Right off the bat in the movie The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan, The Joker shows his true colours as someone who is destructive, self-serving and ultimately, cunning. Throughout the entire bank robbery, The Joker had a smaller plan going in action at the same time, which was to reduce the number of accomplices one by one as they completed each stage in the robbery. So as the robbery went on, there was one less person to receive a share of the cash, until there was only one survivor: The Joker himself. This really showed his cunning and ingenuity in planning. This was further emphasised by the fact that he used a school bus as an escape vehicle, using the innocence of children as a cover up for his heinous crime. The Joker's elaborate planning reminded me of a movie called Now You See Me directed by Louis Leterrier. In it, there were four talented magicians that followed an elaborate plan to perform magical performances and ultimately bring ruin to specific companies and firms. In the movie, it was obvious that everything was planned to the last detail and the four magicians were always three steps ahead of the authorities.
In my discussion with Daniel and Riley about the types of monsters, we considered people like The Joker and we called their category "societal monsters". They were immoral, had a murderous nature, but they were human, like the rest of us. Another criteria we considered was "Nature vs. Nurture", meaning whether the people were born evil and immoral or if it was nurtured within them by factors like the environment they grew up in. In the case of the Joker, he is definitely a societal monster because, while he is human, he is immoral and has a murderous nature. As shown in the first few scenes of the film, he disregards the lives of his teammates as passing thoughts and does not hesitate to kill them all. This behaviour was nurtured because the backstory of the Joker is that his father was a gambler and a drunkard and he cut open the Joker's cheeks because he was "too serious". The father's behaviour obviously brought about some kind of change in the Joker, which in turn resulted into the mindset that the Joker has today. However the one thing that I admire about the Joker is that he always comes prepared with some kind of plan. While the plan may include blowing himself up, he doesn't care, as long as he takes others down with him, another example of his murderous nature. In the scene when they mob bosses are having a wireless conversation with Lau, the Asian accountant, the Joker walks in and makes an outrageous proposition. The mob bosses are, understandably, outraged and attempts to stop him. The Joker puts a pencil through the eye of one of the goons and intimidates the rest of them, showing that he means business. However, when things got really ugly, he whipped open the front of his coat and revealed grenades tied to a thread on his thumb. The Joker was someone who always came with some sort of plan, no matter how deranged it might be.
In conclusion, from the first couple scenes, the audience sees the Joker as a so-called "societal monster", someone who is immoral, has a murderous nature and a behaviour that was nurtured from the environment he grew up in. The Joker was cunning, selfish and prepared at all times, which makes him a fitting match for the Batman and one of the most terrible societal monsters in fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment