The Joker-Heath Ledger Version: Anti-Christ & Morphogenetic Fields
Bruce Wayne’s Butler describing the Joker’s motivation to Mr. Wayne:
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money.They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” The Dark Knight
The Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is an example of what I have coined as “gloriously fk’d up.” This is not like the past when I was a kid and had to come to Minneapolis to see my asthma specialist 3 or 4 times a year. We would stay at Aunt Ragna’s house, then drive downtown to Dr. Stoesser’s office, part of the route along Franklin Avenue, where a bevy of Native American men lay propped against the buildings along the way, already drunk out of their minds, numb as they could possibly get. at 9 in the morning. They surrendered to the forces that stripped their lives of meaning - they were overpowered - and now they were simply scorned and being seriously drunk seemed to protect them from the humiliation and shame the world around them was willing to shovel into them.
When I worked at Stillwater Prison I believe I saw a new generation of men emerging - Native, African-American, even some of the white guys, who were GFUs - gloriously fk’d up! Nothing could hurt them. They weren’t afraid of death or beatings or someone putting them down. If they were going out, going down, they wouldn’t go with a whimper, but with a bang, a celebration, an explosion, with other bodies in their wake. It was a bold bravado and would never honor the code of the older prisoners. They had their own ways.
Ledger’s Joker is the embodiment of this new breed of men and women. The movie has a harbinger. Many of us watching it could hardly realize it was the wave of the future. A seriously abused man took control of his life and terrorized those around him. And even the criminals were intimidated because they watched the Joker burn a huge pile of money: the Joker wasn’t motivated by money, to their shock and dismay. How many of these now walk amongst us? How does one stand up to this?
“You have all these rules, and you think they’ll save you………..The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules…..You have nothing…..nothing to threaten me with.”
The Joker - The Dark Knight
Bruce Wayne’s Butler describing the Joker’s motivation to Mr. Wayne:
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money.They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” The Dark Knight
The Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is an example of what I have coined as “gloriously fk’d up.” This is not like the past when I was a kid and had to come to Minneapolis to see my asthma specialist 3 or 4 times a year. We would stay at Aunt Ragna’s house, then drive downtown to Dr. Stoesser’s office, part of the route along Franklin Avenue, where a bevy of Native American men lay propped against the buildings along the way, already drunk out of their minds, numb as they could possibly get. at 9 in the morning. They surrendered to the forces that stripped their lives of meaning - they were overpowered - and now they were simply scorned and being seriously drunk seemed to protect them from the humiliation and shame the world around them was willing to shovel into them.
When I worked at Stillwater Prison I believe I saw a new generation of men emerging - Native, African-American, even some of the white guys, who were GFUs - gloriously fk’d up! Nothing could hurt them. They weren’t afraid of death or beatings or someone putting them down. If they were going out, going down, they wouldn’t go with a whimper, but with a bang, a celebration, an explosion, with other bodies in their wake. It was a bold bravado and would never honor the code of the older prisoners. They had their own ways.
Ledger’s Joker is the embodiment of this new breed of men and women. The movie has a harbinger. Many of us watching it could hardly realize it was the wave of the future. A seriously abused man took control of his life and terrorized those around him. And even the criminals were intimidated because they watched the Joker burn a huge pile of money: the Joker wasn’t motivated by money, to their shock and dismay. How many of these now walk amongst us? How does one stand up to this?
“You have all these rules, and you think they’ll save you………..The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules…..You have nothing…..nothing to threaten me with.”
The Joker - The Dark Knight
Bruce Wayne’s Butler describing the Joker’s motivation to Mr. Wayne:
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money.They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” The Dark Knight
The Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is an example of what I have coined as “gloriously fk’d up.” This is not like the past when I was a kid and had to come to Minneapolis to see my asthma specialist 3 or 4 times a year. We would stay at Aunt Ragna’s house, then drive downtown to Dr. Stoesser’s office, part of the route along Franklin Avenue, where a bevy of Native American men lay propped against the buildings along the way, already drunk out of their minds, numb as they could possibly get. at 9 in the morning. They surrendered to the forces that stripped their lives of meaning - they were overpowered - and now they were simply scorned and being seriously drunk seemed to protect them from the humiliation and shame the world around them was willing to shovel into them.
When I worked at Stillwater Prison I believe I saw a new generation of men emerging - Native, African-American, even some of the white guys, who were GFUs - gloriously fk’d up! Nothing could hurt them. They weren’t afraid of death or beatings or someone putting them down. If they were going out, going down, they wouldn’t go with a whimper, but with a bang, a celebration, an explosion, with other bodies in their wake. It was a bold bravado and would never honor the code of the older prisoners. They had their own ways.
Ledger’s Joker is the embodiment of this new breed of men and women. The movie has a harbinger. Many of us watching it could hardly realize it was the wave of the future. A seriously abused man took control of his life and terrorized those around him. And even the criminals were intimidated because they watched the Joker burn a huge pile of money: the Joker wasn’t motivated by money, to their shock and dismay. How many of these now walk amongst us? How does one stand up to this?
“You have all these rules, and you think they’ll save you………..The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules…..You have nothing…..nothing to threaten me with.”
The Joker - The Dark Knight