Mroski Joker

                Dauntless Media

               The Joker’s very demeanor would instantly be alluring to someone like Tim Burton.  Burton loves to hybridize ideas that seem juxtaposed, and that is essentially the way that the Joker is presented.  He has an incredible ability to be both chilling and hilarious in a sense of twisted balance that Tim Burton captured very accurately in the film. The trickster is an enduring character archetype and the Joker is a great example, though he is not a perfect match.  Much like many other trickster characters, he is rebellious, curious, rambunctious, and deceitful.  The complete opposite of Batman, his only goal is to create chaos, challenging societal norms and social custom. 

                The most obvious trickster quality the Joker possesses is deceit.  Tricksters typically like to use a quality that another person has in order to create some form of chaos, as if using the person’s momentum against them.  A scary and violent way that he does this (probably the most mentioned scene in the movie) is when he announces that he will be showering the people of Gotham with money in a parade, only to Gas the entirety of the crowd with poison.  One way that this plays against the trickster archetype is that he has no true motive for doing so other than that he simply has the desire.  Classic tricksters tend to have a motive, whether it be that they want to eat someone, steal their child, be married, or simply get paid.  The Joker enjoys evil for its own sake.

                Another form of deceit that takes on a different role is the face paint.  The Joker, like many tricksters, is a shape shifter.  Even though he cannot physically change his appearance, he chooses sometimes to wear face paint, and sometimes to take it off.  In situations where he wants to be on the peoples’ side, he goes without the mask.  This is a way that he can lure people to his evil plans.  On the other side, his clown costume is there to separate and elevate him.  He is different with the mask, scarier, and often more violent.

                Tricksters disregard social protocol and authority.  The Joker questions the way that society works by ignoring social boundaries and formalities. He reacts inappropriately to most situations against what most people would expect.  The Joker says whatever he wants and does whatever he wants, just like when he sabotages the fine art in the museum.  His reckless vandalism is an overt strike at Gotham’s government and police force because there is no practical reason to do so.  Tricksters tend to react differently to stressful situations.   The Joker’s responses to hostile circumstances are usually the opposite of what someone would expect.  Every time he kills someone, and he kills many people throughout the movie, he is in a frenzy of laughter, at one point even talking with a person’s burnt carcass.

Mroski Beetlejuice

            

Beetlejuice
Death Denial

Beetlejuice denies death by making death seem like life.  The dead have to have jobs, sit in waiting rooms, and deal with pests in their homes just like the rest of us.  This denies death by making it seem more like a transition than an actual death.

We see denial even in the way that death is first presented.  The Maitlands are unaware of the fact that they have even died in the first place.  Even when they realize that they are dead, they just try to keep “living” their day to day lives until they are presented with the problem of people destroying their house, which they are still attached to like living people.

Death is also overlooked in the way that Lydia is able to converse and live with the Maitlands almost as if she were their own child. After all of the bio-exorcism hooblah is over with, we find Lydia talking about her school work, dancing, studying, and visiting with the ghosts as if it were normal.  This makes them seem more like living people and less like ghosts.

Personally, I look forward to when I die. Not to say that I want to die, but I embrace the idea of death and the possibility of something greater.  That said I come from a Christian standpoint, and thus I do believe in an afterlife.  I feel like America is more predominantly a deistic country than anything.  Most people believe in a being, and that he just started the universe and left it alone, like a divine clockmaker, or don’t believe in God at all.

            The reason I bring all of this religious crap into the post is to suggest that most people in America don’t whole-heartedly believe in anything after death. As the saying goes, “the heart can’t exalt what the mind rejects.”  If there isn’t anything after we die, what’s the point if you are just going to die eventually? In the long run will it really matter if I contract cancer and die at 40, or if I get mauled by a lion ten minutes from now? From a standpoint that doesn’t truly believe in an afterlife, you die, and that’s it.  It’s the end. Sometimes the best way to deal with a truth that uncontrollable and that dark is to hide it from sight, and that is exactly what happens in America.

            In other countries where death is more embraced, the people usually think that there is something more after you die.  In these cultures, death is a part of the cycle of life. There is a belief that there is something more to death than an ending.  It is a lot easier to work with and talk about this idea than to say that we are all completely pointless blips in a fragment of an eternal existence. 

Mroski Introduction

     My name is Taylor Mroski, from the reasonably close city of Covington, Louisiana.  I'm 19 years old. I've been playing music since the fourth grade.  At Loyola, I am a jazz bassist, studying music education. (subject to change). I play Euphonium in the wind ensemble here.  I am also a singer/songwriter and guitarist, and since I have arrived here I have recently formed a band of my own. So far it is still nameless.  I am very active in my church.  I play bass in the band there, as well as help lead small group bible studies for the youth.
     It feels notable to mention that I am pretty shy in the classroom, but I speak a bit louder on paper.  I take time to consider things rather than just blurt in the classroom, mostly because I really try to make whatever I say match exactly how I feel.  One of the most important things to me is staying true to myself so that when a person sees me, there is nothing hidden.  I think that's part  of the reason that I can honestly say that I am truly a happy person.
      I am pretty scatter-brained, which, aside from causing me to forget what I am saying mid-sentence, leads me to take up various interests in random activities like camping, longboarding, writing poetry and short stories, and playing various other instruments including but not limited to the didgeridoo.  That said due to my short attention span I am completely horrible at all of these things. To me it isn't about how good you get at a hobby so much as how much you enjoy it. After all, these kinds of tasks are for fun, and for me, new things are fun.
      Tim Burton class is new, so I already enjoy it. I've always had fun in English class, which makes me think I will love being with this group of people. It seems like this class will be taught in a similar way.  I love being in college because now we aren't shunning using social media to teach.  Blogs seem like a seriously fun way to learn about the beautifully twisted world that Tim Burton has given us all to explore.  Hopefully this method of learning is as communal as I have made it out to be.  After all, we all have one similar trait in this class, which is at the very least an interest in Tim Burton's unique style of film.