Religious Values in Batman

The religious themes in the movie Batman Begins are numerous and many. Much of the movie focuses on the search for spirituality and justice. We will analyze the ideology of Bruce Wayne/batman in contrast to the ideology of his opponent Ras Al Ghul and his followers called the League of Shadows.
In the film there are heavy themes of justice, which can be seen from the very beginning of the film where Bruce Wayne states that he embarked on a spiritual journey to “seek the means to fight injustice”. Bruce concluded that something had to be done about the injustice that took the life of his parents. The police department, civic officials, the courts and other institutions were all in the pocket of organized crime. Along with this desire to fight injustice, there is a desire to destroy evil. Evil in the context of Batman Begins is the political corruption and greed that oppresses Gotham. It is also worthy to mention that evil, in most if not all religions is associated with the devil, or a similar figure. Hence, one of the first pieces of dialogue we get from Wayne is his encounter with a thug in prison, who plays the bully. The criminal tells him “You are in hell, little man, and I am the devil.” Wayne strongly responds by telling him “You’re not the devil. You’re practice.” During his journey, Ras Al Ghul becomes his mentor and spiritual guide teaching him to live a monastic lifestyle. Just like a monk, Wayne chooses to live a poor lifestyle in order to better understand poverty and criminality. Wayne’s journey helps him to develop the qualities of assertive action, restorative justice, and compassion.

Unlike Wayne, Ras Al Ghul has few limits in his quest for justice, believing in the lethal execution of petty criminals, making himself judge, jury and executioner. His ideology is similar to Wayne’s in the sense that they both believe that since “corrupt criminals make societies laws”; justice has to be taken into his own hands. However, they differ in the way