preview

The Joker In The Clown Prince Of Crime

Decent Essays

The Joker is often understood as Batman’s antithesis, as the yang to his yin, as the agent of chaos that threatens his need for order. Thus, while they function as opposites, they are also intrinsically tied to each other. In the case of the Clown Prince of Crime, Batman’s ‘’true’’ nemesis, this Trickster like quality is relevant. The Joker is a particular kind of commentary on Batman, one that essentially derives from the characters’ antithetical logics (order vs chaos). The Joker is not only a counter to Batman, but a satirical figure in which a subversive attitude towards contemporary society is realized. In this role, the Joker-figure’s origin and history is clearly referenced. The Jokers a fool, prankster, jester, trickster, clown; the derivations of the fool archetype are many, but joining them together is a sense of mischief and a ridicule of authority. In the many incarnations of the Joker, these characteristics vary considerably in both degree and force, making the character quite versatile. There is, for example, a significant difference in tone between Cesar Romero’s comic Joker of the campy 1960s Batman television series and film, and Heath Ledger’s portrayal of a sardonic psychopath in The Dark Night. Also, like the medieval fool, the Joker wears motley, bright-colored …show more content…

The Joker is a fundamentally ironic figure. He is contradictory, much like the figure of the wise fool in which ‘’wisdom and folly confront each other,’’ thus allowing for sustained irony. This can only mean that irony takes on particular significance because the Joker is a very tragic and violent figure at a psychological level, but he wears the face of comedy. It is this dialectic between these two traits, the psychological and the superficial, that we find the Joker’s potential as a vehicle for

Get Access