Despite numerous efforts from Batman to keep him down, the Joker returns this month in his eponymous new film, directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix. It is simultaneously being acclaimed as a masterpiece and decried as dangerous rallying call to the marginalised male. The maelstrom in which Joker has been released to is being likened as a first in cinematic history, in which the outcry stems from the notion that the audience will be forced to identify with a psychopath. But this isn’t new. Throughout film culture and the ephemeral nature of genre crazes such as the western or the superhero genre, a constant, morbid fascination of cinema goers is that of the psychopath, since Norman Bates first pulled back the shower curtain in Psycho (1960).  Joker is not the first examination of the dangerous outsider and it won’t be the last. What is far more disturbing than the clown prince of crime, is the audience that it reflects. What innately in us is so seduced by the charismatic maniac?

This obsession has led to the creation of some truly monstrous protagonists who are often credited as some of the most intriguing film characters of all time. In several cases such as Taxi Driver,  American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and now Joker, these characters have been used as protagonists, narrating the story, a device often used to create a bond between the audience and the narrative, suggesting we are encouraged to feel some level of sympathy for these characters. They are often glamorised, as rebellious, good looking, sexualised individuals with bone-dry humour and the world at their fingertips. Whilst traditionally a psychopathic character would serve as an antagonist in a detective story, culminating in their arrest or death, in the cases of these films, these characters are our stepping off point into these worlds, with little repercussions at all for their actions, leaving it to the audience to pass judgement on them through the way they are represented.

Travis Bickle, the protagonist in Taxi Driver, has been cited as an inspiration for Joker. Travis is often argued to be reacting to the culture and world around him, and is often cited as an anti-hero, despite his actions in the film. However, as we are led into this world by Travis, his actions become more digestible as, by being our eyes and ears, he rationalises them to the audience.  Patrick Bateman of American Psycho  and Alex DeLarge of A Clockwork Orange are two characters that inhabit different worlds yet both share similarities in the way they are presented to us as characters. The most obvious is the use of them as protagonists, unlikely heroes in their own unlikable worlds. The two characters seek escape from their mundane reality. Bateman is desperately seeking to escape from the façade of the ‘yuppie’ life, needing an outlet to vent his rage at the greed and materialism that he himself is a part of, encouraging the audience to simply rebel against the culture he finds himself apart of. Alex is a part of an entire movement of teenage hedonism with the setting of A Clockwork Orange, which seeks to distance itself from the monotony of life through crime and destruction which Alex does so readily and enthusiastically. Both are intelligent men, frustrated at the speed in which the world goes around them.

All of these characters, whilst repulsive in behaviour, are extremely charming and gregarious, glorified and romanticised, a cause for worry around these kind of films. In portraying a violent character this way, you normalise the atrocities they commit. They draw in audiences because against their respective backdrops (a seedy 90s New York for Bateman, a corrupted 80s Gotham for the Joker, a desolate 70s New York for Bickle, and a gloomy dystopian 60s London for Alex), they seem like figures of rebellion against the repressive norm, figures of martyr status for the outcasts who idolise them. To further our sympathy, these characters are also displayed vulnerably. Alex is a corrupted youth whose crimes give him validation that those around him cannot, whilst Bateman is aware he is on a self -destructive path with seemingly no end, yet he cannot seem to stop. The Joker is mocked and scorned, turning him to crime, whilst Bickle is isolated and pushed aside by the society around him. The danger of these sympathetic portrayals is the confusion of blame. A twisted interpretation of these films could be to blame the society around them for their actions, instead of holding them accountable.

As the controversy surrounding Joker has demonstrated, our obsession with the marginalised could be dangerous and these four characters are examples of that. They live in a world which contrasts them in often a more positive light despite our usual moral objection. They are shown to be broken and isolated , encouraging our sympathy, yet they are sexualised and glorified, raised to a cult status for us to worship. Whilst film exists as entertainment, it would be wise to remember that, at the end of it, they are still murderers, men who inflict chaos and destruction upon others, before so readily accepting them as iconic heroes. Or maybe that is what cinema serves. Escapism, regardless of who our heroes are, allowing us to live out our destructive desires through them.

Joker is in cinemas now.

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