New Delhi: What’s common between the new Batman baddie Bane and the old villain Joker? Well, both have been addicted to drugs in their twenties, but Edward Thomas Hardy (Bane) fought hard to leave the habit of alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction. Heath Ledger was not so lucky and a toxic combination of prescription drugs took his life in 2008. Apart from it, there wouldn’t be many similarities between the two.
Joker’s (Heath Ledger) body language had a distinct edginess, he used to look nervous all the time, and he committed most heinous crimes in that state of mind only while Bane (Tom Hardy) is the epitome of confidence.
Joker was seen as a ruthless cunning man and his role didn’t allow him to come up with a profound philosophy. His vulnerable self made him stick to just one theory and that was ‘fear rules the world’.
In contrast to the hero’s character in Batman comics, the villains are mostly surreal and Joker fitted into that criteria. He was a maniac with a really sharp mind, a deadly combination, but couldn’t outwit the hero and that’s why he turned towards ruthless methods.
On the other hand, Bane is more of a political leader than a street fighter, but his strength is his muscular body. He contradicts the idea of a sober warlord which Hollywood loves to showcase. Normally, Hollywood films have mafia dons who act on someone else’s instructions, most of the times these directions come from a country having a different political ideology, sometimes they act for capitalistic forces, seldom the villains have a concrete idea based action plan. Bane has a thought process of his own. His training with Ra’s Al Ghul’s the League of Shadows formed the base of his thinking and his early days in jail taught him the basics of a downtrodden life style. This exposure provides Bane the immediate connect with the poor and marginalised sections.
The base of the ultimate fight between Batman and Bane in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is actually the class divide which Bane shrewdly uses. Joker remained more or less of a crook than a gangster and that’s why the director Christopher Nolan kept the conflict confined to a certain area.
The case is not the same with Bane. He has mindless followers who believe in his alternate ideology. Bane is the messiah of certain sections of the contemporary society, he couldn’t be fought alone, and here lies the real difference between him and Joker.
As a single villain, Joker is way ahead of Bane but as the driving force behind countless small villains, Bane has no match.
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