Joker Character in the Dark Knight Movie
Question
Professors Instructions
Please refer to the DSM IV-TR criteria for sadism for this assignment. Please find a real example of a serial murderer in history and provide examples from the individual that justifies that they meet the clinical definition of a sadist. If you want you may pick a character in a film. That said you MUST fully justify that the individual example meets the clinical definition of sadism.
Each assignment response needs to be 1000 words, with APA 7th ed citations and 7 references. Do Not Use MLA or any other form of reference.


Solution
Joker
Character in the Dark Knight Movie
The Joker character in the film Dark Knight is a sadistic individual who
believes that the rest of the world is like him. However, he is a beneficial
character based on his personality. Additionally, Dark Knight stirs up strong reactions in the way it portrays the
mental disorder of the lead character. Having employed DSM-5 criteria to
establish whether Joker portrays any signs of a real mental disorder, I
observed an unclear combination of symptoms that suggest a complex mix-up of
personality traits, narcissism, and psychopathy; hence, he meets the criteria.
Also, he portrays symptoms of a pseudobulbar effect resulting from a traumatic
brain injury.
At the beginning of the movie, Joker
is shown robbing a bank. He moves on with the idea of stealing the money, but
things do not end there as he goes ahead and plants a grenade mouth of the bank
owner. Joker grins as he gets away with the money after pulling a safety pin on
the grenade. Additionally, Joker is constantly struggling to find sleep, confirming
that he has some bipolar disorders (Choe, 2011). Also, Joker portrays a depressed mood
throughout the film. Even though Joker showed tremendous improvement in
behavior, he was mainly depressed and suffering from some pain (Prasetya, 2022).
He would get at least two hours of sleep and spend the rest of his time doing
various activities such as hurting people aimlessly.
The Joker explains his childhood story when his father
would beat him and physically abuse him. His father would use a knife to cut
his mouth, leaving permanent marks on him. That could have been the cause of
his mental disorder. He utilizes emotions from his traumatic childhood
experiences to hurt other people to make them feel similar pain and go through
what he suffered in his childhood (Aprillia et al., 2020).
In the Dark Knight, Joker is the stuff of nightmares. He does many cruel
things that no one would have thought they are possible. Moreover, he has
developed the habit of playing with other peoples’ minds in a way that makes
the viewer’s skin crawl. As the villain, Joker continuously outwits those
around him, including his henchman and the law enforcement officers. Throughout
the story, all Bruce can do is try to keep up with the villain (Paniagua, 2022).
Joker’s strange behavior has prompted even Batman to state that he has no idea
how to read Joker. In response, Alfred tells Batman that there are some people
whose main intention is to watch the world burn, and such individuals are
rarely motivated by rational things. Instead, Joker presents himself as a new
supervillain breed full of animosity as he is an individual fueled by his
sadistic nature.
Employing the r/FanTheory to
analyze the movie, in the final act of public
terrorism, Joker threatens to blow Gotham up and says traps are set on the
bridges leaving the city. As a result, the authorities decide to evacuate the
people through a ferry whereby they send two, one full of convicted criminals
and another filled with civilians (Cocksworth, 2009). Afterward, Joker reveals that he
has bombs planted in both and gives each a detonator to the other ferry. Joker
threatens that they have to blow each other, and if they fail to do so, he will
blow them simultaneously. However, in the end, none of them go through with
Joker’s plan, and he is stopped before he can blow them both. As a viewer, one
may imagine a possibility that there was a twist on Joker’s threat whereby the
whole deal was intended to mess with people. Such an incident is seen when he
burned mafias cash when hostages were disguised as Joker’s henchmen and the scene
when he switched Harvey and Rachel’s addresses.
With those examples in mind, Joker’s
conduct seems like a prisoner’s dilemma though this one is a little too
straightforward. Hence, there is a possibility that Joker did not give ferries
a detonator to the other ship. Instead, each was given its detonator so that if
they attempted to detonate the other ship, they would kill themselves, and if
that happened, people on the other ship would have paid for the crime (Bellinger, 2016).
Many scholars have hypothesized this suggestion and the reason why it seems
feasible is that Joker is an individual popular for pulling such moves. He
finds it fun pulling a fast one on the police and the heroes, and when other
people feel flustered, that is the time when Joker enjoys the most a
confirmation that he is a sadist.
The approach mentioned above
radicalizes all aspects of the villain in the film. Joker is a character that
has managed to fool almost everyone in the film several times already by
offering misleading information and burning cash, among other moves. Therefore,
there is a high likelihood that he lied to the people in the ferries when
offering instructions. Joker is an individual who is determined to make people
feel like they are on the edge of insanity, just like him. That means they
should not try hard enough to be better people; instead, they should be ready
to give up on it if they have one bad day. Hence, to ensure that they suffered,
he lied to the civilians and the prisoners. One most realistic situation would
have been the civilians deciding to push the button and blow up the prisoners. If
a spaceship can’t be supplied, its crew will have to abandon it. If that
happens, they will blow their ship, with everyone blaming the prisoners for losing
innocent lives. As a result, Joker may have intended to push the prisoners to
cause chaos and move them closer to the edge of the abyss. When that happens,
the media and the society will do the whole rest Joker laughs hysterically. When
people have to keep their jobs, Joker confirms that he is a good villain and a
sadist. All his ideas merely introduce chaos and somehow make people embrace it
(Redinta,
2017). The approach does a splendid job of portraying that possibility.
In conclusion, Joker is presented as
a criminal mastermind in the film Dark Night. The movie introduces him as a
psychopath who possesses a warped, sadistic sense of humor. The Joker qualifies
to be a sadist considering that he does all the sadistic acts in consciousness
despite his antisocial disorders. He has no empathy and murders people in the
cruelest way possible as he smiles, watching them wreath in pain. Joker is also
a masochist as he continually subjects himself to pain through his mutilations.
The Joker’s actions show that he wants people to suffer as much as possible,
and he will do anything to ensure that they do.
References
Aprillia, A., Andayani,
E. S., Chodidjah, C., & Khoirunnisa, K. (2020). Antisocial Disorder Of
Joker Character In The Dark Knight Movie Directed By Christopher Nolan. Kredo:
Jurnal Ilmiah Bahasa dan Sastra, 4(1), 129-147.
Bellinger, C. K. (2016).
The Joker is Satan, and So Are We: Girard and The Dark Knight. Journal
of Religion & Film, 13(1), 5.
Choe, Y. (2011). Darker
Than Night: The Joker as a Symptom of the War on Terror in The Dark
Knight. 미국학, 34.
Cocksworth, A. (2009).
The Dark Knight and the evilness of evil. The Expository Times, 120(11),
541-543.
Paniagua, J. J. A.
(2022). ‘Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Simply Makes You Stranger’: Fear In The
Character Of The Joker In The Dark Knight And Joker. Revista de
Estudios Norteamericanos, 26.
Prasetya, A. B. (2022).
Penonjolan Tokoh Antagonis dalam Film The Dark Knight (Studi Semiotik Tokoh
Joker dalam Film The Dark Knight). Jurnal Ilmiah Komunikasi Makna, 2(2),
23-30.
Redinta, A. R.
(2017). The Meanings Of Psychopathic Attitudes Of The Joker As Seen In
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Movie Script (Doctoral
Dissertation, Sanata Dharma University).




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