The Dark Knight To Bleach or Not to Bleach? That is the Question

[ronny]

Not true. It was because he got shot thru the cheeks and the bullet severed the nerves (remember the surgeon saying exactly that?) controlling the muscles that make you smile, causing a permanent grin, which can actually happen in reality, not something that Burton made up. That's not something Burton made up.

I thought that the grin was there because the surgeon was using stuff like corkscrews and other clumsy implements.

 

[I Am The Knight]

I thought that the grin was there because the surgeon was using stuff like corkscrews and other clumsy implements.

That scene is just brilliant. Classic stuff right there

 

[gwynplaine]

I don't think the Joker was presented as particularly vain or dapper in his 1st incarnation (B #1, B2) everybody dressed well back then, specially the gangsters (Capone was wearing silk underweart:. )
He was just a ruthless difformed criminal in the tradition of the gangsters found in comics like Dick Tracy. Add a pinch of Conrad in TMWL, et voila !
I think the vain aspect came later on and imo is not necessarly a defining trait of his personality.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

i dont know, i think his vainess is a big part of his personality. theres plenty of examples of him not wanting to do a ordinary crime, he is the master showman criminal afterall. the TAS episode mad love is a great example, joker is brooding and straining his mind to come up with a ingenius way to kill the batman, Harley Quinn says he should just shoot him, which results in a brutal beating. then when Harley catches Batman and is about to off him in a fiendishly elaborate way the Joker beats her mercilessly again because only he can be the one to kill batman. so i think him being egotistical and vain are major traits to his personality

 

[gwynplaine]

I was just wondering about the origin of the vanity associated with the character and I think it came later on in his characterisation (you are mentionning TAS, but I think it probably started in the 50's or the 60s).
I believe you can have the "master showman criminal" you're talking about without necessarly having the character be in love with his appearance. Just take Heath, for example, I could actually detect some self-hatred in him and I think it's one of the main reason why he also hates the world and just wants to watch it burn.
But I see what you mean and he is pretty narcissistic in the sense that he believes that everything revolves around him I suppose.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

oh yea i deffinatly sensed self loathing in heaths joker, especially at the end when the ferries dont blow up, the look on his face is just pure realisation that he IS in fact alone and no one is as grotesque as him. i also noticed in the brian douglas torture scene when joker shouts "LOOK AT ME" its like that is all the pain and self hate surfacing from deep within him, its likes hes screaming in pain "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE BECOME" or something along those lines, and the only way to relieve that inner pain is to take it out on others and/or make them like him (harvey)

 

[gwynplaine]

oh yea i deffinatly sensed self loathing in heaths joker, especially at the end when the ferries dont blow up, the look on his face is just pure realisation that he IS in fact alone and no one is as grotesque as him. i also noticed in the brian douglas torture scene when joker shouts "LOOK AT ME" its like that is all the pain and self hate surfacing from deep within him, its likes hes screaming in pain "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE BECOME" or something along those lines, and the only way to relieve that inner pain is to take it out on others and/or make them like him (harvey)

Yeah, it was so creepy and great the way he says "look at me !" What an incredible work he did with his voice alone.

 

[Street Vendor]

The conscious vanity of the Joker as a character trait didn't become prevalent until sometime in the seventies. The earlier stories didn't explicitly show the Joker as a dandy. Perhaps it was assumed because of his gaudy clothes and getup.

 

[gwynplaine]

The conscious vanity of the Joker as a character trait didn't become prevalent until sometime in the seventies. The earlier stories didn't explicitly show the Joker as a dandy. Perhaps it was assumed because of his gaudy clothes and getup.

That's what I thought.

 

[Crook]

If you think Joker was nothing more than a character that inflicted chaos, than you've missed the point of the character.

 

[gwynplaine]

If you think Joker was nothing more than a character that inflicted chaos, than you've missed the point of the character.

I completely agree.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Eh, wrong, wrong, wrong. He has no deep pain, he's never been a villain drawn out of pathos, whereas most Batman villains are. He truly has no inner tragedy, and I saw no pain in him whatsoever. I saw a man who wanted to open the world's eyes to how things truly were. The ferry experiment didn't seem like a big part of his plan, but Harvey was, and in a sense, he won the battle. If you think he's trying to relieve pain you missed the point of the movie. He only turned Harvey that way because he was Gotham's spirit and he stood up for what he believed in and was Gotham's White Knight. He knew that if he made Two-Face murderous, then Gotham would fall to it's knees and destroy itself, it was never about him having an inner pain.

i think if you didn't sense any inner pain in him then you missed the point of the movie. just listen to his voice when he screams "LOOK AT ME!!", theres deffinatly something else there. its like he feels wronged and doesn't feel responsible for the way he is, thats why he is sorta taking revenge on society and trying to show everyones true colours.

 

[ronny]

i think if you didn't sense any inner pain in him then you missed the point of the movie. just listen to his voice when he screams "LOOK AT ME!!", theres deffinatly something else there. its like he feels wronged and doesn't feel responsible for the way he is, thats why he is sorta taking revenge on society and trying to show everyones true colours.

Revenge? For what? What could society have done that warrants The Joker blowing up a hospital?

 

[Ace of Knaves]

well not revenge in the traditional sense, but just his pure rage at society as a whole. i think he is not happy with the way he looks and is and doesn't take responsibilty for it. he obviously plays up to it though, but purely for his greater means. he sorta reminds me of jon doe from se7en, he is punishing all of society, maybe because he thinks society had a hand in making him the way he is? what i'm trying to say is that there is much more to this joker than just wanting to blow 5hit up and kill people, theres deffinatly something that drives him, like i said before when he screams "LOOK AT MEE!!" there is certainly something else there, hes not just telling brian to look at him i think its him sorta pleading "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT WHAT I AM!!".

 

[FNSpidey]

I think people are looking too much into this. That voice change is just part of Heath's performance. He does it a lot, going from his regular goofy voice to that deep growl. I'm not sure it was intended to mean anything, I think it was just Heath trying to be scary.

I certainly see how many of these can be interpreted as pain (the scar stories he tell, the "look at me", the "I hated my father" etc.), but I believe they may be coincidental. As The Riddler_303 said, the Joker was never a character of pathos, unlike A LOT of other villains, and I think making him into one actually reduces the character. I much prefer him as an unstoppable, completely irrational force of unpredictability and chaos. And fun.

Then again, maybe it was intentionally left vague, for everyone to get what he prefers.

 

[vincenizzle]

All opinions, regardless of preference to the makeup issue, are welcomed here. However, if you have nothing to add, but transparent drivel that equates to telling people to "get over it" or labeling them "nitpicking/whiny fanboys", "not real fans" or anything comparable, you need to stay out. If you can't express your point (indifferent to the matter, or otherwise) without trivializing the views of others, do not post here.

"schemers trying to control their little worlds."

"and i thought my jokes were bad"


hahahahahahahahahahahahahahha

 

[Infinity9999x]

Nolan could have also just as easily toned down Two-Face's scars in the name of realism, yet we saw otherwise. Let's just drop this realism nonsense because clearly it wasn't strictly adhered to nearly as much as fans would claim.

Exactly. I've been saying for a while that I don't believe Nolan made the Joker wear makeup solely because it was "realistic," and if he did, then he wasn't nearly as imaginative as I thought he was, because having a person have bleached skin really isn't that unrealistic compared to what happened in BB.

I always thought it was purely a visual choice. Nolan liked the look better, and it fit with his idea of the Joker more. Two-Face only enforces this idea even more. If Nolan was truly that strict in being "realistic" he would have never given us the look for Two-Face that we got, because that was incredibly unrealistic.

 

[nickyg641]

Exactly. I've been saying for a while that I don't believe Nolan made the Joker wear makeup solely because it was "realistic," and if he did, then he wasn't nearly as imaginative as I thought he was, because having a person have bleached skin really isn't that unrealistic compared to what happened in BB.

I always thought it was purely a visual choice. Nolan liked the look better, and it fit with his idea of the Joker more. Two-Face only enforces this idea even more. If Nolan was truly that strict in being "realistic" he would have never given us the look for Two-Face that we got, because that was incredibly unrealistic.

Agreed. I would hate to think that, right off the bat (no pun intended), the thinking was "Well, of course he's going to wear makeup, it's the only way."

 

[Doc Samson]

Exactly. I've been saying for a while that I don't believe Nolan made the Joker wear makeup solely because it was "realistic," and if he did, then he wasn't nearly as imaginative as I thought he was, because having a person have bleached skin really isn't that unrealistic compared to what happened in BB.

I always thought it was purely a visual choice. Nolan liked the look better, and it fit with his idea of the Joker more. Two-Face only enforces this idea even more. If Nolan was truly that strict in being "realistic" he would have never given us the look for Two-Face that we got, because that was incredibly unrealistic.

Good post, but I gotta disagree on this one. We saw Harvey's transformation with our own eyes, no matter how realistic or unrealistic it may seem, we still saw it happen. If a permawhite Joker showed up at the start of the movie, it would've demanded a real explanation. Seeing a man get his face burned is easier to accept, then a permawhite man running around Gotham. If Nolan explained how Scarecrow's toxin worked and where it came from, if we all agree that Ras Al Ghul wasn't really an immortal being, then the Joker being permawhite would've been way more left field then Harvey's transformation, or anything else we've seen in the Nolan-verse thus far.

Thus, we would also lose the force of nature aspect that Nolan was going for. We don't know how he got those scars really, but we do know he's just a man. The comic Joker always struck me as supernatural in a way. No matter how many ways you guys try to explain it, nobody falls into chemicals and comes out perfectly white with green hair, it's just not going to happen. This Joker is much more like Bruce himself, someone who willingly dons a costume of sorts and engages in these wild altercations. There's no real reason that the Joker couldn't live a normal life, if he wanted to, which brings me to the real point...

As I've always said, a permawhite Joker is, in a way, kind of tragic, and slightly, very slightly, understandable. If anybody was normal and just one day fell into chemicals and came out looking like a clown, I could understand that driving them to become crazy. Not saying its justified, but you can see where that could turn someone mad. A man who willingly paints his face as a clown and murders tons of people deserves zero sympathy, and IMO, is alot more of a nutcase. There's no rhyme or reason to what TDK Joker does, other than to cause mass hysteria and prove that people aren't really good. Where that comes from we don't know, but if he were permawhite, at least we can acknowledge that something that drastic could make any man snap. We could understand why he would want to do such a "social experiment" because one bad day was all it took for his skin to become bleached and destroy any hopes of a normal life. What's TDK Joker's excuse? People walk around with scars all over the world, it's not a catalyst for insanity, and it's no excuse for the Joker, he's just pure evil, as he should be. He's not stuck as a clown, he decided to become a clown, making the choice on his own to abandon a regular life and feed his psychopathic tendencies. I can't speak for you guys, but I know which version I consider the true embodiment of evil personified.

 

[Bubastis]

I think the makeup idea was additionally visual. The idea of "decay" came very heavily into play, which was utilized beautifully with the makeup.

 

[Infinity9999x]

Good post, but I gotta disagree on this one. We saw Harvey's transformation with our own eyes, no matter how realistic or unrealistic it may seem, we still saw it happen. If a permawhite Joker showed up at the start of the movie, it would've demanded a real explanation. Seeing a man get his face burned is easier to accept, then a permawhite man running around Gotham. If Nolan explained how Scarecrow's toxin worked and where it came from, if we all agree that Ras Al Ghul wasn't really an immortal being, then the Joker being permawhite would've been way more left field then Harvey's transformation, or anything else we've seen in the Nolan-verse thus far.

I don't really think so. I agree that seeing a man get his face burned is easier to accept, but the look of Two-Face was completely unrealistic. So much so that I've had many of my friends remark on how they thought it was a bit much. His eye, his mouth, everything was easily identifiable as being unrealistic. No one I've talked to has ever said, "yeah, I could see someone having a burn like that." Everyone thought it was unrealistic, the fact that he could move his eye, that his eye wasn't burned, that he could still move his jaw, and the fact that he was still alive with a burn that severe, all unrealistic.

Really, I'd argue that a bleached man would be far more realistic then the burn two-face sustained. We have chemicals that can bleach our skin now in today's world.

Not only that, but there is absolutely no reason why Joker being perma-white would demand explanation. In fact, Nolan could have done the exact same thing he did with the scars, but do it with the Joker's skin. Nothing mandates that it needs to be explained.

Now of course, I wouldn't have the Joker be a perfect powder white, but a splochy white/grey tone that a corpse has. That way people might be wondering if it's a skin problem, or something else.

Thus, we would also lose the force of nature aspect that Nolan was going for. We don't know how he got those scars really, but we do know he's just a man. The comic Joker always struck me as supernatural in a way. No matter how many ways you guys try to explain it, nobody falls into chemicals and comes out perfectly white with green hair, it's just not going to happen. This Joker is much more like Bruce himself, someone who willingly dons a costume of sorts and engages in these wild altercations. There's no real reason that the Joker couldn't live a normal life, if he wanted to, which brings me to the real point...

As I've always said, a permawhite Joker is, in a way, kind of tragic, and slightly, very slightly, understandable. If anybody was normal and just one day fell into chemicals and came out looking like a clown, I could understand that driving them to become crazy. Not saying its justified, but you can see where that could turn someone mad. A man who willingly paints his face as a clown and murders tons of people deserves zero sympathy, and IMO, is alot more of a nutcase. There's no rhyme or reason to what TDK Joker does, other than to cause mass hysteria and prove that people aren't really good. Where that comes from we don't know, but if he were permawhite, at least we can acknowledge that something that drastic could make any man snap. We could understand why he would want to do such a "social experiment" because one bad day was all it took for his skin to become bleached and destroy any hopes of a normal life. What's TDK Joker's excuse? People walk around with scars all over the world, it's not a catalyst for insanity, and it's no excuse for the Joker, he's just pure evil, as he should be. He's not stuck as a clown, he decided to become a clown, making the choice on his own to abandon a regular life and feed his psychopathic tendencies. I can't speak for you guys, but I know which version I consider the true embodiment of evil personified.

I disagree. There's no reason that a perma-white Joker has to be understandable, because as I said, Nolan could have left it a mystery. People could be wondering "did he do that to himself?" or "was he born with this skin problem?" or "did he have some sort of accident that made him this way?" There's no need to explain it.

However, the bleached skin is the only thing I would have be questionable as to how Joker got it, the rest (green hair, red lips) I would have him apply himself.

 

[Doc Samson]

I don't really think so. I agree that seeing a man get his face burned is easier to accept, but the look of Two-Face was completely unrealistic. So much so that I've had many of my friends remark on how they thought it was a bit much. His eye, his mouth, everything was easily identifiable as being unrealistic. No one I've talked to has ever said, "yeah, I could see someone having a burn like that." Everyone thought it was unrealistic, the fact that he could move his eye, that his eye wasn't burned, that he could still move his jaw, and the fact that he was still alive with a burn that severe, all unrealistic..

I agree to a certain extent, that Two-Face wasn't ultra-realistic, but I still feel that a true "comic book" solid white, green hair, red lipped Joker, out of nowhere, is just too much for what Nolan's doing. Now you said maybe not having him fully white, and the hair and lips not permanent either, which I could get onboard with, but technically, it wouldn't be exactly like the Joker from the comics, and most people on your side of the fence on this argument, seemed to want that

Really, I'd argue that a bleached man would be far more realistic then the burn two-face sustained. We have chemicals that can bleach our skin now in today's world. Not only that, but there is absolutely no reason why Joker being perma-white would demand explanation. In fact, Nolan could have done the exact same thing he did with the scars, but do it with the Joker's skin. Nothing mandates that it needs to be explained.

We sure do, I mean, Michael Jackson is almost the Joker nowadays, but it still would beg for an explanation. Nolan explained just about everything concerning everybody in these two movies, how could he just leave the Joker looking almost not human, without saying anything about it? He can get away with it with scars, because it's just scars on a man with paint on his face, there's nothing out of the ordinary about that, so the Joker could've come from anywhere, but we know he's just a guy. Permawhite Joker is clean cut, smoothly white with permanent green hair, there's nothing even "semi" realistic about that, and although Nolan has had his fair share of "unreal" things mixed in with his grounded reality, it's still nothing close to that

 

[Bathead]

Frankly, I couldn't care less how realistic or unrealsitic
permawhite is. Truth be told I would have greatly preferred it, but I'm not gonna get my panties in a bunch because Nolan decided to go another way.

 

[ronny]

Here's what I don't get. How can you explain the permawhite in the movie when in the comics the explaination is so unbelievably stupid?

 

[Ace of Knaves]

there never really was a 100% certain explanation in the comics, the vat of chemicals is just a possibilty.