The Joker: One Bad Day

Joker is arguably the most iconic villain in superhero history. People recognise him as a homicidal psychopath, a representation of anarchy, someone who understands the true nature of Gotham. He is reckoned as a force of nature, the antithesis to Batman.

Alan Moore's The Killing Joke shines light on Joker's origin while maintaining consistency and not bastardising former presentations of the Joker.

[FULL SPOILERS FOR THE KILLING JOKE AHEAD]

The narrative of The Killing Joke is non linear switching between the past and the present to reflect on the thematic Joker's backstory was inducing into his current actions subtly.

(For convenience, I'll be referring to Flashback Joker as "Jack", credits to 1989 Batman).

The backstory starts off with portraying Jack as a lower middle class man struggling to start a career as a stand up comedian. He is shown to have a caring wife, a child on the way, what is defined as a "general lifestyle".

This is a commentary on the lifestyle of an average American man in Post American Suburbanisation times.

Moore & Holland effortlessly create the atmosphere of the graphic novel and build upon the setting of Joker's past painting the transition of America from middle to late 20th century with a massive surge of unemployment and to the lengths needy young men went to combat it.

Jack's life with his wife Jenny despite their struggles is depicted with a sense of "normalcy", and him being of a bumbling but harmless nature with low self confidence, which is shown to be severely contrasting with the anarchist mannerisms of Joker.

Moore keeps the narrative enigmatic by making the readers wonder what could have happened to the lovable Jack for him to becoming this deranged.

Moving on to the narrative, Jack, unemployed and desperate for money to make his family's ends meet, unwittingly enters a clandestinal deal. He used to work at a chemical factory, so two men coax him into giving them details on how to rob it successfully.

Jack is initially hesitant, but his dire need of money overpowers his misgivings. The men using their guile and his naiveté manipulate him into agreeing to be the scapegoat of the operation and eventually, he wistfully consents.

But then, tragedy strikes. On the day of the heist, a policeman informs Jack that his wife had an accident and passed away alongside the unborn baby. Jack is distraught at the news, and is disinterested in continuing with the plan since he doesn't need the money anymore.

But the men force him to go along with it. Now, this is a heavy satire on the bottomless avarice of corporate thugs. Considering how convenient Jenny's death was, it's easily inferrable that the men had her killed so that they wouldn't have to share the money with Jack.

Nevertheless, the trio tries to rob the vat, with Jack dressed as Red Hood, another villain. But to their surprise, they find guards contrary to what Jack knew. Since his information is outdated, the plan was wrecked and all three tried to escape but couldn't as Batman arrived.

Jack, hapless, tried to seek Batman's help who seemed to be willing to do so (film exclusive) but he accidentally fell into a vat of chemicals. When he climbed out of it, he had chalk-white skin, blood-red lips, green hair and a permanent wide smile stuck in position.

Looking at his reflection in the water, this was the final snap. He clutched his head in despair and all that came out was a maniacal cackle. Jack was no more, only the completely crazy Joker remained.

Now, on the surface, this backstory by itself isn't anything extraordinary. But what makes it a masterpiece is how it shaped Joker's philosophy on insanity.

Jack had a series of psychologically stressful events in one day and lost everything that he held dear, thus pushing him over the edge. This causes Joker to theorise that all it takes is "one bad day" to drive a person crazy.

Joker views life as a "big joke", an inconsequential panorama of melodrama. His disregard for life stems from how trivially his wife and child lost their lives, as if they held no purpose in the world.

As he adopts this outlook on life and begins to believe and delve in it, he becomes more and more deranged to the point of no return.

Joker remembers his past and tries to recreate it with Commissioner Gordon, shooting Barbara and paralysing her and then making Gordon undergo traumatic stress by making him see Barbara's naked pictures while gravely injured while simultaneously chattering a drivel.

After Batman apprehended The Joker, Batman offers to rehabilitate Joker because he believes that there's no conclusion to their pointless banter ongoing for decades. Batman reassures Joker that there may still be a hint of compassion left in him-

-with which he can turn over a new leaf, cultivate a pristine life and start fresh. Joker, being the jester he is appears to look pensive (ironic because he's always laughing) but then decides to narrate a wisecrack to the ever solemn Batman. This is the infamous joke:

The first guy who jumped across is Batman. Bruce had been dragged down by his parents death and to escape it, transformed himself into a nocturnal vigilante dressed like a bat. Whilst that may not sound crazy considering iconicity, it definitely hints at Bruce being a psychopath.

This implies that Batman is a lunatic who has escaped from his trauma with his own power (jumped across) and also has an inclination to assist others caught in this vicious cycle of psychosis (wanting to help the other lunatic cross over).

The second lunatic is Joker. He's afraid of falling, which indicates at a failure in the process of rehabilitation. He's frightened that a relapse may occur and he will experience the anguish and trauma of loss again. On top of that, he doesn't trust Batman.

He's sceptical that Batman will betray him; leave him hanging at the intermediary of his path to redemption (switching off the flashlight while Joker is midway).

Going further into this, despite Joker being a schizophrenic, is extremely intelligent. He realises that his insanity is gone way too far and it's futile to even attempt to rectify it at this point of time.

He also recognises the fact that the path to redemption offered by the idealistic Batman (flashlight path) is impractical and unrealistic. This quixotic course of action is believed to be possible only by another grade of lunatics i.e. Batman.

Now from another minor perspective:

The first man is The Joker. Himself a lunatic, he manipulates other lunatics to do his bidding while bamboozling them.

The second man is Batman. He realises that a redemptive path for lunatics such as himself and Joker does not exist. It's inefficacious to seek peace for either of them.

One wonders how this joke ties in with Joker's backstory. Joker as Jack was the second man; he trusted the first man to not switch off the light and stepped on to it but irrespective of whether the light was on or off, Jack fell, down to become Joker.

But what gives Joker's backstory the most unique flavour is his quote, "If I wanted a past, I'd prefer it to have been multiple choice".

This builds up his character from the get go and makes it ambiguous whether that actually happened or was Joker's imagination; which either way gives complexity to Joker as The Clown Prince Of Crime, it's implied that there's always a reason behind madness.

Joker is a nihilist who believes in the principles of absurdism.

Joker's absurdism is born from his past experience in the chemical factory. A series of mishaps put immense psychological pressure on him and he snapped, or that's what he chooses to let the viewers know. "If I have a backstory, I would prefer it to be multiple choice."

The epitome of absurdism, he doesn't even care for his past to be authentic. Nothing about the world interests him apart from Batman. Because he knows, just like Joker, Batman too had "one bad day".

Joker is further pushed to embrace absurdist principles because of the social injustice he suffered at the hands of the thugs. All he saw was greed, no empathy, sympathy or humanity.

This made his fall to insanity with absurdist beliefs even more believable. Joker doesn't think that a faux pas is unnatural, in fact he triggers Gotham's people's lack of social ineptitude with manipulation.

Joker uses Gordon as his scapegoat to prove to Batman that "one bad day" can drive anyone crazy because Gordon is:
1. The keeper of peace in Gotham, the most level headed man in the city
2. A good man at heart like Jack was, before he was pushed too far thus becoming The Joker

If Joker managed to drive Gordon mad, he would prove his absurdist philosophy to everyone. The fact that someone like Gordon was susceptible to "one bad day" would prove that Joker's loss of sanity wasn't unnatural.

He didn't receive any sort of assistance in his tough times because people were too busy with their own lives to notice. This is the core of the entire graphic novel, the satire on humanity's self consciousness.

Joker himself was unlucky enough to fall prey to it, thus his absurdist views on the world and his desire to prove that he wasn't crazy because of being vulnerable, but because law and order are meaningless concepts.

So, we find that Joker's absurdism is a direct consequence of the world being unfair to him and him having to hang on to existentialism. He thought Batman to be the same as him, so he tried to prove through Gordon that he too once was a normal man, who fell prey to society.

His experiment with Gordon was a tribute to his own tragedy. But Gordon proves him wrong, he shows that resilience and mental fortitude reign supreme, exemplifying that people can overcome distress, and needn't cave in to tragedy, unlike Jack, the antithesis to Joker's absurdism.

At the end, Batman begins to laugh because he understood the implication of the joke. He understood what his & Joker's roles represented, and began to laugh at the irony of it all. This made it so that the duo will always be aiming at each other's necks and never find solace.

While Batman strives for tranquillity, Joker desires chaos. Joker is someone who understands the truly diabolical nature of the citizens of Gotham. Just like Batman & Joker, Gotham too is beyond redemption. Their dichotomy is a very reflection of their own city.

The ceasing of Joker's cackle at the end hints at Batman choking Joker to death on realisation of the fact that they'll be at their fight forever with incessant conflict; which is the most accepted one of the several possible interpretations.

A fittingly anticlimactic finale to the greatest rivalry ever.