idea: the joker, compelled even against his own interests to do whatever he thinks would be funniest. the joker may be a sadist with a really shitty sense of humor but even he knows a high-quality punchline when he sees one. his obsession with batman is rooted in batman’s unfailing ability to trick the joker into a better gag that gets him captured. the joker gets chased into a room with plenty of really great hiding places and escape routes, but also a slender pole in the middle of the room. he has to hide behind the fucking pole. he’s gotta. how can he not go for the hiding behind a pole gag. there’s three doors but there’s also a joker-shaped hole in the wall that will make it look like he broke through the wall. it’s a four-story drop into a bakery dumpster full of pies. the joker is obsessed with batman because deep in his heart he knows that batman is actually funnier than he is but instead he spends his time standing on rooftops in the rain being a stoic piece of shit. the joker is salieri, and batman is a mozart that decided to go into carpentry.
personally, i do not think this idea has to make the joker less menacing as a threat, because:
- comedy is hard. for a punchline to land the situation and the timing have to be just right. the pole is only the punchline to a series of elaborate escapes. the hole in the wall is only the punchline if the joke is desperation, if joker’s been running from batman for hours and days and he’s starting to flip about it.
- it has to be something the joker can’t use against anyone else, because good lord can things backfire spectacularly.
- everything only works once unless they can get a good running gag going.
- because they are punchlines they are inherently ridiculous and so when it works batman looks like a genius but when it fails he’s left looking and feeling like the Gotham’s Biggest Jackass. do you know how long it takes to cut a joker-shaped hole in a wall. that is not a last-minute project. that shit takes time. if joker doesn’t go for it then he just spent hours vandalizing on joker’s behalf for no reason and now he’ll have to spend hours hiding his shame because no one can ever know.
- the joker has a shitty sense of humor. i don’t mean unfunny, although i kind of do. i mean he is a shitty person. that’s why he’s a villain. the joke is that he hurt you. the joke is that you care. the joke is that it’s so easy to hurt you. the joke is that he doesn’t care. if you would just care less, you could be in on the joke; but you’ll never care as little about everything as the joker does. the fact that you think anything matters, that’s the joke. the fact that some things are important to you, that’s the joke. look at how seriously you’re taking the stupid thing he’s doing. that’s the joke. you’re the joke. everyone’s a joke except the joker, because he’s in on the joke. he is the pinnacle of the shittiest possible form of south park humor, and jesus christ does that make it hard to find something salvagably funny in the messes he makes.
- clowns are inherently menacing
the joker
Behind the scenes footage of Mark Hamill voicing the Joker for “Arkham City”
and he doesn’t send used condoms to his coworkers
This is exactly what ive been telling people when they try to argue shit about Jared Leto. Mark Hamill has been playing the Joker longer than anyone and he never had to do any awful shit for the sake of “method acting”
Also Mark Hamill is basically the best Joker.
