The boxing shorts and purple croc skin jacket is very clownish to me. The tux look is very clownish imo.
And yes I'd agree my biggest complaint about ledgers was he didn't feel like a clown. I still love every live action joker we've gotten. I wouldn't say any actor has given us a bad joker.
Black tuxes, clowns...ehhhhhh.
I also miss the permanent smile.
Ledger sounded like a clown when he laughed, and in many scenes felt like a psychotic evil clown who didn't take care of his hair or clothes. Leto sounded like an old man laughing. I guess you can imagine an old man clown, and that would naturally be terrifying. But it didn't scare me. Maybe his look ruined it? I'm not sure..
Leto looks and sounds and felt nothing like a clown. I've had people in my life tell me, after watching Suicide Squad, that he felt more like the Riddler than the Joker. Hilarious, since Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was criticized for the same thing. You would never hear that kind of crap about Jack or Heath. I'm not trying to pick on Jared suddenly, because i always acknowledge his potential, but the guy just doesn't scream CLOWN or JOKER to me. He comes off more like a flamboyant gangster from A Night At The Roxbury sequel. It's like a character Jim Carrey would play if they ever made a sequel. A rival club owner who has a final dance off with Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan.
The ONLY thing that might look clownish is the white/pale skin.
Look at those photos in the last page, of Heath's version. All scream CLOWN, even down to the shoes. Leto is pure gangsta, Sons of Anarchy, Night at the Roxbury, Scarface style. A freak, sure. A clown, not so much.