The Joker: Lunatic or Visionary?

“Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you… stranger.” As you watch the Joker rob the bank in the beginning of The Dark Knight you may think he’s just an average criminal with the same basic greedy motives, just a little crazier. After all, he did drive off with all the money and kill everyone in his crew – not something very atypical of your everyday crook. But as the movie progresses, you begin to reconsider this initial judgment. The Joker transforms into something more than the average criminal. He’s not after what the other criminals are after; he has different motives, different methods. He’s after something more than the triviality of crime. “It’s not about the money…” he claims. What is it about then? As it were, the Joker is an archetypal character for what Frederick Nietzsche had in mind when postulating the “free spirit.” Nihilist tendencies, too, are apparent in the Joker’s actions and words. However, we can make this parallel between the Joker and Nietzscheism and claim (to some extent) to know where he’s coming from with all this, but we never really figure out what exactly the Joker is seeking.

Now, it is interesting to point out that, although most people probably feel some sense of disgust or hatred for this character, one would be hard-pressed to find a person whose curiosity is not taken up with this gruesome character. This fact in itself is quite possibly a testament that Nietzsche’s analysis of man – the will to power (the fundamental drive of human nature that compels us to conquer and exact power over others) is true. That people do have a deep sense of perverse admiration for this person gives evidence for this will to power. Watching the Joker behave in his way stirs something in all of us – whether you are readily willing to admit it or not – something intangible; something deep, buried; we almost realize a sense of sadistic admiration for this person. At the end of the movie the Joker and his ideas stick with us if only temporarily – “What outrageous ideas! He’s crazy! Surely he is wrong! Surely… I wonder…” It seems as if the actions and ideas represented by the Joker plant a seed in our minds, a seed that will ultimately be smothered by the custom of our common morality. We shake off the Joker’s ideological “ludicrousness” as if waking from a dream.

Nihilist tendencies are not just obvious in the Joker’s actions, they constitute them. Nihilism according to Nietzsche is given in a general way, although he often discusses moral nihilism. Speaking of the universe, he claims it “is quite impervious of all our aesthetic and moral judgments!… has no impulses of any kind; neither does it know any laws…” (The Gay Science, 109). The Joker exemplifies these ideas in his inclination to show complete disregard for any moral, legal, and social system whatsoever. In correlation to the themes of nihilism Nietzsche posits, there is his conclusive idea that the “total nature of the world is, […] to all eternity chaos…” (The Gay Science, 109). The Joker states explicitly that he is an agent of chaos – but he doesn’t need to. His ambition throughout the movie is obvious: “introduce a little anarchy; upset the established order… everything burns.” His “plan” seems to be to actualize chaos.

There are other people in the movie who have plans: “schemers.” They try to use the comfort of their morality in a futile attempt at controlling the world. However, the Joker distinguishes himself from everyone else in that he lacks a plan. That is, he’s not a “schemer.” But we mustn’t take his own words with too much salt – it is clear the Joker has a plan. In fact, the whole movie seems like Gotham has been placed in one big mouse trap, with the Joker looking down on it, pulling strings. Gotham City clings to a morality that is, to Joker, just a warm blanket, and will fall at the first sign of trouble. He calls the bluff, and tries to bring about a realization in people of this bluff. We would be misled to claim that the Joker’s plan was to hurt people in this. Although we can say with certainty that he did in fact hurt people, it is not the hurting of people that he was striving for. He was trying to show people how easily their moral codes are dismissed; how quickly people themselves are willing to dismiss their own moral codes. Rather than holding animosity towards the people, he seems to be antipathetic towards the system itself. He is actually trying to free the people of Gotham. How to do this? Show them that “when the chips are down, these ‘civilized’ people – they’ll eat each other.” He’ll show them how easily and quickly it all burns to the ground. It’s not about the power or the fame or the money, it’s about the message: everything burns. No moral code or “certainty” is safe – it’s all a silly illusion.

This nihilist viewpoint leads into Joker’s “free spirit” nature. The Joker represents Nietzsche’s “free spirit” perfectly. Although Nietzsche’s idea of the free spirit was usually tied to a new breed of philosophers, we would not be remised in presenting the Joker as such. The free spirit is a person who is ready to question all assumptions of morality and struggles to rid themselves of the prejudices of others. The free spirit asks himself/herself: “Can all values not be turned around? And is good perhaps evil?” (Human, All Too Human, preface) etc. In fact, Nietzsche explicitly claims the free spirit, with a “more perilous curiosity”, will “put to the test what these things look like when they are reversed…” (Human, All Too Human). In this goal the Joker is steadfast. In the scene in which the Joker visits Harvey Dent in the hospital, he tells Dent that he was only doing what he does best – “I took your little plan and I turned it on itself.” The aptitude to turn institutions upside-down and question all standardized codes and values is a hallmark of the free spirit, and is a character trait which the Joker is not lacking in the least. The Joker also seems to recognize the error of the people of Gotham just as a free spirit would. To the free spirit “Error (- belief in the ideal -) is not blindness, error is cowardice…” (Ecce Homo, foreword). The people of Gotham are too scared to question, judge, or turn around any set of moral code they have always so loyally welcomed. The Joker tries to lead be example in bringing the people to the light; he tries to show them that this “code” they are adhering to is a phantasm.

Besides being a good example of a “free spirit” and nihilist tendencies, Nietzsche would say the Joker is advancing mankind. Every strong age of man has been characterized by a great chasm between men of great and the heard, and the weaker ages of man come when these boundaries, or “extremes themselves are finally obliterated to the point of similarity…” (Twilight of the Idols, Expeditions of an Untimely Man, 37). Those who overturn morality, the evil, stronger individuals are the ones who shape the history of man. The Joker is trying to shape, or re-shape, the history of Gotham City. Nietzsche even goes so far as to claim that madness is often a staple of these history-changing people. There is little doubt that the Joker retains at least some remnants of insanity.

The Joker is a portrayal of Nietzsche’s free spirit in so far as what he says, believes, and does are true to his character. It also seems that nihilism is apparent in the Joker’s ideals. Although this latter fact seems indisputable, a Nietzschean might still resist the conclusion that the Joker is a free spirit. It is clear that the Joker acts in many ways as a Nietzschean free spirit would act, but it seems apparent that the Joker is not, per se, after the same things a free spirit is seeking. That is, the Joker does not seem to be after any kind of philosophical reform, and is not very interested in a self-conquest via the will to power that was so important for Nietzsche’s free spirit. Furthermore, if we had to choose whether the Joker is acting as an agent for nihilism, or as a free spirit, we would be inclined to choose the former. It would seem that a Nietzschean would claim that the Joker is a great example of nihilist tendencies in Nietzsche’s thought, but that he is not a free spirit because his priority is the instilling of an aimless chaos, as opposed to a reformative chaos that is sought be the free spirit.

Again, it seems that all the Joker is essentially after is playing the game that he has set in motion in Gotham City. He uses all his pieces masterfully, setting pieces against each other, even using Batman himself as a piece in his game. There is a sense that the enjoyment of playing this game is Joker’s main goal. It doesn’t seem like he has much interest in winning, or any fear of losing. He draws the same masochistic exuberance that any young boy draws from spending hours at a time constructing some kind of play-fort or battle scene with his most endeared action figures, and then spending mere seconds destroying it all in an instant of perverse satisfaction.