Update: The Joker’s third scar origin story from The Dark Knight
Last week, I was musing about The Dark Knight and what the Joker’s third origin story of his facial scars might have been before Batman rudely interrupted the psychopath by tossing him off the skyscraper. One thing led to another and we ended up with a contest. A bunch of folks contributed their take on what the Joker might have said had he been allowed to continue. Indeed I offered a prize:
I’ll do a 30 minute teleconference with the writer of the winning entry. If you have a story idea — logline or short treatment (no more than 2 pages) — we can discuss that. Or if you just want to talk about writing, we can do that, too.
I was originally going to award one prize, but the posts were so great, I ended up going with three winners. They are: Will King, Jacob Holmes-Brown, and Chris Molinaro. Here are their winning entries.
Will King
I’m going with the observation that the Joker tailored his story to each audience, and at this point, his audience is Batman.
Just past this point after Batman pulls him back up on the safety line (or Batrope — yeah, I’m a child of the 60s), the Joker plays his hand by saying “You didn’t think I’d risk the battle for Gotham’s soul in a fist fight with you?” and tells him about Harvey being his ace in the hole.
So, my what-if for this alternate scenario is: what if the Joker was just about to expose his hand when Batman cut him off?
JOKER
You can’t rely on anyone these days. You’ve got to do everything yourself, don’t we? That’s okay, I came prepared.
It’s a funny world we live in. Speaking of which, you know how I got these scars?
As a kid I had a dentist who said I didn’t open my mouth wide enough. He told me, “We got to make it a lot bigger so I can work in there.” So, he took the drill, but instead of drilling my teeth, he used it to broaden my smile, all the while humming along with it’s high-pitched whine. Sure made him happy. His office had one of those old-fashioned doors with the name painted on the wavy glass. Funny world. You see, it didn’t say “DDS” or “Dentist” like the others. His had a different spelling: D-E-N-T. Period. Funny, don’t you think?
Jacob Holmes-Brown
I always saw the Joker’s stories as writing himself an origin story. He is clearly an unreliable storyteller as we don’t know if either of his stories are true but I felt that it was the process of telling that was more important to him.
For me the scars themselves are just a detail, the Joker always seems more interested in provoking the “why” response/thought process. So I felt that in this final conversation with Batman the Joker wanted to reveal Batman to himself.
***
JOKER: Speaking of which, you know how I got these scars? You could say that I had a, uh, a rough childhood. Abandoned and set adrift in this mean ol’ scary world. I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought- I couldn’t keep them, I could save them, you know. ‘course you do. Not as me anyhow. But you stare into yourself for too long, Bats, you stare into the void, and you- I just got to that point where I couldn’t go on staring any longer. Not when you’ve got the radio crying out and the television crying out, all those screams just trying to get a piece of your attention. So I broke the mirror. And, with so many eyes on me, I took the glass… [traces his smile with his fingers] and I put on my mask. Who am I without it, hmm? Maybe just another lunatic who climbed out of the asylum. Maybe just another little lost boy without a mommy or a daddy… but that’s who I was and he doesn’t interest me much anymore.
Chris Molinaro
Wanna know how I got these scars? When you’re a kid who gets off killing small animals, it raises a red flag or two. But once you graduate to… bigger game… that’s when they send you to juvi. Out of sight… out of their minds.
The other boys used to tease me relentlessly. Always laughing. Kids can be so cruel. Now the warden was an especially creative disciplinarian. After the inevitable fights between me and the kids who sensed I was…different… he’d hand us each a sharpened screwdriver, lock us in the showers, kill the lights and tell us to settle it like men. Like men? We were little boys! Well, what are little boys most afraid of?
Monsters.
One day it’s me and Robbie O’Malley’s turn and he’s standing there, laughing at me like a hyena. As per usual. So I took that screwdriver and gave myself a permanent makeover. Oh, that shut Robbie up all right. Then I looked at that scared little urine-soaked boy and as the room went pitch black, said the last three words he’d ever hear. “Who’s laughing now?”
Honestly, every post had something interesting going on in it, so thanks to each writer who participated.
How about this: If you have other suggestions for dialogue challenges based on notable movies, post in comments. Maybe we’ll do something like this every month or so. I’m all about doing what we can to motivate people to write.
Winners, email me and we’ll set up your calls.
Again thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to get in touch with their inner Joker.
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