Character: The Joker (Heath Ledger)
Characteristics:
1. Psychopathic
The Joker in the movie Batman: The Dark Knight was dressed up like a clown and yet his purpose is not to make anyone laugh. It is everyone else that became Joker’s entertainment and there to make him laugh as he took over them. He has a permanent smile which is formed through the scar on his mouth and that makes him looked creepy. Joker too enjoys knowing how predictable everyone else’s action is and he’s there to create complete chaos.
Another example is Joker’s lack of self-preservation. When Joker visited Harvey in the hospital, he passes Harvey a gun, and then forcibly points it at his own head. Joker bravely gambles his life that Harvey would eventually adopt Joker’s
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Antisocial
The Joker too exhibits various symptoms of a person with antisocial personality. He blatantly disobeys laws and also the social norms far beyond standardized human behavior. The Joker’s cruel action is not driven by money and he complains that the usual criminals of the Gotham City are just seeking profit for themselves. Joker claims that the city deserves an even better class of criminal which is Joker himself.
When Joker does attempt to rule and take over Gotham City, he recruited mob henchmen from the people that opposed him before. Joker also appears to hold his own philosophy of chaos and describes himself as just an agent of anarchy during his talk to convince Harvey to give up on his own beliefs and then adopt Joker’s philosophy of anarchy. Thus Joker managed to prove that even the White Knight of Gotham City, Harvey Dent which had been the city’s symbol of justice can also sink deep down to a criminal’s level.
Joker also doesn't actually care and not focused at seeking profit, as proved by his action of setting up the money on fire. However, the money he stole from national bank during the early opening of the movie is used to make his own purple suit, acquire various equipment and dangerous weaponry, and then hire criminals to form a gang of him. But then the criminals hired were just simply used by Joker to take over the Gotham's infrastructure and in order cripple the mobs
The main character in the book The Batboy by Mike Lupica is Brian Dudley. Brian tries to solve a big problem with one of the players on the Detroit Tigers, Hank Bishop. Brian knows more about baseball than most MLB players. He tries to get Hank Bishop to be a good hitter again. Hank started going through a slump and almost nobody believed in him. He struck out or grounded out almost every time. Brian helped him get out of his slump and get to his 500 home runs. Brian had three big character traits, nervous, respectful, and helpful. His character traits affected him by making him who he is and making him a great person. Nervous changed him because he needed to tell Hank what was wrong with his swing but he waited a long time.
Gotham shows what can happen when social norms constantly change. It is able to be persuaded by whatever social conditions are present. This can sway a population to accept a path that may lead to destruction.
Imagine going to a new school where there is a student who has more power and control of the class than the teacher. This person stops all drama, helps students, and resolves all the problems. They would be considered a hero to the class. In the book Our Twisted Hero, by Yi Munyol, the antagonist, Om Sokdae, is this person and the twisted hero. Om is the twisted hero because he helps the students get out of trouble but uses them for his advantage.
As is common in Nolan's films, the leading male characters are driven by their need to get the job done. If the audience has seen others of Nolan's works, they will begin to assume that this man will be more important to the film than just a guy who pulls off a bank heist. This idea evolves through the movie with this character, The Joker, as he is definitely motivated by his desire to finish what he started. This shows when he gets worried at the end of the film when the boat of citizens fails to blow up the boat of convicts and vice versa.
Gotham is Batman’s hometown and an incredibly corrupt place. It is well known for its corrupt police department, which turns a blind eye to Batman’s questionable actions, since they are for the sake of the city. The city produces deviance because of the officials and police officers which shy away from addressing crimes. Although Batman is committing crimes in order to fight crime, this is not necessarily moral. While Batman is ultimately solving the city’s
You need to be ready to follow this rabbit hole, and damn does it fall deep. Batman is held in a high-level prison cell, it's junk and it looks like visitors are rare. Something has turned the Joker good and Batman bad, however, what makes this so good is you'll understand and sympathize with Mr. Napier.
Instantaneously, the title of The Dark Knight jumps out as a parallel to Jesus Christ. The title is stating that the dark knight, Batman , rises, just like Jesus arose. A Knight is “a man ,usually of noble birth, bound to chivalrous conduct” Referring to Batman as a dark knight gives off the impression that, although he is good, there is something dark about him. The dark side of Batman can be said to be that he is the one who killed Harvey when in reality later throughout the movie it explains that he did not kill him, Batman is indeed good. Although Jesus would be considered a “good knight” some may have viewed him as a dark knight because he disturbed some of the peace. Jesus was viewed as someone who came about to disturb the peace of the
Somebody who had established higher power in their community. Somebody who tried to run from fate, and has the moment of recognition and understanding of their destiny. Batman. Even though he is considered the strong and powerful superhero of Gotham City, Batman's characteristic features show that he relates strongly to that of a "tragic" hero. In the beginning, the Batman is presented at a higher state of appreciation, even though the police see him as a vigilante. Despite his wealth, Batman, otherwise known as Bruce Wayne, is easily relatable to audiences, which makes it easy to sympathize and empathize with the character. Batman is in a constant battle within himself, trying to be the good guy, while defeating the bad guys. His morals prove true when he admits that he won't kill any of the many villians that cause destruction for Gotham City. But, because of this moral, sometimes the villians end up escaping and doing more harm then good. In the end, this interal chaos and internal battle is seen interally and externally through Batman. At the end of the most recent Batman series, The Dark Knight, his exit at the end of the movie is, in essence, his figurative death. Bruce Wayne wants to keep Gotham City safe. And with the "Batman" gone, villians will be least likely to continue to destroy and conquer. As an audience, we cling to the edge of our seats and feel dismay for our beloved superhero and what is to become of
Batman (Christian Bale) is hoping to hand on his crime fighting duties to D.A Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) yet when Batman’s cards are on the table the twisted mastermind who goes by the name of the joker (Heath Ledger), forces the masked vigilante to go against everything he ever stood for.
He was faced to let the Joker murder a person everyday he didn't come forward or risk his secret identity and the people in his life get killed. While Joker and Batman were arguing Batman asks why Joker hasn't just killed him yet, and Joker was basically saying because it wouldn't be fun, so Batman says “You’re garbage. You kill for money.” Which is true, Batman is there to save innocent people and get rid of the criminals like the Joker. Batman decides to still keep his identity a secret. Batman should have just came forward so that innocent people wouldn't have had to
Why so serious? If I were to ask you that question six months ago, you wouldn’t understand the phrase. Now that The Dark Knight has been made though, most people will understand what I am talking about. Ever since The Dark Knight was created, the joker has been thrust back into the public eye. Most people only know the joker from the performances of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film Batman. Most people forget that the Joker has been a villain since 1940 in Batman #1 (spring edition). The Joker has been reinvented every decade since his first appearance. He started off as a homicidal maniac, then a criminal that was just a harmless nuisance to becoming a mass murdering, schizophrenic clown that we know today. He has been named number one on the Wizard’s list for one hundred all-time villains. In this speech I will tell you how the joker was created, the criminal career of the joker, and trademark characteristics of the joker.
...es himself to be the people’s champion. He begins his public takeover of Gotham at the football game with the first of a series of speeches, which advocate populism in its most savage and militant incarnation. “Gotham is yours,” he tells the people. Like the people of Paris in 1789, the revolutionaries storm the prison. In the mind of Bane, criminals are forced into crime because of the domination of the elite. Blackgate and the Bastille are symbols of “oppression”. They are the allies of the people not their enemy. Bane tells the people the truth about Harvey Dent, that he is a “false idol” preventing the people from tearing down a “corrupt city”. It is Bane’s narrative that a corrupt lying elite has been keeping the people down with a “myth of opportunity.” The uprising of Bane is a cautionary tale, it is 21st century populism taken to militant extremes.
Tricksters are both and neither argents of chaos or justice, right and wrong, yin and yang. The Joker within the Dark Knight exemplifies all aspects of what a traditional trickster is. The Joker is very anomalous to what most people would think a veteran of the armed forces is. The cookie cutter definition of what a veteran in the US is would be someone that stands up for social morals and defends the rights of the people whom he shares his country with. The Joker is very much the opposite of this and tells everyone that he is just that. He stands up for the people and organizations that do not support social norms. Throughout the movie the Joker is constantly playing tricks on people and deceiving everyone around him, it is comedic in how much deception he employs throughout his time in the story/movie. Although the movie is supposed give audiences the feeling that this could be real the Joker takes on many different disguises throughout the movie. From masked clown, to police officer, to female nurse demonstrating that no costume is too ridiculous for him. In his exchange with Harvey Dent/Two-Face the Joker tells us himself that he invents situations, albeit on a whim, showing that he is exemplifying the 4th trait of a traditional trickster. The Joker doesn’t hold anything sacred but he does show that he is a messenger of chaos. We know that mythologies have different gods that embody the qualities of chaos or directly represent chaos as their power to manipulate. It is not that much of a stretch to think that the Joker is merely acting as an agent of these gods making him a messenger of something they would hold holy and sacred to themselves. Lastly the Joker is very much a jack-of-all-trades as he has the skills to use many different weapons and explosives and even understands the inner-workings of criminal
Could there actually be someone who truly just does not care about dying or killing innocent people? The world may never know. But as Alfred said “The Joker is a man who isn’t looking for anything logical like money, nor can he be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. He simply wants to watch the world burn” (tyree, 2009). Alfred is right with his small diagnosis of The Jokers behavior. There is something deeper though, it is hard for me to just think that The Joker has some mental issue without a past of some sort, or a traumatization. The scars. Where did they come from? Well, he tells two different stories in the movie. The first story is of him and his father. He says, “So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me and says, ‘Why so serious?’ Comes at me with the knife. ‘WHY SO SERIOUS?’ He sticks the blade in my mouth”’ (Batman: The Dark Knight, 2014). Now knowing this vital information about his past, a conclusion can be drawn that there are psychological issues that may cause his behavior. Psychologist Sea and Knon stated that, “this can lead to coping strategies of secrecy and social withdrawal” (Sea and Knon, 2013). The Joker withdrawals from society because of his indifferences, mainly with his appearance. The secrecy is behind The Joker, is The Joker. He never gives away his plans
Batman and police commissioner James Gordon try to rid the Gotham of organized crime while combating the rise of the menacing and terrorizing psychopath villain, the Joker. (uci.edu) It’s important to take notice of the other clowns featured throughout the movie as well as their roles in the heist. This is crucial and singles the Joker out as the odd man.