Two good reasons why Heath Ledger should NOT win an Oscar
Well, you know how it goes. Somebody dies and suddenly he or she has now become a saint (at least.) Look at Jesus. He frequented hookers, stole other people’s food, vandalised a temple and was always in trouble with the authorities. Then He dies and within three days He’s the Son of God…
Anyway, let’s talk about Heath Ledger and that posthumous Oscar. Of course, now he’s dead, everybody in the industry is saying what a nice guy he was, such a pleasure to work with, etcetera. All of that might even be true. I didn’t know him, so what do I know? Still, even if the opposite were true, there are not many people in Hollywood who would be brave enough (or tactless enough) to say, ‘Well, you know, he was a bit of a shit.’
Me, I’m happy to step on board the eulogy express. It’s nice to think that Heath Ledger was indeed a very likeable guy (apart from being a damn fine actor.). There are enough living shitheads around. Still, this is Hollywood doing the eulogising, so we shouldn’t be too impressed with all the praise that’s being heaped on Ledger’s coffin.
Still, whether he was a good man, or a saint, or not, is not pertinent to the question whether he does or doesn’t deserve a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker.
Okay, not everybody will agree with the above. I know that there are many, many people who think Heath Ledger was the Son of Satan, because he played in a movie that ‘promoted the gay life style.’ These people will say ledger shouldn’t get an Oscar but deserves to burn in Hell, for playing a gay cowboy, and committing the most heinous blasphemy & offending their God, John Wayne.
So, that’s one argument why Heath Ledger should not get an Oscar. Not a very sane argument but then there are a Hell of a lot of insane people, inside and outside the Hollywood industry. You won’t catch the majority of lunatics dancing on Oprah’s sofa but that doesn’t mean they’re not there, nursing their insanity in mumbling anonimity.
Let’s leave the demented bit of demographics behind us though, for now. There are, indeed, more serious arguments against Ledger getting a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker in the latest Batman movie.
First, let’s get the least noble argument out of the way: money & business interest. The Oscars are, when you come right down to it, not really there to praise the (performances of the) individual actors but to promote the industry. The idea is that the publicity surrounding the Oscars and the fact that certain movies and/or actors in those movies have won one or more Oscars, will make more people want to go and see those movies. This way of thinking is so wide-spread that studios plan the release of what they see as their most probable Oscar vehicles accordingly.
Summer blockbuster movies are not, on the whole, either produced or seen as Oscar candidates (outside the special effects and make-up categories, that is) and they are marketed in a different way. In other words, they don’t rely on an Oscar to get publicity. Batman is a franchise; an industry in itself and it has other ways to get its intended audience to watch the movies.
So, in pure business terms, for a Batman movie to get a best (supporting) actor Oscar would be gilding the lily – or, in a way, a waste of an Oscar, since the Oscars are there to promote and make money for an other type of movie entirely.
(Same with the idea that Oscars make the actors who win them more ‘bankable’: That people will go and see future movies because they feature Oscar-winning stars. Obviously, this does not work for a dead actor who had most of his acting career still in front of him. Yes, it’s a tasteless argument but no less true for that.)
Right, that was the money side of things. Let’s get to the artistic side of the business now. Whatever the economic realities behind the Oscars are, the industry portrays the ceremony as a chance for the acting ‘community’ to honour and celebrate the best of what it can offer. You can always argue about the definition of ‘best’ (and part of the Oscar fun is precisely to do so) but the idea is to celebrate the dream behind the movie industry machine.
Hollywood tends to go for what they consider to be the ‘worthy’ movies for their ultimate shortlist but if you ignore that somewhat irritating fact, the actors they end up with selecting as best (supporting) actors have , almost always, done a good job of it. Not necessarily a much better job than their colleagues in less ‘worthy’ movies but most of the final candidates can act and have done a good job in that year’s nominated movies (however artistically undeserving and boring those movies may be for the non-Hollywood insider crowd.)
So, most of the time movie goers don’t mind when actors get Oscars for movies they don’t care about much, cause they can see that the actors did at least do a more than decent job. The problem with giving an Oscar to Heath Ledger for playing the Joker is that you can’t really say he is doing an Oscar-worthy job.
Ask any actor and they will say that it is the easiest thing in the world to play a pantomime villain – and Batman’s Joker is no more than that: a heavily made-up, prancing & dancing cartoon character. Almost anyone in the industry could have done this, and would have done it well.
Whatever depth and tragic background and psychological back story you want to give this burlesque figure, it’s nothing your average TV soap actor wouldn’t be able to handle – especially since there isn’t much that they can fuck up, with all the make-up and silly costumes and action scenes.
I’m not saying Heath Ledger didn’t play a damn fine Joker - he was a very good actor, after all. He was great in Brokeback Mountain and I’m sure that he would have gone on to play many more good roles, some of which might have landed him more (and more deserved) Oscar nominations and Oscar statues. He should not get one for playing the Joker though. No actor should. It’s simply not a role that deserves a serious acting prize.
Still, for a cynical, money-making machine, Hollywood can be incredibly sentimental, so I’m pretty sure that Heath Ldger will get his posthumous Oscar – and, okay, only the saddest grumps would begrudge him this honour, however silly that decision may be when you consider things more rationally.
So, here’s to the memory of a good, young actor who died much too young - and if that does come with a dubious Oscar, well, you know, who cares, really?
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July 18th, 2008 at 17:20
That’s a bit of a misunderstanding of the current Batman franchise right there. I haven’t seen the film yet, probably won’t until next week, but I doubt very much that the Joker will be a pantomime villain in any way. Think more of Hannibal Lecter than Jafar from Aladin. And as an actor I can tell you that not anyone could play the role, hell NO role is like that.
So your wrong on this one. And plenty of non-Oscar bait movies are nominated for various categories. While I do agree that a living actor would benefit more, if it IS one of the best performances of the year I see no reason why he shouldn’t be nominated. Time will tell though.
July 18th, 2008 at 19:30
Thanks for the comment.
You’re not the first to point out that the role is more than I suggested it was. I’m no expert in the field, so maybe the role is the kind that could come with an Oscar (performance.)
I’m not sure he would have been nominated for one (if he will be) if he weren’t dead, of course - but that’s another discussion, of course,
J.
July 19th, 2008 at 13:39
I think it’s a common misconception when it comes to comics. If you are reading any, you probably should. I would recommend Watchmen and Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis as a start.
While DC comics on the whole are a bit pish, the Batman character is probably the best developed and the Joker is his longest running and most messed up villain. And many Bat comics are NOT for kids (unless you know a good shrink). I haven’t really read any of his either, but you just need to look at the casts these films are attracting and the first movie in the series to see this is proper stuff. Heath was a damned fine actor so the role could easily be Oscar bate, and he could be nominated for one in the universe where he didn’t accidently die (2002- Paul Newman in a comic book movie, Road to Perdition, Ian McKellen for playing a wizard in 2001 and there are others)
July 19th, 2008 at 19:33
I’d say Heath’s quality of acting in this role can be compared to Anthony Perkin’s portrayal of Hannibal Lechter. It is fascinating to watch either one of these fellows transform into the equivalent of a human monster. I do not believe that any actor can portray such a wicked, convincing and frightening character as skillfully as Heath did the Joker. Jack Nicholson did a good job, but to me there is no comparison. I think Heath deserves Best Supporting Actor and if you ask anyone who saw Dark Knight, I think most would agree.
July 19th, 2008 at 20:25
Thanks both. It’s an interesting idea to compare characters based on cartoons to ones based on novels.
In principle you should not differentiate between the two. You have lousy novels with cardboard characters and comic books (Neil Gaiman’s Sandman springs to mind) with enough depth to keep (less prejudiced) English faculties in the text & character analysing business for a few centuries.
So, when you get a superior rendition of the Joker role and yet another middle-of-the-road Falstaff performance, the one playing the Joker would be more deserving of an Oscar (nomination).
Anyway, when the award is for the acting a good portayal of a stereotype should win it over a bad portrayal of the most layered character - however hard it would be to compare the roles an sich. Hollywood doesn’t quite work like that, so Oscars (on the whole) are only given to certain roles in certain movies. (You could be the Laurence Olivier of SF & horror, but chances are Hollywood won’t take a blind bit of notice.)
Right, so both of you (and some other commentators elsewhere) have convinced me that the Joker role could be Oscar-worthy. That doesn’t mean that Ledger would have won it if he hadn’t died and I’m afraid it also doesn’t mean that Hollywood will be more inclusive in the future (unless and until some other actor dies, of course) but that’s another debating issue,
J.
July 31st, 2008 at 06:31
i agree with you on some points; i googled “heath ledger is not that good” because i thought i was going crazy and this showed up. I mean, he was great, i watched practically all his movies, and it’s really sad he won’t make any more, because he could have grown into quite the actor, but this particular role and all the blab it’s causing is just because he died! he’s becoming a legend because a film was released after his death. everybody’s going crazy because, it’s true, you can’t really go out and say “he sucked as the joker”, because it would be 1. a lie and 2. fucking insensitive.
he still has 1 more movie to be released, and i’m sure that one will gain more importance than it ordinarily would.
which by the way reminds me, he portrayed bob dylan in “i’m not there”. surely such a role and film are more praise/Oscar worthy, right?
just in case any heath fan reads this, don’t get me wrong he’s awesome, but this movie is quite average.
July 31st, 2008 at 18:40
Thanks for the comment - and I agree that the guy was a good actor and might have become one of the great actors of his generation. So, this piece was not meant to be disparaging about him.
It’s just that I don’t like the way the Hollywood machine, our media and the sensasionalist public ‘play’ these deaths. I think there’s something sickening, vulgar and, ultimately, demeaning in this way ‘we’ deal with these things,
J.
August 4th, 2008 at 15:42
I think the media has had a HUGE influence in what people think more than in many other occasions. Dark Knight has been being promoted by all of the media as the best performance of Heath Ledger, which it is, but in doing so, seeing that he’s dead, they have inflated the opinion of the general public. It’s like the economic bubbles. DK is currently listed as the top 1 movie of all time in imdb.com, above the godfathers, schindler’s, pulp fiction, casablanca, etc. If Heath hadn’t died it would have been closer to Batman Begins’ #99 spot, I daresay.
The media also gave fantastic reviews to WALL-E and now it’s IMDB’s top 1 comedy (comedy?) above Forrest Gump (comedy???) Amelie (idem?) and python’s Holy Grail.
They should all shut up and see what people think for themselves.
August 4th, 2008 at 18:38
Thanks for the comment - and they won’t, of course. Won’t shut up, I mean.
Still, it’s like the death of Diana. First the mass hysteria and then - after a looooong while - some more moderate analysis.
That will happen to the Batman movie too, I’m sure. No way it will still be seen as a better (and/or more important) movie than the Godfather (or the other titles you mentioned) in, let’s say, five years’ time,
J.