POP CULTURE
When You Go Mad, Do You Even Realize It?
In his own deranged, and disturbing fashion The Joker aspires to bring happiness to all…
When You Go Mad, Do you even realize it? Writer Jeff Lemire and artist Andrea Sorrentino take us through this journey, where we are compelled to ask ourselves this question, that has been tormenting Dr. Benjamin Arnell, ever since he began diagnosing The Joker. It’s been only a few weeks since his arrival at Arkham, and he has begun losing his mind already.
“Once upon a very long time ago, there was a happy happy place in a happy happy forest. And wouldn’t you just know it, this place was even called Happyville! Oh, and Happyville was the happiest place there ever was! And everyone in Happyville knew each other, and they were all the very best of friends. That is, until Mr. Smiles came to town.”
This story is about Mr. Smiles and one brave, little creature who wants to understand Mr. Smiles, to feel it too. As the diagnosis progresses, Dr. Benji begins seeing things, terrible things, his co-worker mutilated by the Joker, hearing strange sounds coming from his basement, his son cracking Joker-esque jokes. Is he losing his mind? Going insane? Benji doesn’t know it either.
And one fateful night, this “brave little creature” musters up the courage and knocks at Mr. Smiles’ door. He asks Mr. Smiles, even though he knows it’s a trick. And Mr. Smiles whispers into his ears, his little secret, the punchline, and it all falls apart.
Mr. Smiles took the Sad Doctor’s hand and led him to the greatest place in all of Happyville… It was a magical place, filled with toys and games and laughter. The Sad Doctor needed laughter most of all. It had been so long since he’d laughed. So long since he’d felt anything at all. But Mr. Smiles knew how to fix everything. He knew just what to do to make the Sad Doctor happy again…
In the three issues, Lemire brings to us something that we have known for a long, long time but never seen before: How the Joker manipulates people, plays with their mind, their sanity itself being shaken to the core. And Sorrentino’s art beautifully captures this. Every page, every panel is so thoughtfully drawn, playing equal parts as does the story itself. As one goes deeper into the story, the distinction between the Joker and Dr. Arnell gradually fades away.
The questions Dr. Arnell asks himself, the arguments the Joker provides, makes one wonder. To ask himself the same questions Benji does, What is sanity really? And what makes you count among the sane? Which among the “two worlds” would you call sane? This one? The one where innocents die in the name of religion, nations go to war simply because a bunch of people refuse to accept anything but their own vision, where one half of the society dies from hunger, and the other dies from spite? Best said in the words of William from Westworld.
I think Humanity is a thin layer of bacteria on a ball of mud hurling though the void. I think if there was a God, he would have given up on us long ago. He gave us a paradise and we used everything up. Dug up every ounce of energy and burned it. We consume and excrete, use and destroy, and we sit here on a neat little pile of ashes, having squeezed anything of value out of this planet, and we ask ourselves, “Why are we here?” — William, Westworld
Is this our sanity? Mindlessly running through a loop every single day of our life, to what? Getting further and further away from everything, the nature, friends, family, everything! When did we get so busy, that we stopped living and started surviving? And that, is what the Joker tries to free us from. He brings an element of chaos into the mix. In his own words, the Joker says,
Beauty. That is all I have ever wanted. All I have ever wanted is to create beautiful things. I do like to challenge them. You see, I aim to give my audience what they need, not what they want. Happiness. Laughter. Yes, laughter most of all. That is true beauty. I mean, if you can’t enjoy the doing then why bother, right? Life is meant to be savored.
“There are two worlds. But what happens when you no longer know which one you’re in? What I mean is… when you go mad, will you even realize it?”
