You Must Be Joker
By A few days back, @midnight did a bit about the new Joker. Host, Chris Hardwick read pants-pooping quotes from fanboys, upset about the recast. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new Joker in town, and it’s Jared Leto. The fun part about the bit was that the fanboy freakout was a response to the casting of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Ha! Take that, pants-poopers!
I don’t know what the response to Leto’s Joker is going to be. I’ve seen a bit of snark directed at this already-heavily-memed image. (Trigger warning and after the jump, because I find the image genuinely disturbing.)
Ha ha ha! He has a grill and a tattoo that says “Damaged!” That’s totally reason to dismiss his performance, never having seen it! I get it. “Damaged” is a little too on-the-nose. But let’s not pretend this makeup isn’t badass. It is badass and genuinely creepy. And I, for one, cannot wait to see how Leto fares in the role. Partly because I think he’s a bold choice, partly because I’m the only person on the planet who didn’t like Ledger as The Joker. I found his portrayal mannered and gimmicky.The first time I watched him in the role I liked him. But upon subsequent viewings, his performance just became a ball of weird twitches and grimaces. So I’m anxious to see his–now iconic–performance challenged.