Inside Joker? The Dark Knight Nurse

Booster Shot: The Joker in Nurse Drag
Model Natalia Vodianova in Louis Vuitton Sp 08

Is it art imitating art (OK, fashion) imitating art which was already imitating art (of the low-brow kind) when Heath Ledger’s Joker appears onscreen in “The Dark Knight” in a strawberry blonde flip ’do and nurse uniform?
I couldn’t help but wonder last night as I caught a late night show of the Batman sequel, which racked up some $158.4 million this opening weekend stateside. There was the late actor looking like a deranged, gender-bending incarnation of Richard Prince’s Naughty Nurse paintings, inspired by the covers of pulp fiction novels and having inspired Marc Jacobs’ Spring 2008 collection for Louis Vuitton.
(Unfortunately, the best image available of Ledger in nurse drag is this one. But in the film, viewers get the full effect, complete with wig and nurse cap.)
Was costume designer Lindy Hemming offering an inside joke to fashion and art fans? Of course, the scene was wrapped long before last September’s runway show. Still, the artist’s “nurses” have been on the pop radar, including appearing on Sonic Youth’s 2004 “Sonic Nurse” album. And those paintings, which appeared the year before to mixed reception, now fetch upwards of $5 million each. (I spent a great afternoon and evening in L.A. with the artist in 2005. The story, which ran originally in WWD, is at the jump.)

The original pulp cover and Richard Prince's take.

On sharing how much I loved the film to a fashion publicist pal in New York this a.m., he immediately cited the Prince-meets-Vuitton-meets-Joker reference. I suspect we're not alone in connecting the pop culture dots.
Never mind that with each film scene there’s always the haunting reminder that this is the late great what-might-have-been actor. Alive on screen or six feet under in real life, the sight of Ledger in that creepy fun get-up still rates as one of the most sinister-looking anarchists in smudged makeup…appearing all the more priceless in those nurse whites.

I can almost hear those cash registers singing come Halloween time.

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