A devoured son embraces evil.
Readership: All
Theme: The Gift of Singleness
Length: 700 words
Reading Time: 4 minutes
The Story
Joker is a 2019 comic book character origin story directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix.
For those who think that comic books and comic book movies are kids’ stuff, allow me to assure you that this movie is NOT for kids. In fact, it’s barely a comic book movie. It feels as though it started out as a stand-alone story, and someone read it and thought “Hey, this would make a great origin story for The Joker!”
But it’s more than that. Much more. This is a dark, DARK story, much more so than most fans realize, I think.
The story is set in the early 1980s in the fictional Gotham City, which stands in for every decaying, crime-ridden American big city. There is garbage everywhere, because the city sanitation department is on strike, echoing the 1981 New York City garbage strike. No one cares about anyone but themselves. The only person who appears to have any hint of optimism is Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), a billionaire philanthropist who is running for mayor. Yes, that’s Bruce Wayne’s father. Bruce (Dante Pereira-Olson) makes two brief appearances, but he’s a child, so there’s no Batman.
The titular character (definitely not a hero) is Arthur Fleck, played by a starved Joaquin Phoenix. Arthur works for an agency that hires out clowns for parties, events, advertising, etc. Arthur’s dream is to be standup comedian, but he’s held back by mental illness and his relationship with his mother.
And that’s where things get dark.
The story is mostly told from Arthur’s perspective, and Arthur is crazy, so he is an unreliable narrator, but we get glimpses of reality through the news, documents, and other characters.
The Insanity
Joker is one of the most anti-single-mom movies I’ve ever watched. Arthur’s mother — Penny (Frances Conroy) — parasitizes Arthur. I don’t know if the filmmakers did this on purpose, but Joaquin Phoenix’s skeletal figure is a great visual representation of what Penny does to him emotionally. She’s sucks the life out of him. We learn from documents that Penny’s boyfriends abused Arthur when he was a child, which caused the mental illness that causes Arthur so much pain.
There is one iconic scene in which Arthur is dancing madly down a long, broad staircase strewn with rubbish and surrounded by rough stone walls. It is a vivid allegory of his descent into darkness.
Arthur’s final descent into evil begins when he k!lls three men on the subway (that’s in most of the trailers, so it’s not a spoiler). Arthur believes he k!lled them in self defense, but he’s an unreliable narrator, so we don’t know that to be true. The k!lling inadvertently starts a movement of young men rioting in clown masks that imitate Arthur’s clown makeup. Eventually, Arthur embraces this movement and becomes its leader.
Arthur is a Son-Husband that escaped his devouring mother by embracing masculinity in the form of violence, evil, and chaos. This is more than just a fictional storyline. Many Son-Husbands, starved of masculinity, turn to violent criminal gangs as the only source of masculinity available to them.
The Epilogue
2019 seems like a lifetime ago, so it’s easy to forget about all the controversy that surrounded this movie when it debuted. Arthur was an !ncel who became violent, so the argument was that it would inspire !ncels in real life to become terr0r!sts.
Obviously, the feared !ncel apocalypse never happened. Surprise!
However, Arthur’s story did resonate with many young men. It grossed over $1 billion with only a $55 million budget. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Young men grow up under the female thumb, raised by single mothers and taught by female teachers, only to be told that they are oppressors and all the world’s evils are their fault.
Of course they’re angry. Who wouldn’t be?
Joker is an excellent film. I can’t think of a single bad performance. It’s disturbing and sad, but has enough humor sprinkled in that it’s not a slog. Even though Arthur is no hero, he is a sympathetic character, so his descent into evil fills the viewer with conflicting emotions. There’s no happy ending, but it’s still a weird kind of triumph for Arthur.
I see Joker as a cautionary tale that warns against single motherhood, and the wrong way for a Son-Husband to escape his devouring mother.
Joker is currently streaming on Max and Amazon Prime.
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