We Are All Fashion Clowns

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker (dir. Todd Phillips)

Warner Bros. Pictures, 2019

I don't know if it's a post-Joker phenomenon, but the fashion world is still loving a full-on clown look at the moment, with zany outfits, exaggerated makeup, and ludicrous footwear; exactly the sort of thing I was wearing 35 years ago in my Jimmy Jazz period (and I'm still of the view that you can't beat clashing prints and colours, kipper ties, baggy trousers, and clumpy shoes).        

Clownishness would, on the (painted) face of it, seem to be the very opposite of elegant and sophisticated cool; a kind of anti-style that transgresses all notions of restraint and good taste. As Batsheva Hay rightly says, it's the epitome of what most people in their muted blues and browns regard as loud and would normally reject in terms of appearance. 

And yet, it has a queer kind of sexiness and, of course, a slightly sinister edge; the evil clown being a well-established figure within the popular imagination, combining horror elements with the more traditional comic traits. Mark Dery, who theorised this figure with reference to Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque, regards the psycho-killer clown as a veritable postmodern icon. 

Which returns us to Joaquin Phoenix and his astonishing performance as Arthur Fleck (Joker) dressed in his burgandy red two-piece suit, gold waistcoat, and green collared shirt ...

It's a very carefully thought-through look created by two-time Academy Award winning costume designer Mark Bridges (in close collaboration with director Todd Phillips); one that is suggestive both of the period in which the movie is set (late-70s/early-80s) and true to the character and his means. Thus, Arthur looks good, but not catwalk fabulous; as if he found his clothes in a thrift store, rather than an expensive designer outlet.     

Again, I can certainly relate to that and maintain that a punk DIY ethos provides the crucial (shabby-subversive) element if you are going to assemble your own clown-inspired outfit ...

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Punk Clown 

by Gaelle Sherwood (c. 1984)

See: Mark Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, (Grove Press, 1999), chapter 2: 'Cotton Candy Autopsy: Deconstructing Psycho-Killer Clowns'.

Play: Joker - final trailer - uploaded to Youtube by Warner Bros. Pictures (28 Aug 2019): click here. 

Note: some readers might be interested in an earlier post to this one called Send in the Clowns: click here.

The Doll, the Joker, and the Man Who Laughs

Oh, you fools! Open your eyes! 

I am a symbol of your humanity!

As many fans of Batman will know, the appearance of the Joker owes a good deal to Conrad Veidt's astonishing portrayal of the facially mutilated figure of Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs (1928); a silent romantic drama-cum-horror movie directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni (and an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel L'Homme qui rit).

But what many readers of Daphne du Maurier don't realise is that her description of Julio - a creepy sex doll in one of her earliest short stories - also appears to be modelled on the above* and anticipates Gotham's most notorious supervillain, right down to the cocked eyebrow:

"His face was the most evil thing I have ever seen. It was ashen pale in colour, and the mouth was a crimson gash, sensual and depraved. The nose was thin, with curved nostrils, and the eyes were cruel, gleaming and narrow, and curiously still. They seemed to stare right through one - the eyes of a hawk. The hair was sleek and dark, brushed right back from the white forehead."

Heath Ledger as the Joker in  

The Dark Knight (2008)**

Notes: 

* Unfortunately, this cannot be the case; the film was released a year after du Maurier wrote 'The Doll' (aged twenty, in 1927).

** Heath Ledger's Joker - unlike Joaquin Phoenix's more recent (equally brilliant) portrayal - makes the relationship to Veidt's Gwynplaine clear by suggesting that the crimson-mouthed smile is the result of disfigurement rather than merely an expression of underlying madness.    
 

See: Daphne du Maurier, 'The Doll', in The Doll: Short Stories, (Virago, 2011), p. 23.