I’m a firm believer that the spirit of cinema often reflects the world around us. This isn’t to say that all movies will follow a specific path with premeditated actions and beliefs because “that’s the formula for movies right now.” Rather, I think that a lot of movies created today, if they were made in different times and under different cultural circumstances, would look, sound and feel a lot different from what we know.
Something I like to think about is the way that movies draw on gritty protagonists, gray morals and often sympathetic villains. This is especially predominant in the superhero genre, like in the “Avengers” series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a big fan of a villain who you’re not quite sure about the morality of their actions. I love a good clash of idealism, and it all culminates when you start to root for the villain, even if just for a little bit.
This does beg the question, however: does every villain need a golden ray of light on them? Do we really need to give every single villain a chance at redemption or a chance at sympathy?
There’s a new movie coming out about the Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix. This isn’t the Joker of our angsty pre-teen years in the “Dark Knight” saga. This isn’t Heath Ledger’s equal parts destructive, insane and terrifying apparition of the nightmare. This isn’t a Joker with no name, no face, no history. This isn’t a Joker who tells different wild stories about the scars on his face. This Joker has a life. He has a wife. A home. A job. Hell, he has a commute.
This isn’t the Joker that Batman fights. This is a man. A man capable of mass murder, bombings, serial killings, poisonings, kidnappings, extortion, torture and villainous wanton destruction, but a man nonetheless.
The Joker that I want to see—that I think we need to see—isn’t a man, but a force. The Joker is chaos incarnate—where he steps, death and destruction follow. His singular goal is to make Batman suffer and hurt as many people as possible in the process. This isn’t a person—it’s a demon from the depths of Hell with canisters of toxic laughing gas and malevolence in his heart.
I’d love for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker to do well. He’s a great actor, and if you haven’t seen him perform as a surreally convincing Johnny Cash, I would highly recommend that you drop whatever you’re doing right now and go see the movie.
This rendition of the Joker looks nothing short of spectacular. The trailer, if only a couple of minutes long, captures the essence of a downward spiral into insanity and depravity that only superhero movies are capable of. I just don’t see the merit of giving a story to the Joker when he doesn’t really need one.
I look to “The Dark Knight” as an exemplar of understanding when it comes to the Joker’s saga. We don’t need a name. I don’t care that he had a family or that he was actually a clown in his spare time, because it honestly doesn’t matter.
It’s unnecessary to give the Joker a sympathetic backstory because he’s a character that can stand under the weight of his heinous actions and bask in the gravitas. He’s a character that I don’t want to feel sympathy for—he’s evil in its most pure form. I don’t want to feel sympathy for the Devil, because the Devil wants your soul. The demon that haunts Batman is too far gone.
Not every character needs a chance at redemption, and I’m sure if you went up to the Joker and asked him if he wanted a chance to start over, to lead a life outside of a sphere of evil, he’d laugh in your face—probably before, and after, murdering you.
The Joker doesn’t need sympathy. There are enough villains out there that you can feel bad for, or even empathize with. There are plenty of characters out there that are far more equipped for a sympathetic retelling. There are innumerably more so that could have a sympathetic retelling of their story that wouldn’t result in the character losing its single most defining trait.
When we have sympathy for this devil, this devil loses its mystery. The Joker isn’t just inhuman—everything he depends on can’t afford to be human, or he loses the power that he has within the context of his own narrative.
To answer the Big Questions: should we feel sympathy for villains? Should we take great source material and alter it to create new stories? Yes. One thousand times yes. This is the power of creativity and the beauty of the retelling. We can afford to do these things.
The story of the Joker, however, is an exception.