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Is There A Joker In All Of Us?

Is There A Joker In All Of Us
Is There A Joker In All Of Us
Is There A Joker In All Of Us

Heath Ledger’s The Joker may have just stolen the show in the Batman film: The Dark Knight. But why are we so fascinated by villains and evil characters?

“There is a dark side in all of us. Good and evil exist in all of us, and often they are in conflict” according to Patrick Wanis PhD, Human Behavior Expert and Clinical Hypnotherapist. “In our daily life, we try to deny the evil or dark side in us, while on screen, a movie creates the vehicle where we can relate and play out some of our deeper subconscious emotional tendencies –even the bad ones.”

Wanis says “The human brain consists of three parts – its stem is known as the Reptilian Brain – which holds five core ruling emotions: love, lust, hate, fear and pleasure. We are often trying to escape the dark side, the villainous, hateful urges in all of us -The Joker.”

“In the movie: The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger portrays The Joker as a gritty, psychopathic, cold-blooded murdering clown with no empathy, a maniacal sadist with no conscience. As Batman battles villain The Joker (and sometimes the villain within himself), the movie also represents our own internal battle between good and evil. In other words, we all have the capacity to commit good and evil and this has been proven in psychological behavioral research studies as well as real life stories.”

“It’s not an easy pill to swallow to admit that we feel enthralled and even liberated by some of the evil deeds of on screen villains . And although it seems The Joker might steal the show, this is not the first villain that has caught our attention and resonated with mass audiences: the evil Darth Vader not only fights “The Force” –the power of good, but like The Joker, he instills and controls via fear. Maybe that explains why sometimes we relate and almost root for the villain over the hero, be it The Wicked Witch of the West, The Terminator, Catwoman or Star War’s Palpatine.”

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