# Red hair like the Joker... how is this happening? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 28, 2012, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650 "2012-07-28T05:13:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/81 "2012-07-30T16:20:33Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I guess the point I’m making (quite possibly badly, from the looks of it) is that I completely understand how “Crazy person with dyed red hair reportedly shoots up a movie theatre during a Batman film screening” + “Reportedly claims to be The Joker when apprehended” = “The suspect has ‘Red hair like The Joker’” reporting. I don’t agree with the fact it’s happened, but I do think someone needs to say “Look, it’s not an deliberate plot by The Media™ to malign the things you like or purposefully misrepresent the facts, OK?” But doesn’t this detail go directly to the issue of whether Batman had a role in the shooter’s motives? IE either he didn’t actually think he was the Joker, or he wasn’t as big a fan of the comics/franchise as everyone thinks, therefore it had nothing to do with his insanity? ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/82 "2012-07-30T18:13:55Z")
The man in court has red hair because he’s not the shooter! [http://now.msn.com/conspiracy-theory-claims-man-arrested-for-aurora-shooting-in-not-the-real-james-holmes](http://now.msn.com/conspiracy-theory-claims-man-arrested-for-aurora-shooting-in-not-the-real-james-holmes) ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/83 "2012-07-30T18:28:14Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > But doesn’t this detail go directly to the issue of whether Batman had a role in the shooter’s motives? IE either he didn’t actually think he was the Joker, or he wasn’t as big a fan of the comics/franchise as everyone thinks, therefore it had nothing to do with his insanity? This is my problem with the “He had red hair… like The Joker!” line of reporting. If he was really trying to be The Joker, getting something as iconic as the hair color wrong probably wouldn’t have happened. If the voices in his head are saying, “You’re The Joker,” he should get that part right. Basically, we’ve had this discussion (the movies made him do it!) before. Before, only geeks stood up and said, “that doesn’t sound right.” Now, a lot more people are going :dubious: Case in point… my wife loved The Dark Knight (and BB and TDKR) but has no real interest in the rest of Batman’s adventures. She noticed the red/green thing before I did. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/84 "2012-07-30T19:27:53Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > The man in court has red hair because he’s not the shooter! > > [http://now.msn.com/conspiracy-theory-claims-man-arrested-for-aurora-shooting-in-not-the-real-james-holmes](http://now.msn.com/conspiracy-theory-claims-man-arrested-for-aurora-shooting-in-not-the-real-james-holmes) [http://now.msn.com/westboro-baptist-church-plans-to-picket-aurora-memorial](http://now.msn.com/westboro-baptist-church-plans-to-picket-aurora-memorial) :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/85 "2012-07-30T19:42:09Z")
Jesus, one does not need to look like the canonical Joker in order to “want to watch the world burn.” No, he may not have all his geek cred intact, but he apparently shared the Joker’s yen for chaos and destruction. That’s close enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/86 "2012-07-30T20:09:21Z")
Martini Enfield nailed it upthread. It’s an inconsequential detail that journalists don’t fact check. Some dude shot up a theater?! He had red hair?! He claimed to be the Joker?! “Up next, shooter with red hair like the Joker kills 12 in Colorado!” Basically laziness around a fact that doesn’t really matter to the story anyway. That said, I too find it annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/87 "2012-07-30T20:19:33Z")
Based on a sample size of myself, I think you are all overestimating just how likely it is that the average person knows what color the joker’s hair canonically is. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/88 "2012-07-30T20:24:42Z")
Obviously, this guy isn’t the real Joker wannabe. That’s the shadowy person who put him up to it. The Joker isn’t the sort who would just walk into a theatre and shoot the place up. He’s more subtle than that. The red hair is the clue! Beware the REAL Joker wannabe, who is still out there! [/conspiracy] 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/89 "2012-07-30T20:38:35Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Martini Enfield nailed it upthread. It’s an inconsequential detail that journalists don’t fact check. Particularly since they have it from a source. Still, not everybody is doing the red hair = Joker thing. > [@Malthus](#): > > Obviously, this guy isn’t the real Joker wannabe. You think you’re kidding, but **Barkis is Willin’** already posted an example of people who are saying this for real. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/90 "2012-07-30T22:17:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Well, yes, but at the risk of making a bunch of people feel old, Jack Nicholson played the character in _1989_. The shooter is 24, so if he is talking about the Joker, he is probably talking about Heath Ledger. That’s not so much because Ledger was great (although I think he was) as because that would be this guy’s pop culture frame of reference. Because VHS and cable airings of Batman (89) never existed, nor did any of the several Batman cartoons that he would’ve been the right age to have been spending his afternoons watching as a kid? I can understand someone might not have been exposed to the comic versions, as comics were going more and more direct market only in this asshole’s lifetime, but there’s no way I can see it more likely than not that his only frame of reference for Joker was in TDK. I wasn’t even born yet when the original Planet of the Apes came out, but if I think of PotA, I think of that, not the Marky Mark one that I saw in a theater in my 20’s. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/91 "2012-07-30T23:09:53Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > there’s no way I can see it more likely than not that his only frame of reference for Joker was in TDK. I didn’t say “only.” I’m not proposing that he wouldn’t know any other versions of the character. I said (in response to a comment that Ledger defined the role for a generation) that Ledger would probably be this guy’s frame of reference based on his age because Ledger is the guy who played the Joker on the big screen for that generation of movie viewers. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/92 "2012-07-30T23:29:24Z")
When editing true crime books, I needed to check facts about role-playing games, so I went to a local shop and asked the clerk. He so overwhelmed me with detail that he insisted absolutely had to be included for accuracy, that I’d have had to expand a few references into three or four paragraphs. I needed to know that the game used a twelve-sided die, not that when you go into dead heat a six-sided one is added, and all the rest. It made me sorry I’d bothered. So when the news media get a detail like that wrong, I can understand it. ---
**Author:** ![Enigma42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/87869e/32.png) [@Enigma42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enigma42)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/93 "2012-08-01T21:07:06Z")
Looks like at least one journalist cares about this little detail. I just stumbled across [this story](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/26/james-holmes-given-mask-for-spitting-at-prison-guards/?iid=obinsite), attributed to Terri Pous, which includes: “Holmes is unmissable, currently sporting a head of bright-orange dyed hair — which he [reportedly told authorities](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/aurora-dark-knight-suspect-joker-cops/story?id=16822251) he dyed to look like the Joker villain in _Batman_ films, even though the Joker’s hair is typically green.” I thought it was interesting to read this shortly after I finished reading this thread. Maybe Terri Pous is a doper? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/94 "2012-08-02T04:50:39Z")
I hate to be a troll, but \*\*Get a life fanboys! \*\*Nobody, and I mean **nobody** outside of comic book geeks knows or gives a shit what color hair the Joker had, has, or ever will have. Are you kidding me?! Twelve freakin’ people were gunned down in cold blood by a lunatic. How does this matter in even the tiniest way? I know this isn’t GD, but what is the issue? Did anyone here really believe that the Joker’s hair color was common knowledge? Like Superman’s cape? It is every bit an esoteric piece of geek minutia fandom as what color is the bad kryptonite! _“…so move out of your parent’s basements, get your own apartments, **[SIZE=“4”]and live!!!**”_[/SIZE] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/95 "2012-08-02T05:08:54Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > What I find oddly scary about the whole thing and others find fascinating is that being driven to do horrible things because you’re a psycho is very Joker-like. Maybe that’s what he meant. Everybody is stuck on the question of him (not) _looking_ like Joker–maybe he had something deeper in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/96 "2012-08-02T12:31:35Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I hate to be a troll, but \*\*Get a life fanboys! \*\*Nobody, and I mean **nobody** outside of comic book geeks knows or gives a shit what color hair the Joker had, has, or ever will have. Are you kidding me?! Twelve freakin’ people were gunned down in cold blood by a lunatic. How does this matter in even the tiniest way? > > I know this isn’t GD, but what is the issue? Did anyone here really believe that the Joker’s hair color was common knowledge? Like Superman’s cape? It is every bit an esoteric piece of geek minutia fandom as what color is the bad kryptonite! > > _“…so move out of your parent’s basements, get your own apartments, **[SIZE=“4”]and live!!!**”_[/SIZE] > > 😃 **Hail Ants** , you knew when you posted this you were overstepping. At the very least you’re threadshitting; trolling “fanboys” is a bit nastier and most definitely against the rules. Yes, I see the smiley and no, that doesn’t make it all right. Cool it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/97 "2012-08-02T15:39:03Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I hate to be a troll, but \*\*Get a life fanboys! \*\*Nobody, and I mean **nobody** outside of comic book geeks knows or gives a shit what color hair the Joker had, has, or ever will have. Are you kidding me?! Twelve freakin’ people were gunned down in cold blood by a lunatic. How does this matter in even the tiniest way? Because, as I said earlier, it goes directly to the question of whether a specific pop culture icon (or the [entertainment] medium in general) had a role in the shooter’s motivations, as some newscasters, pundits, and politicians (whom, as you may recall, have the power to pass laws) claim. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/98 "2012-08-03T02:52:32Z")
Ok, so you’re saying that because he dyed his hair red he wasn’t actually trying to impersonate The Joker? He just wanted to look weird? Maybe, but didn’t he say something like, “I’m the Joker” to the cops? Or did the media get that wrong too? I’m not being sarcastic, I haven’t followed the case too closely because, well, it’s just a mentally ill guy who killed people. Regardless of what he was wearing or what he may have said he was just crazy, he had no rational agenda. The Batman franchise had nothing to do with it. To me _that’s_ the thing that should be common knowledge. Either way, I still say that the Joker’s red/green hair color is so not common knowledge, that even if the crazy guy _did_ want to dress like him he could have easily just gotten it wrong! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/99 "2012-08-03T03:59:23Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Ok, so you’re saying that because he dyed his hair red he wasn’t actually trying to impersonate The Joker? He just wanted to look weird? Maybe, but didn’t he say something like, “I’m the Joker” to the cops? Or did the media get that wrong too? I’m not being sarcastic, I haven’t followed the case too closely because, well, it’s just a mentally ill guy who killed people Have you considered actually reading the thread you’re posting to? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650/100 "2012-08-04T16:21:29Z")
Apparently I’ve made a terrible mistake. Boy is my face red. I mean hair. I mean green. I mean, I’ll be leaving now… :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair-like-the-joker-how-is-this-happening/629650.md?page=4)