I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, the Overblown Edition.

This is also the daily podcast from slate.com for Thursday, July 17, 2008.

On today's program, Heath Ledger as the Joker, Barack Obama as Mujahideen, and Madonna as

big surprise here, homewrecker.

Joining me as Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, Dana

Stevens. Dana, let's start with you. The Dark Night, we all saw it last night in a preview.

Ledger's performance is about to swallow the whole world in either awe or hype or

some combination of both. He seems to have already been awarded the Oscar posthumously by

public acclaim or critical acclaim. Is this a great performance or are we giving in to the

hype too easily?

That's a great question.

I mean, it's indisputably a remarkable performance.

I think you both agree with that, and we can talk about some of the details and what he does with it and why. But it's strange. last night was the second time I saw the movie in previews,

and I was trying both times to imagine that he hadn't died, you know, in January under those circumstances,

and that he was just a young, know, in January under those circumstances and

that he was just a young, up-and-coming actor who had a juicy role in a new superhero movie. It's almost impossible to watch it from that point of view. I think to the extent that you can divest yourself of those associations, it's still a really striking performance in and of itself. That said, I think I'm going to get really, really sick of the hype rolling in over the next week or so. But can we, do you want to talk a little bit about what, what it's actually like,

what is performance? itself. That said, I think I'm going to get really, really sick of the hype rolling in over the next week or so. But can we, you want to talk a little bit about what it's actually like,

what his performance, what he does with it?

Sure, Julia, why don't you speak to that a little bit? What's it like to watch Keith Ledger

in the midst of this particular film?

He's this bright, colorful, maniacal, chaotic force in the middle of this kind of very sleek, metropolitan, dark, soothing, kind of urban grid.

And he actually kind of, he's, the movie quite heavy-endedly points out at various times that he represents chaos and

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