Joker film is The Joker

This piece was originally posted on Minds.com shortly after seeing the movie in theaters I wanted to rework at and share it here on Vocal

I recently saw Joker and to be honest I loved it. I think it's a the kind of movie that has been missing in the current generation of film-making. Before we get to that let me give you some background information on myself. First off I am a comic book fan so that may bias my thoughts on what this movie is or even what it could be. Second I'm not a huge theater goer. I much rather sit at home with my own comfy furniture and snacks. Most importantly I'm not a huge fan of the crowds at film venues. I have to be very interested in a movie to even think about going out to see it. So the fact the Joker actually has me entertaining the idea of seeing it a second time before it leaves the theaters should be evidence enough how much I enjoyed what I saw on the screen.

Okay I think that is enough personal rambling on who I am and hopefully give you enough background to understand where the point of this is going. The most fascinating thing about the movie Joker is that it in itself has become the embodiment of the the character they expressed, Joker. Since I avoided any information about the movie before I was able to view it, afterward I hit the internet to view all the information, reviews and hot takes I could find (and bear). What I found was all over the place, some people were claiming that it is the greatest film of a generation because of quality plus what it was saying about “the culture war of 2019,” people making claims that it was a film that was trying to tackle a lot but didn't say anything, of course there were the claims that it was some form of oppression because of their personal views in identity politics, and people who seemed to not step out to see that this story was not structured in a way that we see a lot of. They had trouble dealing with who is the hero and who is the villain even though I find it really clear that it doesn't have heros and villains. Arthur Fleck is the protagonist but he is not the hero of the story, and to clarify because this is something that took me awhile to fully grasp, the protagonist is just the leading character that moves the story along. They don't always have to be the hero or someone with acceptable morals to the audience.

After hearing all these takes on Joker I couldn't help to laugh though. To me the movie is nothing more than what it's advertised as.... a film. It is the medium of conveying a story. Now I am fully aware of and in support of putting messages into art and trying to convey something but sometimes a story is just a story. I am going to be avoiding spoilers as best I can but there are some concepts I will be going over but will try to stay away from how they truly impact the plot to illustrate what I mean.

So many of the critiques I've read have clung to different aspects the story touches on. The main ones I've seen are: Mental Illness, Income Inequality, Culture War, and even Gun Control. Now I do believe the use of these topics use in the movie is inspired by discourse we do see in real life today but I don't see any reason to believe Todd Phillips were riding these themes to say something about the real world. These things are not plot points but more of set pieces, they are just pieces of information used to move the story along and nothing more. I believe this because of the most frequent points I've seen used against the film, people felt that these topics were not expanded on enough to make sense. I've read that they couldn't get into the movie because they could only think about real life impact to everyone but Arthur. That's the issue though, the movie isn't about the public or any side character in the movie, it is about Arthur Fleck. This is evident by the fact that there really isn't a scene that doesn't have Joaquin Phoenix in it. This story is completely about Arthur and his perspective, and let's be fair that's realistic. Nobody cares about those around them when shit is crumbling around themselves. Some even said that it was too easy to get lost through all the plots in the movie. For my viewing I didn't find this true at all and it seems that people were looking for plots that were not there. There are two ways that I see the plot unfold that connect the beginning to the end fairly flawlessly. Upon first viewing to me the entire plot line is Arthur Fleck. He is the only thing that matters. As Todd Phillips said he wanted to create a character study style of film and if you watch the movie viewing it as just Arthur Fleck dealing with the events that surround him. It's pretty easy to ride this roller coaster from start to finish. The other thing I've come to see thinking about the film is that the entire movie is about chaos. Now this may come from my previous knowledge of the Joker character, but when thinking about what I saw and taking in all the hot takes you notice that most plot points in the film do not happen on purpose. Most of the big things that get the city of Gotham moving in the plot just happened. No one plotted or coerced events to go a certain way. It was just a series of chaotic events that keep escalating until the credits run. So personally I think people went into the movie expecting Joker to say something about specific topics and when they didn't get that, they either became confused or angry because they were unable to sit back and just take in what was playing.

Don't get me wrong I disagree with these takes on the movie but I'm not obtuse enough to say that they are wrong. Art is subjective and for one reason or another these people's personal experiences led them to think about the movie the way they do. This is why I shared how much I enjoyed the movie in the beginning, Because I also disagree with the people that liked the movie. It's not just the critiques that think the movie dropped the ball or did something wrong, but I also saw many gleaming that this movie was great because how it depicted “The Culture War.” They also are so ingrained in that world they couldn't separate the movie from how they see the world today. To some extent I feel that there are people that saw all the negative hot takes and decided they had to share how this movie had to be the greatest thing because of the people pissed off by it. As I mentioned, I loved this movie it has given me a lot to think about since I watched it. Admittedly I am a person that can usually take something away from any movie. Whether it's philosophical questions I never thought to ask , a way to think about my own life situations or beliefs, or even just storytelling techniques. I enjoy thinking, or even overthinking, art that is presented to me. Not once in all the thoughts I've had about the movie have I come across any notion of how this film can be applied to real life society. It touches on subjects that we deal with but doesn't express any meaningful insights that can be applied to real life.

So for those still wondering where this going; to me the discussion of the movie since its announcement perfectly mimics the plot of the movie. In the movie Arthur Fleck is a man who is going through his life and through a string of chaotic happenstance becomes revered as a mascot of a movement. He is raised on a pedestal for a certain population of Gotham and a nightmare for the rest. The movie as a piece of art is just a movie. Though through the discourse online and in person it has been raised as a perfect depiction of the “clown world” that we are currently living in, or a movie to be feared for the possibility of corrupting some.

In today's culture it seems binary is the new language of ideas. Nuance has died and you can only be on one side or another. The most shocking thing to me about all the talk around Joker since it's release is no one talks about the craft of the movie. I haven't heard anyone talk about the shots it chose or how it would break tension and keep the audience off balance. Usually the performance of Joaquin Phoenix is an afterthought to a discussion, even though you can not deny he knocked that role out of the park. It's truly tragic. If people could let go of how they feel Joker is dangerous or how it pisses off the other side, a lot of good conversation could be made. Like I mentioned earlier I took away chaos from the movie, but that doesn't mean someone who saw an illustration of mental health is wrong. They were just led to see something I didn't see. Why can't we talk about those views together without trying to destroy each other's points? Both points could be enhanced with just mild open discussion, and I'm all for expanding how I see things instead of looking for subjects to be feared or adored.

Hence why the most amazing thing about all of this, we have all turned Joker into The Joker. I don't believe I have ever seen a work of any kind become the symbolic embodiment of the subject of said work. Personally I find that absolutely hilarious if not comedically tragic in today's world.