This author’s note originally appeared in the October 10th edition of my author newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.
I saw Joker yesterday. Don’t worry, I won’t give away any spoilers. It was every bit as incredible as I expected it to be, and yet in some key ways, not what I was expecting at all.
First, the basics. This movie is dark. Very, very dark. I believe this is the darkest, most terrifying iteration of the Joker ever made. Part of that is because it is so realistic. There are no magical superpowers, no aliens or infinity stones or any of that stuff. This story could have already happened in our world. It could yet happen.
That said, it is clear that the people who made it have deep respect and appreciation for the franchise. It isn’t like The Last Jedi, where the filmakers explicitly tried to subvert all of the things the fans love about Star Wars. In many ways, Joker is a homage to all of the iterations of Batman that have come before it. This could just as well be the origin story of Cesar Romero’s Joker as Heath Ledger’s.
Joaquin Phoenix is incredible. I didn’t think it was possible to do a better Joker than Heath Ledger, but Phoenix has done it. He really draws you into the Joker’s head, and his transformation from a broken misfit to a sociopathic supervillian is believable, compelling, and utterly terrifying. He earned every moment of the eight-minute standing ovation this movie received on its debut.
There is a dramatic arc to violence that very few movies, TV shows, or even books show in its entirety. When a character swings an axe at someone’s head, the scene usually cuts. You know what happened. But in Joker, you see everything. It’s a lot like Blade Runner in that respect. The bodycount is not that high, but the violence really hits you, and stays with you.
If you aren’t in touch with your dark side, this movie will profoundly disturb you. It will also screw with your mind. If you struggle with PTSD, this is probably one to avoid, unfortunately. Even if you think you like dark movies, this one may be too much for you. But if you do enjoy it, you will probably want to see it again, and again. There are so many layers to this movie that a single viewing is not enough to fully take it all in.
Without question, Joker is a major cultural landmark. It is, above all else, a brutally clear and damning indictment of all of us. In a world convinced that guns cause violence, Joker focuses on mental health and the cracks in our healthcare system. In a world obsessed with priviledge and inequality, Joker is about our pathological lack of empathy and compassion.
Part of the controversy surrounding this movie is the gulf between the critics who hate this movie, and the general audience, which loves it. After watching it, I think the critics can be divided into three camps.
First, there are the social elites who are so out of touch with the reality that the rest of us live in that Joker is anathema to their lived experience. It’s not that they hate it, so much as that they’re confused and bewildered by it. They are also bewildered by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.
Second, there are the wokescolds who hate Joker because they recognize it as an indictment of themselves. They deride it as an “incel movie” because they know that their woke politics are partly responsible for creating a culture where “incels” are a thing, and that drives these people to violence.
I actually think that this isn’t the case for most of the critics. Sargon of Akkad recently put out a video on this, and while I agree with him that the wokescold critics see Joker as a mirror, I don’t think they see themselves as the people who drive the Joker into psychopathic madness. Instead, I think that the vast majority of the wokescold critics see themselves in the Joker.
In Milo Yiannopoulos’s interview with Jordan Peterson, he made the very salient point that the angriest, most radical people on the far left are, in their personal lives, broken and in pain. Often, they are victims of abuse. Personally, I would expand that to include many on the alt-right as well, but the point still stands.
The wokescolds want to see themselves as heroes working to overcome systems of oppression and inequality. They see themselves as builders, but Joker shows them that all they really want is to burn it all down. That’s why I believe this movie has provoked such a virulent backlash from the wokescolds: because it is a mirror that shows them as they really are, and they are terrified of what they see in it.
Without love, it is impossible for our culture and society to heal. That, I believe, is Joker’s ultimate message. The reason that Arthur becomes the Joker is because no one ever showed him any compassion, empathy, or love. He laughed through the pain until the pain made him laugh, and became the villain that Gotham deserved.
How often do we really listen to each other? How often do we reach outside of ourselves and genuinely connect? A recent study shows that the average American hasn’t made a single new friend in the last five years. Is that you? Is that your neighbor? The family across the street, or the guy who lives down the hall?
It doesn’t take much to reach out. Sometimes, all it takes is a smile—but isn’t that the joke? Somewhere, I hear maniacal laughter…
