The Joker: 21st
Century's New Satan? Or Harmless Clown?
The Joker
has become one of the most recognizable villains in comic book
history over the past seventy years, but he has recently gained wider
recognition in popular culture through Christopher Nolan's
The
Dark Knight. Nolan has made the
Joker relevant in the eyes of the masses and in the context of the
post-9/11 world which we now inhabit. Super heroes and their myths
“offer a shared, faithless, modern mythology, through which [truths
about our world] can be explored.” (Hiddleston) However, this is
not something new. Since the Joker's arrival on scene his struggle
with Batman has become ground upon which society's insecurities and
fears can be explored. The character of the Joker has been explored
and developed by many different authors but most have agreed on the
image of a murderous psychopath who kills with a flair of
theatricality and seemingly without purpose. The Joker encompasses
the anxieties of the origin of evil in modern times where science
seeks to explain the motivations behind it through psychology and
sociology by trying to pin the label of psychopath on him. There has
always been the question of whether the Joker is pure evil or
if he is truly mad. This essay seeks to explore the possibility
behind the Joker's madness and to try to and prove that he is not
insane, but that he is a chaotic force that has come down upon us as
Satan once did with the purpose of illuminating humanity to its
fractured world. It will seek to establish this through the Joker's
long history as well as specifics texts that are more relevant to
current times such as Nolan's film. It will further seek to prove
that t
he Joker can be seen as
something like a Satan figure in modern times. The character of Satan
has been presented as a trickster, a bringer of chaos in earlier
renditions such as in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust,
but has also been presented as a
calculating being in John Milton's Paradise Lost. The
Joker is an mixture of these and other Satanic figures that have come
before him and although he is devoid of the religious baggage of his
predecessors he still carries some of the magical mystery that they
possessed.
His inexplicably white skin, red lips and green hair do
not in the least resemble any of the antiquated characteristics of
Satan, but they serve the same purpose: to make him distinctive and
monstrous. Although the Joker may not transform physically into
poodles or snakes to reach his victims he has obtained an uncanny
ability to survive death throughout his history in order to reinforce his
mythological status. The Joker's appearance is part of what makes him mystical and
mysterious as well. This need to define the nature of the Joker has
arisen from a desire to know the reasons behind his actions.
Nevertheless, there is no why, no explanation, because the Joker is a
reincarnation of Satan and evil which we stubbornly attempt to
dissect and explain through science. If the Joker has returned again
in our post-9/11 world it is because despite our scientific
discoveries and technological advances we still struggle with the
darkness that resides within man. The Joker is not simply a mad clown
with issues, he is beyond explanation, beyond definition, he is the
new Satan that plays and preys upon the fear we possess of the
darkness within.
No comments:
Post a Comment