21st Century's New Satan Part 5

 Why Now?: The Joker Rises

                We have discussed the importance of the Joker through the years, we have analyzed his level of insanity, the literary history of evil to which he belongs to and the question now is, why has returned with such a vengeance? It seems that fictional psychologist Dr. Adams understands best why the Joker has walked into the spotlight once again in our post-9/11 world. She tells us in the comic Arkham Asylum that the Joker may possesses a sort of “super-sanity...a brilliant modification of human perception, more suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century.” (qtd. in Smith 198) It is interesting that this character would make this remark because it captures what the goal of the Joker is in Nolan's film, to present us the people, the audience, with this modified perception of humanity he possesses so that we too can respond to the way society actually is. The Joker is responding to an already fractured postmodern world, but which attempts to make sense of evil and morality with old and outdated paradigms that are no longer relevant.

                Since the turn of the century, western culture has struggled to find a new way to understand good and evil, but for American's the world become even more fractured after 9/11. As Don DeLillo states in his essay “In the Ruins of the Future,” Americans “[had] to take the shock and horror as it [was],” and what is more we wanted then and now “to understand what this day [had] done to us.” (39) Nolan's Joker is a direct response to these events mirroring the chaotic and sudden destruction that rained down upon us on 9/11. This incarnation of the Joker works on two distinct levels in the film. On one level the Joker

with his terrorist mayhem mirrors the attacks on 9/11, but seeing the struggle between him and Batman and obtaining a more or less satisfactory resolution serves as a catharsis for our souls. However, what is more significant is what the Joker is doing on the deeper level of the meta-fiction, because although on the surface he obviously represents evil, he is also pointing to the evil and corruption within our society and governmental system that could allow men like him and Batman to thrive. The Batman and the Joker are both products of a broken system, but Batman lives to restore balance. In the film Harvey Dent will reinforce this idea by stating that it was the people of Gotham, “who stood by and let scum take control of [their] city” (The Dark Knight) who are responsible for Batman's birth. In a sense Dent is making the claim that dire situations call for dire measures thus justifying the existence of Batman in a time when the system fails to accomplish its goals, in their case to stop crime. Gotham seems to be aware of the fact that the Batman is outside of their system of justice, but no one seems to pay much attention to the fact until the Joker appears. The Joker realizes these things and wants to make the people of Gotham realize what hypocrites they are. As Charles K. Bellinger asserts in his essay “The Joker is Satan,” the Joker is “revealing that 'law abiding society' is a mystification; human culture is a lynch mob riding the bucking bronco of chaotic violence.” The Joker through his “super sanity” is able to make an analysis we would otherwise ignore and in doing so points to the true Gotham, and to the world we Americans now inhabit. This is a world where we began a war not on a definitive stance, but on the concepts of “evil” and “terrorism,” where Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse was justified for the sake of “justice,” a world that had a warped sense of morality.

                Nietzsche would argue however, that this is not something new or surprising and that actually our morality is not just warped, but that “the rational distinctions that uphold our cultural paradigms of good and evil are decidedly irrational in their false distinctions.” (Heit 180) The Joker seems to be viewing the world from this Nietzschean perspective. This can be seen in his remark in regards to morality: “Their morals, their code...it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be.” (The Dark Knight) 

The Joker captures the essence of what occurred to American after it was attacked. Although there had been a code, a line that we did not cross, this line seemed to vanish when we were at our worst, turning our military into torturers and turning the general public into frightened prejudiced people. We were indeed only as good as the world allowed us to be, because the measure of goodness we followed depended heavily on our feeling of security and safety within our own country. After this was suddenly pulled from under us, the government's code changed, the code of the people changed. The Joker illustrates through his attempts to ensue anarchy in Gotham that our moral system is not constant, that it is ever changing and arbitrary and therefore flawed. He tells us that “[the] only sensible way to live in this world is without rules,” not simply because he represents chaos and disorder, but because realizes that our rules, our society crumbles under pressure and it is true in general of the citizens of Gotham. When the Joker threatens to blow up a hospital unless Mr. Reese is killed so that he may not reveal Batman's true identity, a mob takes over the building where Mr. Reese has been giving his interview and is a shot at by a regular citizen of the city. It is true Batman, as the Joker remarks, is incorruptible and he must be, not only for the sake of his fictitious world, but for ours as well. He is our emblem of hope, and like the Joker, he is the only constant figure in the film because he is an ideal, the ideal of goodness which stands opposite the Joker's ideal of chaos. Nevertheless, the Batman is only a rhetorical device meant to leave the audience with some hope at the end of the film. The Joker however, persists in our minds because despite the fact that he has lost the fight for Gotham's soul with Batman, we have witnessed all the corruption and the lies which the citizens of Gotham were spared. We were subjected to our own reflection through the Joker's taunts and jeers, and he has done his work on us. The Joker thrives in our post-9/11 world because he is the reflexive force we lack and which we need to try and fix our broken moral code.

                We must return again to the comparison between the Joker and Mephistopheles in Faust. They are incarnations of the same concept, a necessary evil which must persist in our world so that we may reflect upon our own mistakes and the darkness that dwells within us. So that we may understand that the evil in the heart of one man is more powerful than we realize. Most importantly though, to provide us with hope so that we can “believe that our private demons can be defeated...” (Miller 17)

(Originally written December 13, 2012 for Literary Responses to Evil Graduate English Seminar with Professor Clark at California State University, Northridge)

Works Cited

Bellinger, Charles K. “The Joker is Satan, and So are We: Girard and The Dark Knight.” Journal of Religion and Film 13.1 (Apr. 2009) n. pag. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. 

 Carmichael, Stephanie. “Dark Knight, White Knight, and the Knight of Anarchy.” Durand and Leigh 54 – 69.

 The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Kane, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Gary Oldman. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008.

“Diagnostic Statistical Manuel IV: Sociopathology” The Many Faces of Evil. Ed. Amelie Oskenberg Rorty. New York: Routledge. 2001. Print.  
 

Durand, Kevin K., and Mary K. Leigh, eds. Riddle Me This, Batman! Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. Print.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust: Parts One and Two. Trans. Philip Wayne. Chicago: Penguin, 1993. Print

Gray, Peter. Psychology. 5^th ed. New York: Worth, 2007. Print. 
 

Heit, Jamey. “No Laughing Matter: The Joker as a Nietzschean Critique of Morality.” Vader, Voldemort and Other Villains: Essays on Evil in Popular Media. Ed. Jamey Heit. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. 175 – 188. Print.

Hiddleston, Tom. “Superheroes Movies Like Avengers Assemble Should Not Be Scorned.” Film Blog. The Guardian, 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 4 December 2012.

Johnson, Jeffrey K. Super-History: Comic Book Superheroes and American Society. Jefferson: McFarland, 2012. Print. 
 

Langley, Travis. Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print. 
 

“Mental Illness.” Oxford English Dictionary. 3^rd ed. 2001. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 4 December 2012.

Miller, Frank. The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics, 2002. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. London: Norton, 1993. Print 
 

Moore, Alan and Brian Bolland. Batman: The Killing Joke. New York: DC Comics, 2008. Print.

Moseley, Daniel. “The Joker's Comedy of Existence.” Super villains and Philosophy. Ed. Ben Dyer. Chicago: Open Court, 2009. 127-136. Print.

Smith, Michael. “'And Doesn't All the World Love a Clown?' Finding the Joker and the Representation of His Evil.” Durand and Leigh 187 – 200.

Wallace, Daniel. The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime. New York: DC Comics, 2011. Print.