The Joker, Evil & Creative Expression
The embodiment of Creative Chaos, with a bizarre context.
Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix aside, the fictional character of the ‘Joker’ is, through my lens, both a performative critic, and strangely, an artist.
Unlike other villains, I believe the Joker encapsulates the embodiment of holistic evil.
Also, unlike other forms of deviancy, (unless you want to relate graff writers to ruthless mayhem) the Joker is also an artist, just with an entirely skewed, chaotic pool of influences.
Here me out
Firstly, I want to lay out the fundamental themes of the Joker.
The first is that he envelops undiluted immorality, (or an absence of, entirely) and evil.
He did not destroy, deconstruct, rob, kill or deceive for personal gain, instead his malevolence was solely intended to destruct, and he was as actively counter-productive and as ‘anti’ as one could be.
Chaos for the sake of chaos.
He was, if you like, immersed in the role of a devil’s advocate(and perhaps fond admirer). Social practice, normality, conduct and structure were jabbed and taunted and bruised for the sake of critique.
He projected hurt and wanted his surroundings to feel it.
This projection flows nicely on to his work as an artist.
Joker, an artist
The second, probably less conventional understanding I would put forward, is the idea that the Joker could be considered an artist. In a sort of misconstrued, yet kind of rational way.
If you think about creativity; taking aspects from one idea, event, memory or otherwise, and repurposing it somewhere it does not conventionally fit into.
Creatives, whether it be musicians, illustrators, dancers or writers, are all known to draw upon past experiences for influence.
Perhaps the violence and projection, such as that exerted by the Joker, is no different.
He was influenced, shaped, configured by the deep-roots of trauma and isolation, utilising it, harnessing the energy to cause damage.
His performances were carefully choreographed, meticulously planned and theatrically executed to incite as much chaos as inhumanly possible.
His chaos was his creative expression — simply tragedy disorder and chaos were the childhood/adulthood influences he drew upon.
Positive experience breeds creation as negative encourages (but does not promise) destruction.
Ever seen a kid throw a fit and immediately reach to break a toy?
Or a video gamer losing a game and proceeding to launch his controller?
Experience incites visceral response.
Of course this is not always the case, tragedy and misfortune can produce brilliance through transforming negative emotion rather than transferring it; Batman faced adversity at a young age, yet grew to become a judicial vigilante, who fought injustice as a direct response.
The phrase that seems to be most applicable here relays;
‘suffering that is not transmitted is transferred’
To adapt Ledger’s words, what doesn’t kill you, can make you stranger.
Although trauma is an opportunity to strip down layers of who you thought you were and create something new from the fractured remains, it can also cause a compulsion to share this tragedy with your environment, wrongly assuming the culprit and creating victims through collateral damage.
