anti-lit: The Cursed Jester

This is an image that I think is important from a cultural perspective. It was Heath Ledger's portrayal in the Christopher Nolan trilogy that really solidified our image of the Joker as a sociopath who "just wanted to watch the world burn." Suddenly, he was gritty and real. He wasn't remote. He wasn't a mastermind of chemistry or other cartoonish supervillian abilities. He was just a dude who commanded attention, was fearless, and enjoyed fucking with people. He seemed insane, but he was consistent. Ultimately, he wanted Batman to see just how self-motivated and unethical the human race was, to demoralize him, to convert him to Jokerism. He wanted to win an argument. Maybe even someone to form a connection with, misguided as he was.

Then you have the image of the Joker rebranded with Joaquin Phoenix and I found that very boring. But the Joker as a mentally ill unemployed clown suits a deeper psychological narrative about how bad clowns are made. This is a difficult problem for a lot of reasons, caught up in nature versus nurture and every hybrid in between. Suffice it say, we analyze the things we fear. "Coming to terms" is a very real thing.

Ultimately, we're genetically coded to tell stories. So, let's tell a story, a blunt one. No frills. You have a kid, an outcast, who finally finds a tribe. His tribe encourages certain behaviors, discourages others. He does what's encouraged, avoids was discouraged. All the while reinforced by social conditioning. Operant conditioning explains all of it. Even how a kid can think a lone act of apparent balls is worth throwing away his life. And that boring Joker movie is its modern myth.

What is an archetype?

An archetype is not itself a pattern, but rather the image of a pattern, frozen. It can stand in for the pattern, represent the pattern, but itself is a signifier in the truest sense of the word. We won't be confusing archetypes with patterns ever.

Images of the Cursed Jester

This image was generated via a prompt. In this case, we wanted a court jester who was standing on skulls. Instead, we got a skull man delivering an uppercut. No artists were specified in the creation of this image. Three more were also created with the same prompt: