Jared Leto IS The Joker - Part 7

[KRYPTON INC.]

Really?

Really. Joker embraces his nature and doesn't care what anyone thinks and that's a trait consistent with most versions.

 

[Rodrigo90]

He's embracing the hipster lifestyle, which is becoming one of the biggest modern cultures of this time.
As Joker often does with everything, he mocks society around him with ludicrous antics. The clothes, the tattoos, the hair, the car...it's all loud and ridiculouy over the top. It's a mocking reflection of what our society is becoming, in the mixture of his gangster style. His original comicbook costume reflected who he was back in 1940.
Will that look return? Probably will. But will that also have a modern overhaul just as he has? I bet my pennies on it.

 

[Mr Rogers]

Makes you wonder just how much imput Ayer had on this design of Joker and the rest of the crew's.
With the whole East L.A. or South Central gangbanger vibe, they'd fit right in any of Sabotage, Street Kings, End of Watch, Harsh Times and so on with Ayer's movies.

 

[Sterling Archer]

You can see his purple trousers right above his shoes underneath the cloak. Seems we will be getting his classic costume.

 

[Boom]

So in looking at this design, my mind drifted towards character motivation. Why would The Joker tattoo "Damaged" on his forehead?

That got me thinking about tattoos in general. Why do people get them? What's their "character motivation?"

Tattoos mean any number of things, and it varies depending on the individual. Attention, creative freedom, personal or emotional expression, rebellion, sexuality, addiction. A tattoo tells a piece of a person's story, or they can give you an idea of who that person is. My girlfriend, for instance, has a tattoo of a flower native to Japan on her foot. She's always loved Japanese culture, and she got the tattoo in Japan when she finally fulfilled her dream of visiting it. It means something to her personally and emotionally, because she likes being able to look at it and think back on that trip. It's also a chance for her to share that chapter of her life when others ask her about it.

In contrast, my college roommate got drunk one day and got a tattoo on a whim. Literally picked it out of a book the moment he sat in the chair. It was a dragon tattoo that he got put on his right shoulder. Is the dragon specific to a chapter in his life? No. He chose the dragon because he liked it. He got the tattoo because he was drunk and wanted to do something random and funny. That tells me he's spontaneous, bold, and not without a touch of humor. Or maybe he's just prone to rash and stupid decisions. Either way, it informs who he is as a person.

Because tattoos are, for all intents and purposes, a form of personal branding. They tell you a little bit about who that person is as an individual, and in a way it defines that aspect of them.

And if we look at tattoos through a contemporary lens, well, it's an ever-growing phenomenon. It's more common place now than it's ever been in the modern era. Body modification in general is becoming more common place. Piercings, gauged ears, jewelry. We are seeing more and more personification through body modification in today's culture.

So if the question is why would a character like The Joker, conceptualized to reflect the contemporary world, get a tattoo, I can think of one reason.

It's a joke, a mockery of self branding. The idea that someone feels the compulsion to brand themselves, that someone thinks they need a tattoo to tell others who they are as a person, that something like who a person is is something that is literally skin-deep, is hilarious to him.

The Joker doesn't need to have "Damaged" tattooed on his forehead for people to know that he is damaged, crazed psychotic. But he has it anyway. It's redundant self awareness, a constructed exaggeration. And only funny to him.

 

[jaymes_e06]

Love how trampy he looks.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Really?

Seeing as it's a trait defined in at least 90% of Joker interpretations...I'd say really. He self aware of how loud and bombastic he is and how over-the-top his tastes for things are and doesn't give two ****s.

 

[mattyt81]

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

He's embracing the hipster lifestyle, which is becoming one of the biggest modern cultures of this time.
As Joker often does with everything, he mocks society around him with ludicrous antics. The clothes, the tattoos, the hair, the car...it's all loud and ridiculouy over the top. It's a mocking reflection of what our society is becoming, in the mixture of his gangster style. His original comicbook costume reflected who he was back in 1940.
Will that look return? Probably will. But will that also have a modern overhaul just as he has? I bet my pennies on it.

Here is a question... What do we all really mean when we use the tem "hipster"? A dude in his 20's with "ironically" worn facial hair is a hipstet, but so is a guy wearing a trilby and shorts, but apparently tattoos are hipster (in which case I assume our prisons are filled to the brim with dangerous hipsters?) as well as being in "pimped out clothing"...You all see my point? These are all called hipster yet are indicative of vastly differing styles and subcultures in the real world.

For myself, I think I get what they are going for here. A Joker that embraces his role as a dangerous, criminal freak in the modern world. That's me though

 

[BravoNolanILuvU]

Love your interpretation Boom. I always particularly thought of the Damaged tattoo as mocking the type of people that feels the need to brand themselves so plainly and "on the nose".
Take this guy:

 

[Wally_West]

Love your interpretation Boom. I always particularly thought of the Damaged tattoo as mocking the type of people that feels the need to brand themselves so plainly and "on the nose".
Take this guy:

Wonder which character is he playing in suicide squad?

 

[Bruce Malone]

Wonder which character is he playing in suicide squad?

This guy?

 

[roach]

.

" They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!"

 

[roach]

Makes you wonder just how much imput Ayer had on this design of Joker and the rest of the crew's.
With the whole East L.A. or South Central gangbanger vibe, they'd fit right in any of Sabotage, Street Kings, End of Watch, Harsh Times and so on with Ayer's movies.

He had 100% imput

 

[MasterChief2829]

This is really unprofessional for this business to do but I lol'd
https://instagram.com/p/3wPyl-TbAJ/?taken-by=bareburgertoronto

 

[sbrody4]

Just a quick observation and it could be nothing, but in these new spy pics today it seems as if Letos teeth do not have the grills on? Or at least the bottom teeth from what we can see. They sort of look rotten. Could the grills be something he gets later on in the movie?

 

[Darkness Falls]

really liking the eyes, such intensity

 

[regwec]

I'm gonna ask those that dislike it to think outside the box for a moment.

Even if the meaning behind the tattoos isn't made explicitly clear in the narrative, let's continue to look at this from a character POV. Nothing stops us from at least considering what's going on inside the character's head. And nobody tattoos something onto themselves without some reason. The look always informs the character, whether it's Bruce Wayne adopting a bat motif to inspire fear, or an average joechoosing a t-shirt to wear for the day.

Why would a character like The Joker do something like this?

I think the clue is in his car numberplate, which reads "ha ha ha". Everything we have seen of this Joker shows him to be self aware, self-referential, and an exponent of his own dubious celebrity. When his design was first revealed, many people said that the tattoos were of a type that Joker groupies would more likely wear than the man himself. Well, there we are, The Joker is his own biggest fan as well as a self-publicist and an author of his own malign "brand". That seems fitting for a character whose first appearance featured a lot of showboating on TV; a habit which has been depicted in each of his appearances in movies so far, and appears to be a feature in this movie too, if the leaked "white suit" footage is any indication.

It's a joke, a mockery of self branding. The idea that someone feels the compulsion to brand themselves, that someone thinks they need a tattoo to tell others who they are as a person, that something like who a person is is something that is literally skin-deep, is hilarious to him.

The Joker doesn't need to have "Damaged" tattooed on his forehead for people to know that he is damaged, crazed psychotic. But he has it anyway. It's redundant self awareness, a constructed exaggeration. And only funny to him.

I think you're broadly correct, and what you are describing is a form of irony. But irony is so pervasive in modern culture that people's self expression is shaped by it often without their knowledge or intent. This may help The Joker to remain somewhat sphinx-like: his true being (if there is one) may be obscured by misdirection, or may be just as it appears. He may be "damaged" and aware of that fact to his despair, he may be damaged and delighted about it, or he may be of the mind that he is right and the world is wrong- "damaged" being an ironic taunt.

Just a quick observation and it could be nothing, but in these new spy pics today it seems as if Letos teeth do not have the grills on? Or at least the bottom teeth from what we can see. They sort of look rotten. Could the grills be something he gets later on in the movie?

It may be that they are a nuisance to wear, and he pops them in between coffee breaks when they are shooting.

really liking the eyes, such intensity

I agree.

 

[killface]

You can see his purple trousers right above his shoes underneath the cloak. Seems we will be getting his classic costume.

Leto's Joker looks like Tim Burton's swagged up ghetto version of Miley Cyrus in that picture

 

[Rodrigo90]

Here is a question... What do we all really mean when we use the tem "hipster"? A dude in his 20's with "ironically" worn facial hair is a hipstet, but so is a guy wearing a trilby and shorts, but apparently tattoos are hipster (in which case I assume our prisons are filled to the brim with dangerous hipsters?) as well as being in "pimped out clothing"...You all see my point? These are all called hipster yet are indicative of vastly differing styles and subcultures in the real world.

For myself, I think I get what they are going for here. A Joker that embraces his role as a dangerous, criminal freak in the modern world. That's me though

I guess my defention of 'hipster' is way off then

Let's examine him more closely. His jacket. It's very 80's. Inspired by the jacket he wore in TDKR, which was 1986. It's very metrosexual. His hair. It's modern. A lot of men's hairstyles of today growing in popularity are styled in such a way, that I can't help but say are metrosexual too. Neat and groomed.

Then, we move onto the rings, the tattoos, the grills in his teeth. Where do they come from? Are the mocking reflection of the hip, urban gangsters that we got, or still get today? I don't know the most common bought theory around here, so I don't know why he's like that. It could be inspired a trend of being an out of control loonbrain, who wishes to express himself to the highest points, in the most of ridiculous of ways. We know Joker's messed up, he knows he is too, so why does he need that little reminder to others?
We all know the phrase - "...tattooed on my forehead." It's a joke. To him at least.
It's also a subtle statement. All his tattoos are. They're expressions. Loud and absurd expressions, that he couldn't contain inside himself, so he had to boil them out and permanently sketch them for everyone to see. It explains the open shirts and the topless shot. There was more to it than just showing off his tattoos in that pic. It was an expression shot as just to how ****ing loony he is.
The grill in the teeth? Might be going with the look he has going on, or it might have been due to Batman breaking all his teeth. Hell, he might have had them inserted, saw what he looked like, then coped with his new smile by going with the look he has now.

The rings and the car. Why these material items? Has Joker ever cared about expensive crap? He appears to now. He's materialistic. Flashy jewellery. The ostentatious car. Why the need to show off in the way he's doing? It's like he's having some sort of midlife crisis going on. That's probably not the case.
But it's like he's got no sense of what style he really wants, and it's a combination of all these different elements. Was he in a coma? Did he wake up, have a breakdown and coped in the new world around him by adapting to it in the best way he could?

As Boom said, I think. He's a gangster, a celebrity, an expressionist. But most of all, he is The Clown Prince Of Crime. The Harlequin Of Hate. He knows he is those things. He's taking, I think, these titles to the fullest extent.

 

[Boom]

I keep thinking back to Leto's description of The Joker.

A "beautiful disaster" of a character.

 

[Rodrigo90]

I keep thinking back to Leto's description of The Joker.

A "beautiful disaster" of a character.

Maybe it was the beautiful tattoos proclaiming how damaged he was?

 

[matt47]

Honestly though, can't we button up his shirt for once?

 

[The Shape]

The Joker's self-awareness and self-branding is not really such a foreign concept for the character. It's also not much different than the way he branded himself in Batman 89, by having his goons wear logos of his face on their clothing, plastering those logos everywhere (including his helicopter), and having everything fit into his color scheme.

 

[The Joker]

It's almost like asking why he would wear a grill, a chain, and all of those rings. I seriously think they're just going for that SoCal thug aesthic with most of the Squad. We can see it doesn't just apply to The Joker.

I'm being serious here, if it was just on him, I think it would make more sense to think this is something specific to the character, but it's just not the case, at all. Why would he do that? I dunno, maybe cause he wanted people to know he was The Joker and he was crazy???? Which I don't think should be hard too understand before that. I dunno?

I just can't get into this look. I fluctuate between tolerating it, and disliking it.

I seem to dislike more and more every time we see something new.

Honestly though, can't we button up his shirt for once?

Can't do that. Won't be able to see those hideous chest tattoos then.

As for this argument that Joker doesn't care what other people think, did that make you like his mechanic coveralls, sliced off rotting face Leatherface look in Snyder's Death of the Family?