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

[ultimatefan]

As far the TKJ goes, I'm not so sure it was a complete delusion. He didn't really share the information with others, he just alluded to it. It seems to me that if he was being delusional and making excuses for his insanity, then he would have expressed the story openly instead of just "remembering" it. Though it's likely it was distorted, I don't think it was completely fabricated.

Self-delusion is a common element of psychopathic behavior. Psychopaths are highly incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and often create rationalizations to justify themselves, sometimes even to themselves. Even having no feeling of remorse or guilt, they possess the rational awareness that what they do is socially or morally condemned, so it may be a self-defense mechanism. Joker´s memory fits like a glove in his "one bad day" theory, even though it doesn´t work when he puts it into practice with Gordon. That´s my interpretation, at least.

 

[Magenta666]

That and the one bad day theory was proven wrong even in TKJ. The Joker tried to recreate what he said happened to him, and what he blamed on what made him what he is.

He tried but Gordon did not change. And at the end when Batman is chasing him, Joker is confused because Gordon did not change, and Batman truly had "one bad day" yet he did not become a murdering psycho.

The Joker was a serial killer from the day he was born. The deformation just fully unleashed it to its max. And I agree with you ultimate. I think the TKJ story proves this. That the Joker was wrong, that one bad day did NOT create him. It was something very deep, something he may not understand. To me I think he finally understood that there is something more wrong with him then one bad day with my favorite line in the story:

"Why aren't you laughing?"

great post, and that might be my favorite joker line...it explains him perfectly

 

[nickyg641]

Oh I'm sure they knew that people would get angry about this. And there is no problem with conversing about it one bit. You have your rights to believe what you believe and I bow to you for that.

To me though, I just ask this. Do you think maybe when you see the Joker in TDK in Nolan's context that your opinion might change and you may see it like a lot of us in here?

And I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just really wondering if we see the full version of what Nolan wanted to do with this Joker could your opinion change?

I'm sure my opinion will change, or at least, it won't matter as much any more. But I think it'll still always be my only flaw with the character, and it'll always bug me that they decided to go in that direction. Probably not as much in the future as it does now, but I think I'll always feel like that to some degree.

And I very much a agree on your post about the Joker's insanity, Solidus. The Joker was always a serial killer. The chemical bath simply abolished all of his inhibitions, transformed him into a different person who had no problem doing it.

 

[Banquet]

Excellent post. I very much agree with this.

wow, I missed that post. I also concur.

 

[ultimatefan]

A sudden transformation physically, that brings about the Joker himself. But, my preferred idea was that the seeds had already been planted, long ago, and he'd always been rather unhinged. His "rebirth" just opened the floodgates, to allow him to rise to the true potential of his insanity.

Or maybe the smile scarring was the floodgates here. If having your skin and hair painted an unusual color will send you over the edge, why not an unusual scar?

 

[Banquet]

Self-delusion is a common element of psychopathic behavior. Psychopaths are highly incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and often create rationalizations to justify themselves, sometimes even to themselves. Even having no feeling of remorse or guilt, they possess the rational awareness that what they do is socially or morally condemned, so it may be a self-defense mechanism. Joker´s memory fits like a glove in his "one bad day" theory, even though it doesn´t work when he puts it into practice with Gordon. That´s my interpretation, at least.

I agree, I just don't think his previous life was completely made-up for his "one bad day" story. It may have had grains of truth in it... and instead was distorted to fit his scheme.

Of course, I doubt any of this was thought out to the degree we're thinking of it. heh. but it's fun to think about anyway.

 

[deathfromabove]

becuz thats not what really happened!

 

[Sandouras]

I guess you're right. Ledger's performance seems excellent.

But I think the reason it seems I'm "raging" about this is because it's the detail I'm focusing on, which is because, frankly, it's the only flaw I see in the way Nolan has done the character. A fairly important flaw, to me, but the only flaw nonetheless.

Which is what makes me mad, or, rather, sad. I'm sure you can understand the feeling of "Everything else is perfect, so why this?" Surely this was a foreseeable consequence of the change? 1000's of pages from fans about it?

Perhaps Nolan wanted to go in a new direction with the character, but I feel this is one direction it was unnecessary to embark upon.

Yeah i know where you re coming from and i respect your opinion of course. We re all debating here.

I dont know what to tell you. My suggestions:

1) You can either accept this as a different version and move on.
Example: I dont like Miller's Dark Knight Returns as a future for batman. I enjoyed and i liked most of the story, but i prefer the Batman Beyond route. Futuristic gotham, batman and joker becoming urban myths, new suit and of course grumpy old bruce. Different versions. You can enjoy both but select one. Or in your mind, bruce marries selina and live happily ever after. Its fiction.

2) You can still look at it as permawhite in your mind.
Example: I didnt like some of the ugly shots of the suit in BB. Like at the "can you drive stick" scene. I also didnt like the fact that Batman let Rha's die. Because god knows how many times Batman has saved the Joker (that monster!) from certain death, simply because he is against loss of life. So i pretended i didnt see them, or didnt give much attention to them. The suit was great most of the time and the way batman escaped from the train was ingenius and COOL! I suppose they could have found a better way to kill Rha's than that and still give us a badass escape. But of course i prefer this to Goyer's idea of having Rha's scream like a little girl when he realises his impeding doom. Thank god they didnt do that and take all the integrity out of him. So you can do the above for the ugly shots of the TDK suit and the permawhite issue.


3) There is the possibility that after seeing the movie the rage will be over and the love will begin.

Example: I hated the tumbler. And then i watched the film. Its still ugly, but my god i wouldnt have it any other way.

Maybe not just heath, but the joker's lines, his plans, his mind will make you love him. And maybe there is some redeeming factor for the makeup. Just like for the tumbler.

 

[nickyg641]

Or maybe the smile scarring was the floodgates here. If having your skin and hair painted an unusual color will send you over the edge, why not an unusual scar?

I agree, they do serve the same purpose. But, as I've said, I prefer the idea that it was a "rebirth" that unleashed him, and I can't really see something like that as a total "rebirth".

From a phsyical standpoint, I don't think it's altering enough. It's a vaguely smile-shaped scar that appears only in one contained area of his body, and, from the looks of it, it doesn't seem to be a hugely major scarring. Not like Two-Face's scars.

But permawhite is a completely physically altering thing. Think about Ledger's makeup. He's completely unrecognizable in that white makeup and hair dye. Now imagine that all over your body, permanently.

I mean, it would be life changing if you were to all the sudden change your race. Think about if you all the sudden looked like something nobody else looks like.

In my opinion, the fact that the cops take no notice of him, even when he's right next to them in a crowd, I think says something about the scars. A person with chalk white skin would catch your attention from a mile away. You could pick them out of a crowd, you could notice him in a Where's Waldo book.

 

[The Joker_1000]

Will the Joker continue to reapply the make-up in the movie?

 

[MAKIEVELLI]

Yeah i know where you re coming from and i respect your opinion of course. We re all debating here.

I dont know what to tell you. My suggestions:

1) You can either accept this as a different version and move on.
Example: I dont like Miller's Dark Knight Returns as a future for batman. I enjoyed and i liked most of the story, but i prefer the Batman Beyond route. Futuristic gotham, batman and joker becoming urban myths, new suit and of course grumpy old bruce. Different versions. You can enjoy both but select one. Or in your mind, bruce marries selina and live happily ever after. Its fiction.

2) You can still look at it as permawhite in your mind.
Example: I didnt like some of the ugly shots of the suit in BB. Like at the "can you drive stick" scene. I also didnt like the fact that Batman let Rha's die. Because god knows how many times Batman has saved the Joker (that monster!) for certain death, simply because he is against loss of life. So i pretended i didnt see them, or didnt give much attention to them. The suit was great most of the time and the way batman escaped from the train was ingenius and COOL! I suppose they could have found a better way to kill Rha's than that and still give us a badass escape. But of course i prefer this to Goyer's idea of having Rha's scream like a little girl when he realises his impeding doom. Thank god they didnt do that and take all the integrity out of him. So you can do the above for the ugly shots of the TDK suit and the permawhite issue.


3) There is the possibility that after seeing the movie the rage will be over and the love will begin.

Example: I hated the tumbler. And then i watched the film. Its still ugly, but my god i wouldnt have it any other way.

Maybe not just heath, but the joker's lines, his plans, his mind will make you love him. And maybe there is some redeeming factor for the makeup. Just like for the tumbler.

I feel you on that. It has always bothered me that Bruce only had to train for seven years in the movie. I know seven years is a long time but IMHO it just doesn't seem long enough to train to become someone like Batman. And also the issue of Bruce becoming Batman so late at 30. I always thought 25 (Y1) was too early but the perfect median, 27-28 is what I would prefer. But I've overlooked this minor faults and I still love the movie. It is easy to overlook somethings, but something as big as the perma-white issue will probably be a smudge in the movie's legacy for me for year's to come.

 

[Sandouras]

I dont know how painful the chemical bath was, but i find the face scarring equally or more mentally scarring. Because its so much more than physical pain. Having someone over you, taking control of you, and doing his will on your body is one of the most scarring things you can experience. Its the same with rape. And who says he wasnt raped? My god, if he played in Nip/Tuck he was raped, carved, had sex with tranvestites, his friend is raising his child, who is dating men and women, his partner at work......etc..... LAWL!!!

Joking aside, i believe that getting cornered in a dark alley, getting beat up and carved is far more mentally scarring that having your skin turn white. I hope i never experience either of course.

In either case, i dont think that right after the incident he becomes the joker. I mean, he must have seen himself in a mirror first, gone bonkers, tormented himself in insanity and then finally accepted his destiny.

 

[Symbiotic]

Will the Joker continue to reapply the make-up in the movie?

Spoiler

That's a negative. It's been said in interviews.

 

[Banquet]

becuz thats not what really happened!

Yeah, I forgot. In reality he was a woman who fought crime as a vigilante superhero. Duh.

 

[Sandouras]

I agree, they do serve the same purpose. But, as I've said, I prefer the idea that it was a "rebirth" that unleashed him, and I can't really see something like that as a total "rebirth".

From a phsyical standpoint, I don't think it's altering enough. It's a vaguely smile-shaped scar that appears only in one contained area of his body, and, from the looks of it, it doesn't seem to be a hugely major scarring. Not like Two-Face's scars.

But permawhite is a completely physically altering thing. Think about Ledger's makeup. He's completely unrecognizable in that white makeup and hair dye. Now imagine that all over your body, permanently.

I mean, it would be life changing if you were to all the sudden change your race. Think about if you all the sudden looked like something nobody else looks like.

In my opinion, the fact that the cops take no notice of him, even when he's right next to them in a crowd, I think says something about the scars. A person with chalk white skin would catch your attention from a mile away. You could pick them out of a crowd, you could notice him in a Where's Waldo book.

Excellent post! Add these to my last post where i talk about mental scarring. Yes having your appearence change so much so that you can no longer fit in can be scarring as well.

 

[Sandouras]

I feel you on that. It has always bothered me that Bruce only had to train for seven years in the movie. I know seven years is a long time but IMHO it just doesn't seem long enough to train to become someone like Batman. And also the issue of Bruce becoming Batman so late at 30. I always thought 25 (Y1) was too early but the perfect median, 27-28 is what I would prefer. But I've overlooked this minor faults and I still love the movie. It is easy to overlook somethings, but something as big as the perma-white issue will probably be a smudge in the movie's legacy for me for year's to come.

I dont know how old Bruce is supposed to be when he comes back to gotham in the comics continuity. Maybe they should have left that info out.

Another thing that bothers me is that he didnt finish his education. I know that maybe he doesnt need it, but it seems to give some sort of class in my mind. A person with a degree carries some weight in my mind. And a top scientific brain like his should have one, easily.

Now, about those 7 years of training, dunno. Seems quite a long time for me. What i would want though is to see his training handled like in BTAS. With Zatanna's father training him to be an escape artist (watch that episode, its unreally good!), journeys here and there. And in the end you top it off with him joining the league of shadows. I just loved this huge journey, i loved how Zatarra (Zatanna's dad) saw his skill but instantly knew that John (didnt reveal his true name) has other plans in mind than becoming a performer, i also liked the love story with Zatanna who loved him but he was focused on the mission, and finally i loved how Zatanna comes back to gotham and finally sees what bruce has made of himself (batman loses his mask somehow) but still doent know that he is bruce wayne and calls him John(*). But you would need a 5 hours movie for that and besides, i can always go back and watch BTAS.


* (kinda like how Rha's did in the movie. "You took my advice about theatricality.....". "You were just an ordinary man in a cape, thats why you couldnt...". I love this type of revelations.)

 

[nickyg641]

Excellent post! Add these to my last post where i talk about mental scarring. Yes having your appearence change so much so that you can no longer fit in can be scarring as well.

Thanks.

Also, not only to where you don't fit in, to where you really just don't recognize yourself. I think that's a big trigger for the Joker's complete change in personality. He didn't see himself, he was unrecognizable from the original man.

And, so, to cope with such a radical physical alteration, his mind created an entirely new person to fit such an appearance, all sort of at once. I like to think the mental transition was quick, almost immdeiate as his physical change. I think seeing himself in the mirror was the metaphorical "spank of life".

 

[The Battousai]

See, this is a line of thinking that I continually dislike. It's one thing to say you don't like this Joker, or you prefer Jack's Joker, or you'd rather we got a more comic-accurate Joker, but I hate it when people say "This isn't The Joker."

Same here - it's exactly why I posted this yesterday:

Personally, I don't think the issue is in the appearance of either "bleached" skin or disfiguring scars - that it lies within the resulting psychosis as a result of either state's birth.


The traditional origin

When he was bleached, his state of mind cracked after seeing himself in the mirror - what had become of him. He saw what any normal person would see: a freak. The only difference, however, is that something suddenly clicked. A light bulb went on inside of his head and he saw the world through new eyes. Not only did he see himself as beautiful, but the chaos of the world - the big Joke.

In this case, it was realizing the results of the disfiguring event that caused his mind to crack - or, from his p.o.v., caused his eyes to open.


"Unclear" TDK origin

From what we can gather, this new Joker has two disfiguring scars: a clean, upward-curling cut in his right cheek, and a messy, "bubbly-looking" scar on his left. Judging from this, we can assume that one of the scars was given to him by outside forces.

It is at this point that he may have changed; become twisted. Like the traditional origin, it seems to have taken a traumatic event to cause him to crack. But, unlike that origin, it may have been simply the event that did this and not seeing what he looks like in a reflection.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to start calling himself The Joker just yet, but that his mind has changed in a similar fashion. Though, upon seeing his reflection some time after this - as he most likely had done - rather than detest this freak looking back at him, he embraces it. In fact, he seems to have made it even better (in his eyes) by completing that permanent smile etched into the flesh on his face. He sees a clown smiling back at him, and he must have be laughing at the Joke at this point...

But it doesn't end there - he completes the image by not only enhancing his "perfect smile" by smearing red along its length, but by painting this "enhancement" upon a white canvas in order, of course, to make it as vibrant as possible.

And what's a clown without something around the eyes? What stands out better than anything else against white? Hwy, black, of course

- - - - - - - -

To me, the core of the character is in his descent (or ascent ) into insanity and his view of both himself and the world around him. Because of this, the Joker in TDK shares with his comic-book counterpart the most basic essence of the Joker.

And the essential aspect of a character, in my honest opinion, is the most important thing to get right.

EDIT: I wanted to add one thing to this - what I mean when I say Joker "snapped" or "cracked" is that he was pushed past whatever mental barrier he had in his mind and embraced his psychosis.

 

[Sandouras]

Thanks.

Also, not only to where you don't fit in, to where you really just don't recognize yourself. I think that's a big trigger for the Joker's complete change in personality. He didn't see himself, he was unrecognizable from the original man.

And, so, to cope with such a radical physical alteration, his mind created an entirely new person to fit such an appearance, all sort of at once. I like to think the mental transition was quick, almost immdeiate as his physical change. I think seeing himself in the mirror was the metaphorical "spank of life".

But since he still got deformed, scarred and lost it, does it really change things so much?

Apart than the fact that makeup isnt permanent and that it cant be associated with a womb to the degree of a vat of chemicals, does it change things? Its still the joker. He still cant be a normal person any more.

Spoiler

That's a negative. It's been said in interviews.

I think he will. Or else he will not be white ever again after he wipes it off to do that assassination.

 

[nickyg641]

But since he still got deformed, scarred and lost it, does it really change things so much?

Apart than the fact that makeup isnt permanent and that it cant be associated with a womb to the degree of a vat of chemicals, does it change things? Its still the joker. He still cant be a normal person any more.

As I said, I don't really think it's a physically altering enough doformity for his mind to cope with it in such a way that it would create an entirely new persona.

I think he will. Or else he will not be white ever again after he wipes it off to do that assassination.

I thought about it. He must reapply his makeup after that. Which puzzles me, because wouldn't his makeup look much fresher than it does in the pictures we've seen?

So, either that happens earlier in the movie than we think, thus allowing time for his makeup to degenerate, or we haven't seen any pics from after that point in the movie. And the latter I find rather unlikely, so I think the former is very likely.

 

[Solidus]

Spoiler

That's a negative. It's been said in interviews.

Well, it does show him as a cop without make up. So I'm sure he re-applies it.

 

[Symbiotic]

Well, it does show him as a cop without make up. So I'm sure he re-applies it.

Have we ruled out

Spoiler

him applying flesh makeup over his... Joker face?

 

[Sandouras]

Same here - it's exactly why I posted this yesterday:



EDIT: I wanted to add one thing to this - what I mean when I say Joker "snapped" or "cracked" is that he was pushed past whatever mental barrier he had in his mind and embraced his psychosis.

Battousai i think that the messy scar looks a lot like a badly stitched cut. I have had a small operation and those "bubbles" come from the stitching. The stitches go between them pulling the skin and the rest becomes like that. Sooner or later it heals and it just leaves a scar which affects the look of your skin but you cant feel the "bubbles".

And yeah, i agree with what you say on that quote. Dont know about the origins of the scars, but i agree with the rest

 

[bkey]

Have we ruled out

Spoiler

him applying flesh makeup over his... Joker face?

I'm pretty sure that won't be the case. If he wiped off flesh colored make up, the Joker make-up would come off with it.

 

[Symbiotic]

I'm pretty sure that won't be the case. If he wiped off flesh colored make up, the Joker make-up would come off with it.

Ah. Of course.