The Joker isn’t That Deep

The Joker is one the most iconic comic book villains of all time. His rise to fame seems begun sometime after Batman The Animated series proved to be a smash hit. Yet it was The Dark Knight’s thought provoking take on the character put Joker on the map. From then on, we’ve seen countless takes and deconstructions that seem immortalize him into this yin-yang duality with Batman based on Nolan’s film. But this romanticizing of a villain capable of causing nightmare fuel is disturbing, to say the least, but also seems to hilariously miss the point.

Joker is not as big as DC as the cinematic portrayals would you want to believe. He isn’t even that powerful. Don’t get me wrong, guy can transform an old warehouse into practically anything but that’s basically the limits of his ability outside of causing pure chaos. However, prior to The Dark Knight he has very little presence most adaptions of him and often plays the role of support. He is a simple street-level bad guy in a clown get up. This isn’t downplay his impact. That’s just who he is at the end of the day.

This goes back to my issue on attempting to romanticize Joker in ways DCEU and later the 2019 solo film. The latter attempted to make another “we live in a world” commentary much like Nolan’s film. Admittedly, I’ve never seen it so I’ll save my comments whenever I get around to it. However, some graphic novels also attempted to dive into the Joker’s deeper portrayals. The Three Jokers is a bit of infamous one example as it attempts to resolve his inconsistent backstory much like the 2019 films did. While there is nothing wrong that, art is art after all, it would be way easier and frankly more in character to come to the conclusion that he’s trolling you than constantly beat around the bush. His relationship with Harley and the way he treats his henchman in the animated series already gives us some pretty concrete clues that he isn’t exactly family man.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you can’t explore deep themes with the Joker; Death in the Family and Killing Joke are proof of that. What I am saying is trying to give him a backstory that turns into this anti-hero or something hilariously absurd. Forgive me if I’m wrong. I know trailers always lie. That being said, I’m glad we’ve moved on to focus on Harley Quinn. For however bad the first Suicide Squad was, her transformation from his sidekick to ditching the guy is such a great way to turning her into an anti-hero.