Psychiatrist Confirms What We Already Knew About Heath Ledger's Joker
One of the ongoing, long-term fan complaints about most incarnations of the Batman over the last several decades, in print or on screen, is that all the supervillains caught by Batman get committed to Arkham Asylum.
Not only Arkham is usually the gold standard of a carboard prison, which at best cannot hold its inmates, and at worst gets taken over by them and turned into a deathtrap for Batman, people also argue that a plea of insanity would not realistically work for villains from Batman's rogue gallery.
This sentiment was recently supported by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Bender, who psycho-analyzed several well-known members of said rogue gallery, including the Joker, specifically his portrayal by Heath Ledger.
And yes, Ledger's Joker is one of the darker takes on the character, but though he might surpass other incarnations of the Joker on the screen in visceral brutality, all of them since Batman (1989) were ruthless and scheming murderers.
In his YouTube video, Dr. Bender states that while the Joker is a psychopath and possibly has a personality disorder, he still would not be qualified for getting sent to a mental asylum instead of a prison.
The Joker clearly has control over his actions and knowledge that he is doing something wrong. Indeed the climax of The Dark Knight is the Joker trying and failing to prove that other people are as twisted as him and only pretend to have morality, which requires a grasp on morality in the first place.
As Dr. Bender said, "He knows what he's doing, so not only does he not have a mental illness, he also knows what he's doing, knows what he's doing is wrong. He belongs in Blackgate Penitentiary."
A lot of people in the YouTube comments appear to love his statement. For example, one of the most popular comments for his video said:
"I loved the Paul Dini's writing of The Joker's interview tapes in The Arkham Asylum game… …The Joker seemed to investigate different mental health disorders and would pretend to have a different mental health disorder per interview. He was essentially wasting the time of the Arkham professionals just so he could get attention."
Well, at least in the world of the Dark Knight trilogy whether the Joker was put into an asylum or a prison, or got executed for his crimes, he was safely disposed of, never to reappear.