Joker is a big budget Hollywood film that had so many expectations
from people across the political spectrum that it was bound to
disappoint. The discourse had become so contentious that people raced
to condemn it before even seeing it, and it has become a wise career
move to join the dominant political narrative of the critics and
educated classes so that people trip over each other to make the
boldest most stark declarations to display their bonafides – this
is what most movie criticism is reduced to as evidenced my the
increasing divide between professional critics and the general
audience.
But, like Joker’s
trick gun shooting a “bang” flag, the movie is a big sleight of
hand. What I expected to see was Joker induced mayhem and a common
man’s decent into madness. What I didn’t expect to see was
priggish indictment of unfunded social services and the rich. Mind
you, I agree that social service funding is important and the extreme
wealth disparity is cruel and unjust. But I found myself thinking
about these things while watching a comic book movie about a villain
dressed as a clown who antagonizes a man dressed as a bat. Granted,
good art has a deeper message but this one was so clearly shoehorned
in order to placate critics that it changes the character of the
film. Essentially the filmmakers made a film for the critics
compromising whatever vision they had. What does come through is an
agitprop work of rebellion that should have appealed to the critics
who expected a film about a socially isolated young white man driven
to homicidal insanity by unfavorable life circumstances.
The film takes place
in a New York City inspired Gotham of 1981. This was a period of
urban blight and crime. Why it takes place in this period is anyone’s
guess, but the most obvious answer is to pay homage to Scorsese's
Taxi Driver and his later film: The King of Comedy;
both star De Niro who plays a talk show host in Joker.
Lawrence Sher’s excellent cinematography show the copious graffiti
and grime of the city without it looking too muddy or dark. Joaquin
Phoenix’s does a great job but has played these kinds of characters
before so it blunts the experience of seeing him gyrate madly in full
costume on some outdoor stairs in the city.
The crime of New
York city in the late 1970s and early 80s is legendary-which is hard
to believe since some of the formerly crime ridden neighborhoods are
now home to multi-million dollar properties. Films like Walter Hill’s
The Warriors (1979) Daniel Petrie’s Fort Apache the Bronx
(1981), and John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13
(1976) dramatized the increased fear of urban crime and lawless
cities in the aftermath of white flight and disinvestment. Crime was
so rampant that many feared public places like Central Park or using
public transit; especially the graffiti covered subway where muggings
were common. The Joker clearly takes inspiration from the notorious
New York city case of Bernhard Goetz who, in 1984, shot 3 young
African American men on the train. Goetz, a slight white man, had
been mugged before and decided to carry a pistol for self defense. He
claimed the men tried to rob him so he shot them. He was dubbed the
“subway vigilante” and praised by some as a hero who stood up to
roaming groups of lawless youth or a terrible racist who needlessly
shot 3 black kids by others – the case galvanized the city and
beyond. Goetz was eventually acquitted and New York city changed
dramatically since those years of urban decay and street crime.
In the movie, Joker
shoots 3 young men just like Goetz on a grimy subway car, but in the
film they are the opposite of Goetz’s victims. Not poor black kids,
but wealthy white wall street yuppies who harass a woman and provoke
Joker. I got the feeling that the filmmakers wanted to make up for
the depiction of youth of color who assault him on the street in the
opening of the film while he’s working as a street clown holding
advertisements. In any case, there is obvious concern with the race
and class of these characters which is understandable but it also
forces the viewer to consider how these choices affect the narrative.
What were wealthy wall street types doing on a filthy train at night?
The 1980s was a time
of urban and racial strife. The kind of racial anxiety stoked by
Ronald Reagan’s campaign and use of racially objectionable imagery
of a “welfare queen” who bilked the government out of thousands
of dollars. Reagan used her as a symbol of the misuse of tax dollars
and a justification for rolling back social welfare programs. This
was the time of trickle down economics and Oliver Stone’s Wall
Street, so when the film uses Joker’s killing as a catalyst for
anachronistic anti-rich demonstrations it’s clear that it’s the
current political climate that shaped that plot point. The 1980s
were not a hotbed of radical activism, so the movement against the
wealthy of Gotham just doesn't make sense and gives the Joker a
righteous political justification for his behavior and origin despite
the fact that he is essentially a homicidal nihilist. The fact that
the character remarks that he doesn’t care about the politics shows
the filmmakers obligation to fealty to his essential character. But
it’s not enough because Joker is an agent of chaos and the
challenge was to make a film about a character who is a vicious
sociopath – a daunting task in any time but impossible in an age of
heightened cultural angst.
Joker’s origin has
always been a mystery and that mystery is part of the character’s
allure, so any attempt to tell it is fraught. Alan Moore’s and
Brian Bolland’s comic the Killing Joke is still the best
attempt to date and the film didn’t try to use it. Joker’s
failure as a comedian was the only thing they translated to the
screen. The comic is more tragic and relatable; an everyman forced
into desperate situation by circumstances and looses his mind. The
film shows Joker as someone struggling with mental illness already.
His life is problematic but his problems are too particular. They
needed to be more universal, but that might have been another
cautious choice by the filmmakers to avoid any kind of universality
that could be a criticism as something that could inspire someone in
real life. His social awkwardness and lack of success with his
apparent love interest are not sources of angst so much as they are
pathetic. In this case, it’s hard to be sympathetic to the
character which could provoke or inspire the viewer. Instead we’re
made into passive and uninvested viewers. I think they didn’t want
to rile anyone up considering the worry.
Timothy Williams’s
Brightburn should have been the film to worry about as a
rallying cry for bullied and awkward young white men. The film
slipped under the radar but tells the story of a young boy who feels
mistreated and victimized. The young boy happens to have superpowers
and uses them to extract revenge on his parents and perceived
enemies. The film crystallizes the all too common sense of
alienation, rejection, and loss of entitlement that so many young men
face in the United States today. It is also a subversive power
fantasy that the viewer can vicariously experience; especially if
that viewer can relate to the main character-Joker is not
nearly as as “dangerous” or provocative.
Historically,
artists have always pushed boundaries and challenged convention. They
rejected enforced conformity and shunned coercion and the dictates of
society or authority to impose restraints on their expression. The
Joker filmmakers allowed the zeitgeist to dictate the course
or certain aspects of the film – they compromised in order to
either avoid conflict or controversy or appease people who were going
to hate the movie either way – art making held hostage by outside
interference usually results in a mediocrity. One need only to look
at Stanley Kubrick’s last film Eyes Wide Shut (1999) for an
example of studio interference which compromised the artistic vision
of the filmmaker.
The Joker has become
a major Hollywood success, so there are likely to be many similar
films to follow. But sadly, the film has little artistic or narrative
merit. The filmmakers managed to make a Joker film that gives us the
form of Joker, but none of his essence- which
apparently is good enough for mass appeal. The controversy petered
out in the aftermath of the film’s
release; if anything the critics who feared it should have
cheered, but of course the content of the film was never the point in
the age of symbolic demonstrations of morality and cathartic
political performance meant for public preening and reputation
enhancement more that actually changing anything. The fear that this
would be a nihilistic film inspiring young white lonely men to
violence was totally unfounded – in fact it is a film about the
privations of austerity and lack of social funding for disadvantaged
people that happened to have a comic book villain in it.
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