Thread by @emteehall

OK fuck it, here are all my opinions about the Joker Movie which none of you asked for:

Reviews already exist abt Joker Movie, abt how it aggrandizes incels and is tone deaf for our times and seems likely to court more acts of mass violence, and I agree with all those reviews.

Women are used in the film singularly as those who disappoint, never living up to offer what Arthur needs to be a good person.

It is all, ultimately, his mother’s fault. It feels very much like a movie written by rich people afraid of the poor, by men resentful of women, and oddly, specifically WOC.

It’s worth noting that the movie isn’t 100% BAD, Joaquin Phoenix gives an excellent performance. He always does, though. Name a thing he was bad in. He’s an extraordinary talent, and this movie highlights that even as it disappoints in every other way.

The greatest sins of this movie aren’t even about the context of the times that it was released in, or its representational faux pas— it’s that it’s a boring movie. And it’s not even as good as the best performance of the Joker, which I think is Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight.

And I think you can see why one is powerful and terrifying, and the other is just boring by examining each of their catch phrases.

In JOKER, Arthur’s refrain is: Put on a Happy Face. Firstly, this could be the catch phrase of the functional and depressed.

It’s a game of pretense most of us play at some point, but especially, I’d argue, cis and trans women, nonbinary and trans men and MOC play so regularly that it’s hardly frightening to us. That’s our fucking life.

It seems only white cis men think the obfuscation of their struggle is something fascinating, probably since toxic masculinity has denied them the avenues to discuss it.

Put on a Happy Face is not a scary catch phrase is that it’s predicated on the existence of kindness. Of happiness. That there IS good in the world, and it’s just scary and sad that we have to pretend to experience it even when we do not.

Arther Fleck’s story in Joker is a strictly linear one. Bad things are done unto him and so he does bad things. But he is AWARE of kindness, he craves it, pursues it. When he is denied it, he acts out violently, His psychology, his motivations are clear.

This is not the creation of a terrifying actor of chaos so much as it is the very mundane creation of violence, but with the added choice of aggrandizing it. He’s literally applauded in the end.

Compare this to Heath Ledger’s Joker, whose catch phrase is WHY SO SERIOUS. With those three words, Ledger’s Joker laughs in the face of anything we may consider holy, or pure, or good. Nothing in his eyes is worth taking seriously, not human life, not pain, not wealth, not love.

It’s predicated on the notion that the universe is not only a cold and indifferent place, but that it’s absurd to see anything within it besides cruelty and chaos. It’s a gleeful nihilist’s catch phrase,

and it also cuts to the core of what can go wrong with comedy— not that it masks pain. But that it can add to the suffering of the world by laughing at those who suffer from its cruelty and capriciousness. Look to Shane Gillis for an example of this in real life.

Ledger’s Joker’s laughter is not self pity. It’s mocking *everyone*, without even self importance to anchor it. He baffles the other criminals but not even wanting all the money he's stolen for himself. What does he need it for? He doesn't *need* anything.

Why is he like that? We don’t know. What would it take to “make” him? He’ll never tell us. Or at least, he’ll never tell us the truth. And so we’re left to imagine. Which will always be scarier, because our own imaginations will cater to our own most terrible and secret fears.

In the end he's caught, but not stopped. He’s not killed like Harvey Dent. So the conclusion is that senseless cruelty will always exist, no matter the efforts of Batman, or ALL of Gotham City. Even in unity we can’t destroy him.

We can only hope to arrest the cataclysm he promises to enact.

Which is a way better story, with a way better villain, than the tale of a shitty stand up comedian turned murderer.

I'm not saying "don't go see Joker."

If you want to, go ahead. Joaquin Phoenix IS amazing.

I'm just saying I'd rather spend my money (I saw it for free) on good villains, not predictable ones.