Stills from Joker
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="3" > preface</h1>
Recently, the Internet buzzword "The clown is actually myself" has appeared frequently, making the word clown a hot spot again. Speaking of clowns, most of the clowns in our impression appear in European and American movies, especially in horror movies. Whether it is the villain in "Batman: The Dark Knight" or the classic image in the movie "Joker", the role of the Joker always gives people a dark, evil feeling, and its chilling smile can not be forgotten for a long time.
In 2008, the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom did a questionnaire survey of 250 children aged 4 to 16, and the results showed that most children did not like or even fear clowns. Some child psychologists in the UK also claim that "very few children will like clowns." They would only think that the clown was strange, that the clown came from another dimension. And it doesn't look funny at all, it's weird. ”
The Joker was originally a funny, cute, laughable comedic image, so why has he become the protagonist of a horror movie now?
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="7" > funny</h1>
Clowns in the true modern sense, appeared in Europe around the 14th century, and they were "royal actors" who served the kings and nobles in the European court. Court performances take many forms, and comedians are one of the most popular characters. Clowns could tell jokes, perform shows, and were loved by the nobility. The clowns not only told jokes, but also used various exaggerated performances to express their stupidity, clumsiness and funny, which became an indispensable entertainment element in the daily life of the nobility.
The clowns were thus paid handsomely, and even gained power, becoming "red men" around the nobles and kings, and even influencing the king's will.
European court clowns
For example, the clowns who are very well-known in Europe, Will Summers around King Henry VIII of England, and Talton, who is the daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and so on. Companions are like companion tigers, as errands around the monarch, must have superior IQ and emotional intelligence, if you are not careful that sentence is not right, you are likely to fall to the high platform, or even be in a different place.
By the 16th century, there were more and more clowns in the court, and the industry of clowns began to roll in, and the pressure of competition was very high. Some clowns who could not hang out in the palace could only leave the palace and seek development in other cities or villages. But after they came out of the palace, they could not do any other craftsmanship, they could not strike iron, they could not do business, they could not be cooks, they could only continue to walk the streets and alleys to set up stalls, tell jokes and amuse the crowd, in exchange for some change and food, and barely get by. Unlike the clowns in the palace, most of the clowns on the market are made up of homeless people who have no jobs.
Since the clown had previously performed exclusively for the court nobles, ordinary people could hardly see it, so when the clown walked out of the court to face the market, this form of performance made people shine, and the citizens loved this silly, often teased and teased role. The clown deliberately put on ugly makeup, which is loved by children.
In fact, there is also the image of "clown" on the stage of Chinese drama, and the ugly in the ugly is a clown who is specifically responsible for gaging and funny on the stage. Moreover, in terms of clothing and makeup, the clowns of Chinese drama also use a very exaggerated method to deliberately "dress up ugly" to achieve the purpose of making people laugh.
There is also a theory that the image of the clown borrows to some extent from the image of the "deformed man" in the European circus. In medieval Europe, in order to attract the attention of the audience and arouse people's curiosity, the circus would carry a variety of "strange people and foreign objects", including a "deformed person" who was born with physical defects.
Until now, the clown is still a funny person on the stage, and has nothing to do with the horror image of later generations.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="16" > role shift</h1>
But soon, some high-end atmospheric art creators, not satisfied with the traditional image and role of the clown, began to give the clown more "human settings". In Shakespeare's comedy Everybody Rejoices, there is a clown named Touchstone, who is a courtier to the usurper Duke Frederick. In Shakespeare's pen, touchstone changed the traditional clown silly image before, in the play his understanding and evaluation of love, poetry and other characters are very incisive, always making seemingly absurd, but in fact far-reaching behavior, saying words that sound gibberish and are actually rich in connotation, and can tell the big truth of life from the small stories in life, such as the famous sentence "The fool thinks he is smart, but the smart man knows that he is a fool." In Shakespeare's other work, King Lear, the Joker character also shows a strong irony while entertaining the audience.
By the 18th century, the famous French painter Jean Antoine Watteau had created an oil painting entitled Gilles – The Clown of Pantomime. The protagonist Gilles is based on the white-faced clown Pilot in French drama, a poor man who was banished and ridiculed by his companions. In the painting, Giles stands in the center of the painting dressed in white with a silly face, which seems out of place with the lively crowd around him. People who have seen the paintings are hardly amused by Gilles's outfit, and more often feel his loneliness and helplessness in the crowd.
Giles – The Clown of Pantomime
The Joker's real appearance as a villain was not until the end of the 19th century. At this time, a frenzy of pursuing "realism" was set off in the Italian literary circles, and literary scholars began to gradually abandon romantic themes and choose realistic themes to portray the world. During this time, the themes created by literary artists changed from the original fairy tales and aristocratic love to the joys and sorrows of the low-level characters.
In 1890, the Italian composer Rogrino Leoncavallo composed the opera The Harlequin, in which the clown character killed his wife with a dagger on stage. As soon as this drama was broadcast, people had a new understanding of the image of the clown, and people found that under the clown mask there was also a flesh and blood person, they had the same mood and sorrow as everyone else, they could make people laugh or become cold and cruel.
Despite this, the Joker is still just an actor on stage, but the "drama road" is more extensive than the previous funny role, and it is not yet to the point of making people fearful.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="22" > clown fear</h1>
By the 1930s, a severe economic crisis had erupted in the capitalist world, and the once thriving entertainment industry had suffered a thunderbolt. People's living standards plummeted, and naturally there was no extra money for entertainment. Playgrounds everywhere have been closed, because the playground has not been patronized for a long time, and the daily maintenance cost is a big expense, so some places of the playground has been abandoned. And the clown actors who cling to the playground also lose their financial resources. Some clowns who have nowhere to go reluctantly return to the abandoned amusement park, and people find that the abandoned playground can always see the figure of the clown, and the picture makes people shudder when they think about it. Naturally, a fear of clowns in abandoned playgrounds has been formed.
Between 1972 and 1978, a man named John Wayne Gacy in Iowa was accused of sexually assaulting and murdering at least 33 boys and young men ages 14 to 21. Gacy buried 26 victims in the power pipe space of his home, 3 in other parts of his property, and discarded the remains of the last 4 known victims in a nearby river.
Gacy is a very enthusiastic person in his community activities, and he often dresses up as a "Clown Pog" figure of his own design at charity events such as fundraising events, parades and children's parties to bring happiness to people. No one could have imagined that this seemingly "harmless human and animal" image was actually a serial killer.
The keen media quickly seized on this hot spot, nicknamed Gacy the "Killer Clown", and reported a series of reports about "Clown" and "Killer Demon", which invisibly strengthened the clown's terrifying image in people's minds.
Various horror novels and horror movies have also found new creative materials, and began to follow up quickly, constantly creating horror films with jokes as the protagonists. For example, Stephen King's "Joker Returns" became the childhood shadow of many people at that time.
In the horror films of the same era, there are many, many more. For example, 1988's "Outer Space Killing Clown", 2003's "Death Clown", 2003's "Fat Clown Killer", 2004's "Fear Clown" and so on...
In 2008, heath Ledger's "Joker" in Batman: The Dark Knight once again changed the way people thought about the Joker. Although the Joker represents the villain of evil, he is also a villain who is different from the traditional villain, the Joker has a tragic childhood, has a personality that breaks all rules, has his own beliefs, and in the movie, the Joker even becomes a glittering "villain" who surpasses the protagonist Batman. He himself was also elected to the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role of the Joker, which can be said to have pushed the Joker to the peak of film and television works.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="30" > conclusion</h1>
On July 20, 2012, during the premiere of the movie "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", a shooting occurred at the "Century 16" cinema in Aurora, usa, where the killer dyed bright light hair, wore fancy clothing, and once called himself a Joker at the time of arrest, and the shooting eventually killed 12 people and injured 70 people.
Due to the double blessing of the real-life murderer who plays the clown and the literary creator who creates a large number of horror works with the clown as the protagonist, the funny image of the clown that once brought people joy is finally positioned as a horror spokesman, and can never be turned over. To this day, when the image of the clown appears in front of people, it still causes people to be uneasy and panic.
Author: Our special invited author Kang Jiahua