Both Satirical & Nihilistic the Joker Is!!
The comic speaks for itself! A nihilistic and satirical Joker at his finest. The fact that nothing matters to the Joker, not only in this comic, but in his character as a whole with his name even living up to being nihilistic in itself, had me thinking of him immediately. The true definition of Nihilism is not believing life has purpose and that is what he lived by. His evil antics, completely disregarding any but himself while still living through every movie with an evil laugh as he laughs over the average humans values, is enough to make the Jokers description as a new definition for the word. The comic reads, "Its all a joke! Anything anybody ever valued or struggled for... Its all a monstrous; demented gag! So why can you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?" To anybody who has ever seen the Jokers character played by Heath Ledger, you could almost just imagine the Joker in a serious note at the beginning of his sentence, then get closer to you as his voice looses its anger and becomes sad as he says, "So why cant you see the funny side?" The as he gets sad he starts to have a huge grin as he asks you why you aren't laughing, completely twisting your mind as he follows no rule of verbal communication and what signs give off what emotions. That is when the satire hit because just as you think he cares what you think, he hits you with the irony and asks why you are not laughing. The Jokers character plays both parts majorly as you could imagine him saying, "Why so serious," as he terrorizes the people of Gotham. The nihilism in not caring for the cities people and the satire in his character being filled with irony and evil, fits perfectly into this blog mold. The Joker as a character and his antics followed by his behavior, in any batman movie or comic is what this focuses on. Its the perfect amount of both which causes people to fall in love with him because he is so far from us yet so close. Hes just human enough to know how this world works but just insane enough to not care about any other human. As he terrorizes and keeps Batman up at night, he reminds him how he never wanted Batman to die. Both words and both worlds combined into one character who is one of the biggest villains that people love. The irony and the lack of care for this world along with his cleverness as he lives his life as if its chest make it easy for me to choose as a series. All the comic books and all the movies, the Joker is nihilistic and satirical as it gets.
nihilistic sure, but sometimes I think the Joker may fall short of satire: a way for exposing people's stupidity or vices. He does get the truth out of people, and he does make people look stupid. But sometimes he makes people look dumb in such a distorted and non-realistic way, that the Joker is performing a travesty.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see the Joker as a nihilistic and satirical character. The video provided definitely shows both sides to him; when the Joker explains the reason why he kills with a knife is satire, he says he was able to know each person's true identity in their last moments, the whole video shows his nihilistic nature as he ignores everything that a person values and does the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI do see where you're coming from in terms of the Joker being nihilistic, but I don't think he also shows satire in his character, at least not as much that can be seen as pure satire. He does bring out the true characters in people, but his tactics aren't satirical in a way to expose an ideology or issue. Like for example satire can be used to expose systematic racism in America, or any other issue in our society. The Joker doesn't do that, he exposes the individual more than the institution.
ReplyDeleteIt's neat to see the Joker from this point of view. Having read a decent amount of DC comics, I think it's safe to say that the Joker is solely concerned with tearing down society within Gotham. I think the greatest example of satire/nihilism is the Joker's awareness that Batman's refusal to kill him directly results in deaths throughout gotham.
ReplyDeleteI can see the Joker as having a largely nihilistic attitude on life as a character, but the presentation of him can vary in interpretation. Contrast, for instance, Cesar Romero's portrayal of the Joker as having a very flippant, satirical personality with Ledgers darker, more nihilistic approach; Ledgers character actually reveals significantly more depth, therefore the original Batman TV series featuring Romero presents the Joker in the more nihilistic light.
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