Things movies always get wrong about The Joker

https://www.looper.com/149060/things-movies-always-get-wrong-about-the-joker/

Secret origins

As evidenced by the fact that we've all seen Thomas and Martha Wayne get shot down in an alley about 47 times, superhero movies love to give their viewers an origin story. It's not just for the good guys, either — almost every villain who steps onto the screen brings a whole backstory with them that takes up the majority of the first act. Normally, that's not a problem, and actually gives those villains the pathos that makes for a compelling story. In the Joker's case, however, it's the exact opposite.

The biggest offender in this regard is, of course, Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film, in which Jack Nicholson took on the role of the Clown Prince of Crime. Not only do we get a full origin story, which is even tied back into Batman's own origin so that we can wrap everything up in a nice bow, it's delivered in a way that makes the Joker far less interesting. The problem is that we see that he's a weird, catchphrase-spewing homicidal maniac long before he tumbles into a vat of acid. The only real difference, aside from an admittedly iconic look, is that he gets slightly more artistic with his murders.

For a while, it seemed like the movies had learned their lesson on this front. The Joker that we saw in The Dark Knight shows up fully formed and even offers conflicting versions of his own origin depending on who he's talking to, and Jared Leto's version in Suicide Squad is downright inexplicable. Now, though, we have an entire movie about the Joker's origin, sans Batman, set for release this year. Hopefully this time, they'll finally be able to rid the character of all that compelling mystery and scariness!

Poison smiles

For all its flaws — and the worst of them by far is giving the Joker a name that's a pun on "jackanape"  — the '89 Batman movie incorporates one longtime, definitive element of the Joker that no other film does. It's the one that remembers his trademark is poison.

In the movie, it's called "Smylex," but in the comics, Joker Toxin dates back to that first appearance in 1940, and has been a signature of the character ever since. It's fitting that it would be, too. In addition to the outright creepiness of a corpse with a smile frozen on its face, there's nothing that captures the Joker's mission statement quite as succinctly as leaving behind dead bodies in his own image, literally making a world with more death… and more Jokers.

For obvious reasons, the campy, kid-friendly 1966 Batman film didn't involve a lot of poison murders. When Heath Ledger offered up a performance that defined the Joker for a new generation, his weapons of choice were knives, explosives, and complicated moral dilemmas, which left very few people smiling. The Suicide Squad Joker seems to favor guns and knives as well, which we know from the scene where he's laying on the floor in a weird circle of them that also includes baby clothes, champagne bottles, and laptop computers. It's definitely a striking visual in its own right, but it gets a little less sinister once you start imagining Jared Leto spending hours arranging it all just so.

Disorganized crime

The Joker wasn't the first over-the-top, thematic crook to show up on the comics page, but if you're looking for a place to draw the line between "villain" and "supervillain," he makes a good place to start. His arrival alongside Catwoman in Batman #1 set the standard for costumed criminals, and provided the blueprint that supervillains are still using almost 80 years later. More often than not, though, movies treat the Joker as just a slightly more flamboyant representative of traditional organized crime.

In Batman '89, the Joker eventually winds up in full-on supervillain mode — complete with an army of henchmen in matching satin jackets — but at heart, Jack Napier is a gangster, and his first actions after his transformation involve taking over the mob. The same goes for The Dark Knight, where the Joker's introduction involves him taking a contract for the murder of Batman, eventually destabilizing the city's organized crime in order to sow chaos. Suicide Squad might actually be the film that goes furthest, showing the Joker as a mob boss holding court in a nightclub that caters to facial tattoo enthusiasts.

Presumably, this is meant to tie the Joker to a more realistic idea of crime, which seems pretty unnecessary. Are audiences only going to accept a genocidal maniac who was turned into a clown by falling into a pit of chemicals and fights a man dressed up as Bondage Dracula if we can relate him to The Sopranos?