Ledger's Joker latest bad guy to win praise
We Americans love our movie villains. The nastier the better.
You wouldn't think that in a time of terrorism and uncertainty we'd cozy up to characters that represent the worst in human nature. But just look at the bad guys who went home with an Oscar this year alone: Tilda Swinton as an ethicschallenged lawyer in "Michael Clayton," Daniel-Day Lewis as a murderous misanthrope in "There Will Be Blood" and Javier Bardem as a remorseless killing machine in "No Country for Old Men."
And now we have the late Heath Ledger and his maniacal turn as the Joker in the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight."
"Mad-crazy brilliant," Rolling Stone wrote. "He's out-villained Hannibal Lecter," raved Gary Oldman, who plays Lt. Jim Gordon in the film.
Ledger not only got lost behind the makeup, but he got lost in the character.
Fifty years ago these characterizations of villains in film not only wouldn't have been honored, but they also wouldn't have made it to the screen.
For the first 40 years of the Oscars, the statuette almost never went to a villain. The American ethos in the first half of the 20th century was firmly rooted in 19thcentury ideas of heroism.
Critic, author and TV personality Leonard Maltin thinks the shift may have begun in the 1950s with Marlon Brando and James Dean.
"That was the flowering of the antihero, the young rebel," he said. "Then the '60s and the counterculture arrived, and the traditional hero was unseated. We found ourselves rooting for Bonnie and Clyde."
When 1972's "The Godfather" won multiple Oscars, including one for Marlon Brando's depiction of mob master Vito Corleone, it broke a tradition of giving the industry's highest honor to virtuous characters.
In recent years the public's fascination with evil has become obsessive. You can thank Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-winning portrayal of cannibal/serial killer Hannibal Lecter in 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs," said Lynn Bartholome, president of the Popular Culture Association.
"After Hannibal we began to look at the dark side and started to see that maybe there's a goodness in the bad guy. We know Hannibal is a horrible being, but he attracts us, and in some ways we even feel sympathy for him. There's humanity even in bad guys. Maybe there's an explanation for his badness."
What sets Ledger's Joker apart is that he represents pure evil and malevolence. He may have a history, but every time he talks about his past he changes the story. His goal is not money or fame or women or power. He simply wants to destroy everything, and he's not dissuaded by fear, threats or reason.
Many are saying Ledger's portrayal of the Joker will certainly earn him an Oscar nomination, and possibly the honor itself.
