Lately, it seems that every face in the music game has been trying to break into the art world by collaborating with artist Marina Abramovi?, and every Marina Abramovi? in the art game has been trying to collaborate with… well, you get the point.
But before our Serbian art guru was punking popstars & hip-hop bitches by selling them her presence, before Banksy was evading cops around the world, and before Rothkos were being defaced in broad-daylight, there was someone else who was bringing the jokes. It was THE JOKER.
47 years ago, “Pop Goes The Joker,” aired on the original Batman series starring Adam West and Cesar Romero, and the similarities between some of the shit going down today are uncanny! From HyperAlleric:
The episode depicts Gotham’s “art world” and opens with a scene in which the Joker enters a rather proper art gallery and sprays paint all over a series of priceless works, which are later praised as an act of artistic genius (which only goes to show even Yellowism is not original).
Afterwards, the Joker enters an art contest and is pitted against artists with somewhat familiar names, including Pablo Pincus, Jackson Potluck, Leonardo Davinski, and Vincent van Goache. After winning the contest by applying a single dot of purple paint onto a canvas the Joker decides to open up an art academy of his own to teach his students “the secrets of Modern art.” This is of course a plot, it is The Joker after all, in which one of Batman’s archenemies only accepts extremely wealthy citizens as his students in hopes to gain access to their money.
The Joker also brought the grade-A art snobbery with some fine quotes like:
“This is an outrage, an outrage against art, an insult I say!”
“Look at that, you call that art?”
“…these uncultured boobs have no appreciation for fine art.”
“We artists are not required to be nice, but only talented!”
“Handle them carefully boys, there’s ten million under those blankets.”
Check out the full episode after the jump!
[via hyperallergic]
so the comics you read 40 years ago cemented who and what the character was for you?
you can’t really point to one “true persona” of the joker. he’s reimagined and tweaked by every writer who has ever written stories using him (hundreds by now?).
what i find most interesting about this is that i never cared for the jack nicholson joker, but my film teacher pointed out how brilliantly nihilistic the museum scene was, where he dances around painting smiles on all the portraits. I wouldn’t be surprised if that scene was a direct nod (or ripoff) to this one.
Cesar Romero was the true Joker from the comic books I read in the ’60s and ’70s.
A criminal mastermind and also a comedic genius how was fun and funny but never killed unnecessarily and especially did not harm innocent civilians.
Heath Ledger was a good actor but his Dark Night deviated from the true persona of the Joker.