Before it came out, everyone was terrified that the Joker would lead to mass violence. Instead, weeks after its release, it’s mostly lead to people photoshopping Joaquin Phoenix in clown make-up into any image they can imagine. This, obviously, is a reassuring outcome. Rather than accept a supervillain’s ideology as their own, the world has latched onto that scene where he dances down a Bronx staircase instead, seeing in that moment the truth that comic book movie iconography should never be taken more seriously than its potential as fodder for dumb memes.
The fullest expression of this is a Twitter account called “Joker Dancing In Random Places,” which has been created for no apparent purpose other than to slap a boogying Joker into, as the name suggests, any old place its administer can imagine. Here, for example, is the Joker introducing a bit of levity to Da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
And here he is replacing a (non-dancing) Rivers Cuomo on the cover for Weezer’s “Blue Album.”
The Joker will go anywhere to spread his Joker dance. Not content just to transport himself into famous album covers and paintings, the Clown Prince Of Crime has infiltrated movies and TV shows, too.
Able to slip between physical and digital dimensions, he’s also slide-stepped into a wide array of video games.
That wacky clown is, day-by-day, dancing into ever more bizarre situations, finding himself cutting a rug in places as unexpected as gigantic beds, the Twitter account’s own notification screen, and, in a meta twist, back to the staircase, only behind himself.
As monumentally stupid as the whole thing is, it’s probably good that people are venting their curious fascination with the Joker stair dance onto a virtual space, rather than the real-world one in the Bronx. As Desus & Mero pointed out last night, sitting behind the computer enjoying the scene is a lot better than trying to hang out in a place where you’re more likely to see people having sex or get yourself mugged than enjoy a fun, movie-inspired photo-op.
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