
he is able to become Batman, is because of the wealth he inherited from his family. Without all
those cutting edge equipments and technologies, Batman is really just some guy with years of
martial arts training. However, the story is still in accordance with the conflict theory because it
is after Bruce Wayne left behind his wealth, to be part of the group without resources, that he
decided to go back to Gotham and fight against those with power and resources, in order to
make Gotham a better place, and to reduce the imbalance of power and wealth. Finally, in this
movie, all those with power are men. The only female with a prominent role in Batman Begins is
Rachel Dawes, who only serves as Batmans love interest and a damsel in distress. The main
protagonists, Bruce Wayne and Gordon Freeman, and the antagonists Carmine Falcone and
Jonathan Crane are all male. Which once again shows that some groups will inherently have
more power than others.

URL of the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiaRYQlsjy4