The Irresistible Lure of the Joker

The Joker's hair is green. It's always been green. But when James Holmes was taken into custody after the Aurora murders on July 20, New York City's police commissioner announced that Holmes had painted his hair red (he may have meant the bright orange-red shade that's appeared in recent photos) and that Holmes had been saying he was the Joker. It's a mark of the reflexive, thrilled horror with which pop-culture audiences regard the Joker that ordinarily reliable news outlets reported those two claims together without questioning them and might have done so even if the movie at which the massacre happened had been Magic Mike.