It might just be an insultingly glib take on mental illness. Picking up a villain in a painted-on smile, declaring him insane, and then musing on the chaotic ironies of existence isn't necessarily profound. But when you have a character like the Joker, is depth really deep? This is, after all, a villain who wears clown make-up, dresses in purple, and hoots a lot.Īlan Moore, whose comic The Killing Joke serves as the blueprint for most serious Joker stories, eventually repudiated his own work precisely because "it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it." Taking a fundamentally silly idea and adding a tragic backstory doesn't necessarily make the silly idea more serious it can even do the opposite. Even Mark Hamill's voice performance for Batman: The Animated Series, wonderfully over-the-top as it was, had darker undercurrents than Romero's.Īdmittedly, it's hard to convey much depth of characterization while hooting "Hold tight for the bounce-a-daisy!" as Romero does while steering his Jokermobile. ![]() Ledger's ominous lip-licking, or Phoenix's laughter bordering on tears, are supposed to be more thoughtful approaches. The Joker's forays into high art notwithstanding, Romero's portrayal of the pasty-faced pilferer is generally seen as an entertaining goof rather than a serious take on the character. Who needs elaborate plots when you can wreak so much sinister glee without even trying? As other contestants fling blobs of paint and make giant bold swoops and swirls, the Joker dabs and brushes without ever actually touching the canvas when he's done, it's completely blank. ![]() In one memorable episode of the television series, the Joker enters an art contest. But his laid-back approach to Joker grooming was appropriate for a villain who tended to take his life of crime with an easy chortle. You might see Romero's errant facial hair as indicative of a lack of commitment. The actor refused to even shave his mustache for the part it's visible in close-ups despite the layers of white pancake make-up. Romero's Joker, in contrast, was ostentatiously inauthentic. These actors took extreme steps to get into what they saw as the Joker's extreme consciousness. ![]() Jared Leto, who played the Joker in Suicide Squad, reportedly sent castmates a live rat and a dead hog as part of his method approach. Heath Ledger, who did a much-praised Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), in a hotel room for a month to find the anger and loneliness at the character's core. Latter-day Jokers have been celebrated for their sincere commitment to the role. "Batman!" he exclaims with congealed spite, his voice lowering to a mannered gravelly rumble. Then the Joker's pointed eyebrows furrow and his painted grin elaborately scrunches into a scowl. ![]() The only sour note is when the Caped Crusader interferes. Whether playing prison baseball, hijacking a television broadcast, or challenging Batman to a surfing contest, Romero is always skipping across his criminal den with dainty malevolence, bursting into irrepressible gales of laughter at his own fiendish plots. The Joker, though, always seems to just be having a really good time. It was Frank Gorshin, the Riddler on the series, who played his masked villain with barely restrained manic intensity, giggling, staring, emotionally volatile, and on the verge of a complete mental break. Though the Joker in the comic books is often presented as mentally ill or criminally insane, Romero's white-faced arch-nemesis always had his wits about him. His performance was an exercise in nefarious good-natured glee. Romero played the Joker in the 1960s campy Batman live-action series.
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