Spring of 1940s, one of the most hated villains that can also be looked at as a monster for the horrible things he does in the Batman series was brought into our lives as the name of Joker. No one is really sure to know the real identity of Joker, but people believe there are 3 different Jokers with the names of Arthur Fleck, Jack Napier, and the other is unknown. Jack Napier came from the origin of the 1989’s Batman, he started off as a member of the mob which is utterly different from the newest version of Joker, Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck, still living with his mother lives in Gotham living his life as a clown who has many illnesses and goes through a hard life of feeling like a ghost and has a situation happen to him to turn his whole life around.
It’s 1989, and the name Jack Napier comes to television in the 1989 film “Batman”. Mr. Napier is a mobster who is having an affair with the girlfriend of the head of the mob, Carl Grissom. Mr. Grissom found out about the affair and plotted to have Mr. Napier assassinated at a job at ACME Chemicals. Before all that, Mr. Napier and Mr. Grissom hate Harvey Dent who is the new district attorney of Gotham City, also the one and only Batman, both Napier and Grissom are worried that Harvey or Batman find out about their connections with the Axis Chemical Plant. Napier being the man he is brings up on how to break in and take the files that can help Harvey arrest both Napier and Grissom, therefore Grissom agrees and sends Napier to do the job. When Napier breaks in he finds out that the files are missing therefore knows that he is being set up by Grissom. Police officers show up to the scene with no other than Harvey. Harvey insists on taking in Napier to prison alive, too bad for them that Batman shows up out of nowhere when Napier is about to fall into a huge pit of green chemicals. Batman decides to let go of Napier, so he falls into the pit of green chemicals. Both Batman and Harvey believed Napier was dead and ruled his death as a suicide, but luckily for Napier he survived and unlucky for Batman and Harvey a monster was born. The chemicals turned his hair green, bleached his skin so it’s super white, and permanently created his face to always have a smile. I believe with that smile, it created a new way of how the Joker is going to be looked at. With Joker being this new evil being he pays Mr. Grissom a visit knowing that he snitched him out to the police. Grissom says the name Jack and Napier responds with Jack is no longer here so that he can just call him “The Joker” and then says “ as you can see, I’m a lot happier” then fires his glock 49 4 times into Grissom. When he kills Grissom he laughs in a way he never laughed before, its very spine chilling and gets you pretty worried on what goes on inside his head. Joker plots revenge on Grissoms men and later kills the crime boss in the throat with a pen. Something The Joker in that time will always be known for.
The monster thesis that connects with the Jack Napier Joker in the 1989 Batman movie is Thesis III: The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis. I chose this thesis for this specific Joker because like it says in the second paragraph “This power to evade and undermine has coursed through the monster’s blood from classical times, when despite all the attempts of Aristotle to incorporate the monstrous races into a coherent epistemological system, the monster always escaped to return to its habitations at the margins of the world”. When Harvey and Batman at the end of the movie try their best to capture the Joker in spite of trying to figure out what goes on his head, and to try to take him back to be rehabilitated, but The Joker has other plans to not go back to the way the world works and plans to continue his monstrous ways.
Now the new Joker that everyone loves and can relate too, and his name is Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck was an odd man, but never had bad intentions to hurt anybody, he just wanted to see Gotham strive and not continue to see people only thinking of themselves and start thinking of what it feels like to be the other guy. Mr. Fleck has a bipolar disorder type 1 and he also has Pseudobulbar affect (PBA). PBA is when you have an uncontrollable laugh and anything can trigger that laugh, as you all watched Fleck was laughing throughout the whole movie. His mother was also ill, but let’s not get into that right now. Fleck would dress up as a clown for his job holding a sign and also would dress up as a clown to entertain sick children in the hospitals. He loved being there, he loved dressing up as a clown making people smile and that’s what got him through his tough life. Throughout the movie he continuously gets bullied and looked at funny as if something was wrong with him. Us viewers knew that Arthur was no bad guy and only wanted positivity and to be noticed. Later in the movie, they showed us that one good guy can be pushed so far to the edge that they become the enemy. When finding out his social worker has been cut off, he realizes he’s alone now and that’s when you begin to realize that he was becoming a different person. During this time Arthur was pushed too far when getting jumped in the train by three young males who clearly had it coming. He whipped out his pistol and shoots two of them with one bullet to the head and one with a bullet to the chest before they could kill him. The third gets shot once to the leg and quickly tries to flee the scene before Arthur kills him. Arthur knowing he needs to finish the job he started, he kills the third man before he gets anywhere with finishing the guns ammunition on him. Arthur flees the scene sprinting home and finds a public restroom and does an iconic dance showing the viewers that he now knows the person he needs to be. He later plots to tell the world how he feels when given the chance to have an interview on the Murray Show who he sees as an ideal person and looks up to him. His plan was to tell his story and end his life on the show and that’s what the viewers all thought. He was invited to the show because Murray wanted to make fun of him for his embarrassing stand up comedy night he did. Fleck knew that, and for that he was angry and wanted to do something about. A famous line that he said is “I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it’s a fucking comedy.” Despite his best efforts in becoming a comedian, he was destined for failure, he eventually has a different outlook on his life and eventually comes to see it as a comedy. Saying this on the show he means to tell the world that when murdering someone near and dear to him, with this he thought he would be sad but instead of being sad he starts to realize that he finds death and misery amusing.
Joker who was just like us until he had a case of too many bad days and made him see the bad side of the world and take that side which created one of the most memorable monsters of this century. In the first thesis “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural” , in the second paragraph it brings up on how a monster is born, “The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment–of a time, a feeling, and a place.” With that quote, it shows that a monster is born when something is sparked having to do with the situations time, place, and feeling. With the joker he was always friendly until little things kept showing him how the world was changing and how the low income people were living in a world of “ people always yelling at each other, people not being civil anymore, and nobody thinks what it likes to be the other guy” were all the reasons the Joker said on why he is the way he is and with all that anger building up all he needed was one time and place for something to just make him lose it.
In conclusion with reviewing both movies and comparing both Jokers, honestly the new Joker Arthur Fleck is way better than the first Joker. Not only because it looks better and produced better, but I feel like because the Arthur Fleck Joker movie was showing how the Joker was created and what made him the person he is. Not like the first Joker where he turned into the Joker by some chemicals. The rating I give the 1940s Joker is a 6.9/10 because it was a good movie, it had its climax and rising action, but I just feel like it needed more of an explanation of what is happening or not being so predictable. However the new Joker was very well explained and introduced and gets a well deserved 10/10 by the one and only Marco.
Work Cited
Features, et al. “Analyzing ‘Joker’ with a Psychiatrist Who Treats People Like the Joker.” Los Angeleno, 22 Oct. 2019, https://losangeleno.com/features/psychiatrist-analyzes-joker/.
I used this source because it is a scholarly source and it gives many examples on Arthur Flecks illnesses by an actual doctor who knows her stuff. It helped me by giving my readers an actual representation on Flecks real illnesses. I trust this source because it was by a person who carries a phD in this field.
Cohen, Jeffery J. “Monster Culture: Seven Theses. Excerpt from Monster Theory” Reading Culture. Univ of Minnesota Press, 1996, http://www.englishwithtuttle.com/uploads/3/0/2/6/30266519/cohen_monster_culture__seven_theses__3-20.pdf
Looking at this source I feel like it is very trustworthy because Professor Ramos explained to us what each thesis meant and how it can be used in many real life situations. With the monster it gave me many options to use for both Jokers in my essay and with that, it helped me very much on what can be used.
Batman. Directed by Tim Burton, performances by Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Michael Gough, and Billy Dee Williams, Warner Bros, 1989.
This source helped me because it is the actual movie and it is very trustworthy because it is the movie and it’s not going to be a lie. It helped me because I got to look back at the movie and take notes to see what I can use in this essay so my readers can get more of a visual when reading this essay.
Features, et al. “Analyzing ‘Joker’ with a Psychiatrist Who Treats People Like the Joker.” Los Angeleno, 22 Oct. 2019, https://losangeleno.com/features/psychiatrist-analyzes-joker/.
This source helped me because it is the actual movie and it is very trustworthy because it is the movie and it’s not going to be a lie. It helped me because I got to look back at the movie and take notes to see what I can use in this essay so my readers can get more of a visual when reading this essay.
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