Singularity Of The Joker

How do you make someone lose if he is not looking to win? How can you defeat the one who doesn’t just want to win?

This is what makes the clown prince of crime very interesting. It becomes easier to predict one’s behavior or his next step if we know what he wants.

But Joker, in this case, is very mysterious because nobody really knows what he wants. And the truth is that he doesn’t want anything other than just chaos. This unpredictable characteristic of his is very rightly depicted in Christopher Nolan’s Joker.

But there is one more thing which makes Joker even more mysterious. And that is his origin. His past. Because whenever we see or witness such bizarre, abnormal behavior the first thing which strikes our mind is that how can someone be like this? How can someone do or be like this?

And we reach closer to the answer only when we peek into that person’s past.

Because our perception is heavily influenced by our past. What kind of a person you will become after growing up and how will be your thought process depends to a great extent on how your childhood was. It’s the experiences that make us. But the twist is that Joker doesn’ let anyone look into his past. For him, there is nothing today, there will be nothing tomorrow and there was nothing in the past too.

He is a nihilist.

Past, present, and future, all three are meaningless for him. He doesn’t care about his past and maybe he doesn’t even know it. We don’t know where does he belong to or whether he has a real identity or even a name. Whenever he describes his past, then you cannot be 100% sure that he is speaking the truth. He is untrustworthy.

And this is a core essence of his character.

He is an unreliable narrator.

With the recently released movie Joker, besides challenging acting like Heath Ledger, people were also expecting that the movie will clear the Joker’s past. We will finally come to know how a person is pushed to this extreme.

What would have been the circumstances which make a man Joker? And indeed these things are shown in the movie. We see how someone is broken so much that all meaning in his life is destroyed.

Sometimes situations shake us so much that we end up losing all faith not only in our beliefs but the whole belief system.

Because in most cases when we lose faith in one belief, we move on to other beliefs.

If today people worldwide are choosing nationalism over democracy, this also shows a change in belief.

And there are several other beliefs of people like religious beliefs, political beliefs, personal beliefs through which we define the order, meaning, and purpose in our lives.

Our experiences are made meaningful by our implicit beliefs, which means it is our beliefs that provide meaning to our experiences.

When we cheer for our country in a match, its because we believe in the spirit of the game. We believe that if the Indian team wins, it’s our victory too. People enter religious sites with a belief. And that’s why we find divinity there. Otherwise, it’s just a grand architecture. It’s our values and beliefs which remind us that we are more than just a biological puppet.

Joker was also more than just a Joker.

He also had a purpose in his life.

He also has values and beliefs in his life. Taking care of his mother, To be happy and put up a smiling face . to bring laughter and joy to the world.

He had so much compassion that at the starting of the movie, even after getting badly beaten by those kids, he feels that they were just kids. But afterward, when situations in his life begin to get darker and more intense, his all beliefs and values also begin to fade away. In this movie, we get to see how values and beliefs decay inside a person. How he gradually moves towards insanity.

Maybe putting up a smiling face is not always the answer.

Maybe the world is not so good that only with your smile you work your way out.

And when Arthur loses faith in his mother, when he comes to know that he was adopted and abused as a child, then his only purpose, which was to take care of his mother, is destroyed. And along with this, his faith in all belief systems ceases to exist.

And that’s the pathway to nihilism. That’s where a meaningless life starts. At this point, you realize that life is not a tragedy but a comedy.

It’s meaningless, Because if you are suffering and you see in it your own mistakes, then you have the chance to right your condition. At least you can change your perspective.

But if you feel that the world is wrong as if its the real truth, then in such a case, you become completely hopeless. you are shattered into pieces. or you go on to destroy the world.

To be insane in the insane world is to be truly sane – This is Joker’s justification.

But the question is have we got all our answers?

NO!

Like always, Joker’s past remains a mystery.

And to be true, we don’t even want to solve this.

Joker is interesting because he is an example of a dark and extreme human nature. He is an embodiment of insanity. And by knowing his past we’ll somehow dilute his insanity. We will give a reason for his madness. We’ll establish an identity in him. And gradually we’ll start to understand him.

He will also become predictable.

And then Joker will not remain the Joker because perhaps not having an identity is his superpower.