Much of the discourse about this film has been about If this film is dangerous and irresponsible in the current political climate. I want to talk about the movie, so I’ll only say this much. I understand why some people might be concerned about the film, the same way I understand why, when there is a mass shooting, giving it 24/7 news coverage and talking about all the intimate details of the murderer can encourage copy cats. Art is powerful, propaganda is an amazingly effective tool. That being said, I don’t believe this film needs to be banned or condemned. It’s the whole ‘do violent video games cause real world violence?’ debate. No, they don’t. And now to actually talk about the movie!





Well, first, let’s talk about memes.

There are:

Regular Memes

Dank memes

Deepfried memes,

And so forth. Memes have become covered in twenty-three layers of irony, self-deprecation, and meta; “authenticity” is a meaningless concept. So, when you see an image like this:

It is equally valid to assume that it is genuine or ironic. I bring this up, because of the core message of Joker: We live in a society! I won’t go too deep into the origins of this phrase, but suffice it to say, that it is a term for edgelords who want to seem super deep, by saying obvious things that aren’t that deep or insightful. And well before this film, perhaps since Heath Ledger’s Joker, the Joker character has been held up by these people as an idol.

But the Joker shouldn’t be held up as an idol, as demonstrated by this interpretation. Arthur Fleck is a sad, sad individual. He has a debilitating mental illness: uncontrollable laughter at times of heightened emotion, be it fear, anger, or sadness. He is physically scrawny and misshapen reminiscent of Christian Bale from the Machinist. Arthur has no social skills. He is delusional. He and his life are pathetic, and I use that word with no judgment, but as a neutral descriptor. It is tragic. He tries to be nice, but [we live in a] society, keeps him down.

The very opening sequence is him doing his job, when some teenagers beat him up, while shouting “Keep hitting him!”, “He is so weak!”, and “He can’t fight back!” This is the type of nuanced and subtle dialogue you can expect from the film, courtesy of the writer of the Hangover sequels.



Jaoquin Phoenix is the only reason I didn’t cringe at half the lines of dialogue. His performance is phenomenal. You can see through his eyes as he struggles against his own body turns against him, almost throwing up due to intense, inappropriate laughter. The sad eyes of a laughing clown. Phoenix is both over the top yet incredibly subtle, sometimes simultaneously. He barely seems to change his expression at all yet moves between all the emotions.

Two-thirds through the film when Arthur starts to make the change to becoming the Joker, embracing his laugh and rejecting the [we live in a] society

that rejected him. “I used to think my life was a tragedy, but then I learned it was a comedy.” Like a meme, I can’t tell if it is an awful or amazing line. Once the transformation happens, Phoenix’s posture and demeanor drastically change as well, Arthur Fleck truly becomes another person.

The film is oppressive from life beating down on Arthur, to the loud, melancholy cellos, to the gloomy, yet beautifully dilapidated shots of Gotham. Joker doesn’t have many laughs, and even those come from pitch black humor – laughter of discomfort and the absurdly morbid. One scene particularly kicked me in the empathy bone

I have colored my empathy bone white

Arthur’s dream in life is to be a stand-up comedian. He goes to an open mic, and unsurprisingly, his laughter kicks in. He fights against it but can’t do anything about it. It felt awful to watch, and I am not ashamed to admit, that I almost shed a tear. I felt a strong emotion, and that is much more than I can say for Marvel and other 99% of other comic book films. Yes, this is technically a comic book film. Not that it needed to be, Arthur Fleck could have been a wholly original character. The only comic book knowledge that enhances the experience, is knowing that Batman’s real name is Bruce Wayne.

I love me a good downer movie, but what stops this from being an amazing film is the script. There are a lot of themes addressed in the film: primarily, the poor treatment of the mentally ill in [we live in a] society,

but also economic inequality, celebrity idolization, and the cult of fame. The film only touches upon these issues on a surface level. Depicting a concern, without anything insightful to say about it. The messages become mixed. For example, Arthur is mistreated for being mentally ill, and the film shows that is bad. But then uses a person’s dwarfism as the butt of a joke. The film says [we live in a] society

should take care of the mentally ill. Also, Arthur goes of his medications, embraces his illness, and then is awarded with what he always wanted: a horde of people cheering for him. In this case it is a mob which is destroying the city. No shots of innocent people being assaulted, this raging mob is a good thing. And the camera frames Joker as a hero. But if we want [we live in a] society to take care of the mentally ill, medication is a vital part of that process. Joker’s final monologue is especially cringy and lacking any subtext. His thesis is essentially – [we live in a] society



is cruel, and people should be more civil and nice. #im14andthisisdeep



A lot of people compare Joker to Taxi Driver, which makes sense. But the plot more so resembles King of Comedy – a failed stand up comedian, idolizes a talk show host, then commits a crime against said celebrity and has a big monologue on TV like he always wanted. In King of Comedy, Robert DeNiro is the comedian, in Joker he is the talk show host. So yeah, it isn’t an original film, but not many movies are. This is a character film and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is so amazing and enthralling that it elevates the mediocre script to a great film. And [we live in a] society should treat people with mental illness better, then there wouldn’t be as many people who see a Joker character as hero and there wouldn’t be as many mass shooters and thus this film wouldn’t be seen as problematic.

8/10





SOCIETY: 9.0

OTHER SOCIETY: 68% / 90%