The 2009 Golden Globe nominations were announced recently; as expected, Heath Ledger received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. I thought it'd be difficult to find someone that didn't think his nomination was well-deserved; after reading the comments for this blog post, it turns out I was wrong.
One poster in particular had a few choice entries to say about this:
Yeah, I hope he doesn't get it. I'm sick of how TDK exploited his death, and how people are falling into its commercial trap. You really think giving him an award is going to show people's appreciation for him? I'd say he will be convulsing in his grave if he gets nominated. All your doing is telling this poor artists that he had to die in order to win an award. It's the old 'until the artists dies does he gain true popularity' routine. Poor guy. I loved his stuff, but this isn't how you recognize his work. You people are all just clinging, extremist, desperate dudes.
I stopped after the first line and laughed. In what way did
The Dark Knight movie or marketing team exploit his death? I don't remember ever seeing any promotional items from Warner Bros. saying "come see Heath Ledger's final completed film!". If anything, I thought they were extremely reserved and cautious about using him to promote the movie. The media may have gotten a hold of it, but in no way did the film itself.
And then there's this one:
I respect the man, I think he's an amazing actor, but I just hate how extremely out of proportion people blow things. You recommend moments of silence, you toast to a dead man. You don't give a dead man an award he can't thank you for, you're just taking away another deserving actor's opportunity. But no, people go to ridiculous extents whenever they stand for something, even if it's the stupidest things. Black or White. And they don't even know why, you don't question it. Blind devotion. it's insanity.
I'm not sure what kind of point this person was trying to make, but he failed miserably. "You don't give a dead man an award he can't thank you for"? I take it this person doesn't give to charity very often unless he can receive a great amount of praise for doing so. Giving an award has nothing to do with receiving the thanks from the gesture, it's about recognizing the work that was done.
And finally, he gets in the reasons for his hate of the character:
Are you kidding? Let's dissect Nolan's Joker... This shouldn't take too long, he's a very flat character after all...
-No background/Background is a mystery
-No motives behind his evil doings.
-Anarchist... basically anarchists just don't want order, and he has no reason (motives) for doing this. He just wants 'chaos'... that's just stupid.
-Doesn't seem to have any physical weakness. And excessively clever, perhaps to the point where he almost seems super human to a very realistically set movie.
-And he's a 'psycho'
So Nolan's joker is: a mysterious, motiveless, anarchist, omnipotent, psycho criminal that seems to work under different sets of super natural rules (unrealistic to what this movie boasts to consist of) when concocting his plans against Gotham City.
This doesn't seem like a character, but more of an 'easy-way-out' plot device. Have you noticed that the only significant parts in the dark night were ones with the Joker in them? Because the Joker is not a great character, but more of a plot device... to keep a very boring, realistic, story... interesting.
A great Character has layers and flaws and insecurities etc. The Nolan's Joker has none of these.
This is why the Joker needs to have been made by Batman, this is why the joker had to have his face permanently fully disfigured by Batman. Because Now the Joker has motives, you understand his psychosis, because Batman chooses to wear a mask, but the Joker doesn't have a choice. The joker has a goal. There are basic elements in characters you can't change because it's what makes them who they are, and why they work.
Where to begin...the beauty of Nolan's Joker was that he didn't have or need a full background story; he's more menacing and evil because of it. If you start saying that his daddy beat him as a child, you start gathering sympathy. And his motives are very clear: he doesn't want money or power, but he does want control - control over the people in power and control over Batman. This commenter later claims to be a Batman fan and that he prefers previous incarnations of the Joker, but isn't this what the Joker character always wanted? Money never mattered, power didn't matter; it was being a foil to Batman that mattered. He wants chaos, true, but he wants so much more than that.
In no way is the Joker just a "easy-way-out plot device". His whole argument in that paragraph is just mind-numbing. The Joker is not just there to move the plot along - he's the major foil to Batman and the character that makes Batman question his limits; it's one of the major themes in film, but I guess he missed that.
In watching the movie again, I never for once thought that the Joker was "super-human" or without flaws or insecurities. It is true that the Joker never really "loses"; even at the end, after being caught by Batman, he thinks he's got him beat with Two-Face. But before that, when he realizes that the people of Gotham aren't about to destroy themselves, you see a sense of insecurity and disbelief.
As you can tell, the comments I listed above kind of aggravated me. I have no problems with folks not liking the movie; that's to be expected and everyone has their own opinion. But as someone who's obviously put a lot of thought into his reasons, it blows my mind that someone can be so off-the-mark.
One final comment...I always find it interesting who gets the awards for Best Actor/Actress. It's easy to tell a good performance over a bad, but how do you differentiate between similar good performances, especially when the films are so different? My thought is this: if you feel that a movie suffers when the actor/actress isn't in that scene, there's a good clue. If you can't wait for the next scene with that character, that's another good clue. And that's why Heath Ledger deserves the Best Supporting Actor award as much as anyone; while
The Dark Knight doesn't exactly suffer when the Joker isn't in a scene, you definitely look forward to the next scene with him in.
UPDATE: Ledger did indeed win the Golden Globe; an Oscar nomination is sure to follow. No matter what anyone says, he really deserves it. His death gives the media a story to talk about (too much), but his performance is worthy of the accolades.
