The Dark Knight: Or How I Learned to Love the Joker
“Why So Serious?” If you’re more than a causal fan of the Batman franchise, this question doesn’t even need to be asked. Batman is one of those rare breeds of super heroes. He has no powers, no special talents. Sure he’s smart, that’s a plus. But, in a world over run with costume freaks, both good and bad, a brain means very little. And don’t even get me started with all the gadgets. At its lowest level, the Batman mythos is about vengeance and battling inner demons. There is no Batman without the murder of his parents, and as the Joker so elegantly put it, “I don’t want to kill you, what would I do without you. … You complete me!” Batman created the villains that parade through Gotham. He defines who they are, just as they define who he is.
This idea of Batman being the cause of Gotham’s evil has been an on-going theme in the Batman mythos for a while. I guess we should really thank Grant Morrison for this. Arkham Asylum is where we start to see this “two halves of the same whole” model begin to take shape. There are some other seeds, but Morrison spells it out for us. Doesn’t Batman belong in the Asylum with all the other freaks? Isn’t he the very reason that Arkham no longer houses the insane, but the criminally insane. Don’t get me wrong, Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker steps directly from the pages of Alan Moore’s Killing Joke. However, the themes of the Dark Knight go way beyond Moore’s take on the Bat and his cast of misanthropes.
At this point, if you haven’t seen the movie, you may want to stop reading, because there’s going to be lots of spoilers.
The Joker has always been a character that likes to get his hands dirty. What makes his character so interesting is the complete lack of a moral center. The Joker is guided not by greed, or power, or lust. He’s guided by nothing at all, other than wanting to see what will happen next. That’s why he’s so frightening. Alfred said, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” This sums up Nolan’s view of the Joker in a nice little sentence. You can’t reason with a man like this, you can’t punish him, and you can’t buy him. In the same conversation, Alfred points out that Batman is responsible for the Joker. As he squeezed crime out of Gotham, the crime lords were forced to turn to some one just as “insane” as the Bat. You see, within the Batman mythos, everyone has shades of grey, every cop can be bought or corrupted, everyone has a breaking point, at which they will do anything. We see Gordon reach this point at the end of the movie when Two-Face has a gun to his son’s head. Villains in the Batman mythos love hostages, because they put characters in situations beyond their control. The “hero” is always ready to die. But force them to watch someone else’s death, or better yet, cause or chose someone else’s death, and they suddenly become very human, very weak. This is why Robin will always be the Boy Hostage to the Joker, and this is why Rachel had to die. Killing Dent would have accomplished nothing. But killing Rachel is the tool to bring about Dent’s transformation and Batman’s destruction, along with Gotham’s.
Duality is a continual theme throughout Nolan’s film. Dent is the White Knight, Batman the Dark Knight. What makes it even more interesting is when these roles are reversed, and Dent becomes Two-Face. His scarred coin symbolizing how the Dark Knight must once again become Gotham’s savior, even if he must become an outlaw to accomplish his goal. Once again, we come back to each side defines the other. When Harvey’s coin was double headed, and he controlled fate, he was incomplete as a character, the do-gooder, using law to fight the bad guys, always beyond reproach. Once he’s forced into the role of Two-Face, we see what he has always been inside. He hates corruption, but we are no longer sure if it’s because of the corruption, or because he would never give in to it. Which leads us back to revenge. Dent is a product of revenge. But he doesn’t blame the Joker, he blames Gordon and the Bat. Without Batman, there’s no Two-Face. There is no white knight without a dark knight.
When the Joker falls from the roof, and Batman saves him, the Joker’s speech summarizes the entire movie. Neither of them can kill each other. They need each other to define who they are not, and there by define who they are. The Joker says, “I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” This battle never ends, because if either side wins, there is nothing left to fight for. The Joker is counting on someone outside of them to break this cycle, Harvey Dent. Two-Face is both of them, struggling within one person. And Dent doesn’t fail him. If not for Batman’s willingness to become the outcast, to become the hunted, then the Joker wins. But perhaps he won already, perhaps Batman is always destined to lose because he can never be a whole person. He must always hide behind the shadow of his parents murder, and the shadow of the Bat.
Taking a tip from Moore and Miller, Nolan refuses to give us an origin for the Joker. He has many throughout the film, none of which are real, yet all of them are real. The Joker changes his view of the world to fit the situation. Unlike Batman, the rigid, unyielding crime fighter, the Joker doesn’t need to know why he’s doing what he does. He simply is. “Why so serious?” Once he utters these words, we should understand Nolan’s interpretation of the Joker. He’s not funny, he’s not silly, and he’s not a clown in a purple suit. He’s everything we should fear in the night. He’s the evil that haunts our souls. Life and death have no meaning. They simply are. We can understand a murder. We can understand someone whose sick. The Joker is both of these, yet neither. He is completely sane within his insanity. “Why so serious?”
Comments on the film itself:
Once again, Nolan uses a chase scene that is way too long. At least it’s in the middle of the movie this time, instead of at the end.
The Batmobile has reached new levels of absurdity. The design of the Batmobile used in this film is taken from The Dark Knight Returns. It was designed specifically to suppress riots 15-20 years in the future of the Batman timeline. I love Miller as much as the next guy, but lets try to keep a little bit of the timeline in tact.
Where is the big bat? There’s a reason for the big bat on Batman’s chest, once again, head nod to Miller. And the costume was just a bit out of hand. I know Wayne rules the world, but come on.
Heath Ledger – BEST JOKER EVER! He gets creepier each time you watch it.
