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Some (late and rambling) thoughts: Arthur's mom suffers lots of gendered violence - everything to do with Thomas Wayne (corroborated by the "love your smile - TW" picture), later domestic abuse, and a text fragment from her files implies she had a lobotomy done to her. Her name is "Penny Fleck", two insignificant things, which Arthur calls attention to in the hospital scene ("I always hated that name"). His own name, in comparison, could be read as a grandiose first name (King Arthur) attached to that same insignificant surname - the tension between high and low self-image that's common in narcissism. Subway scene was a reference to the Bernhard Goetz killings, but everyone picked up on that one. If the movie is supposed to be about Fleck's journey into seeing himself as the Joker, then why does he still consider himself "mentally ill" by the time he shoots Murray? By that point in the film, he's already: - killed the subway guys (including the one he chased down and shot in the back) and found that it "hasn't bothered him" - told his therapist that he finally feels like he "really exists, and people are starting to notice" - chosen to identify with his uncontrollable laughter - which wasn't even mental illness, from his mother's files it's heavily implied that it was caused by brain trauma from abuse suffered when he was a child, which makes it a neurological problem. Arthur already knew this, even: the explainer card that he hands to the concerned mother on the bus says "it can happen in people with a brain injury or certain neurological conditions". - killed his mother after delivering the tragedy/comedy line - killed his co-worker, worn the getup, asked to be called Joker. His character development is almost finished - so why "mentally ill", rather than "this is who I was meant to be"? None of Travis Bickle, Rupert Pupkin or Heath Ledger's Joker saw themselves as such; whatever mental illnesses they may have had were egosyntonic, they all saw themselves as the perfectly justified heroes of their own stories. I don't see any indication that we're supposed to disagree with his line, either (although killing Murray is framed as an unjustified response). "Defunding mental health is bad" seems to be one of the few positions the film actually takes, along with "1% strawmen are bad (but angry mobs of proles are bad too)". I understand it's the same scene where he makes his extremely unconvincing claim to be "apolitical", but "my whole character arc was bullshit" seems like a different issue.
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Dec 23, 2019 10:30
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 04:01 |
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Was that directed at me? I didn't say it was a leftist movie, I just mentioned gender-coded violence and an unsympathetic billionaire character.
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Dec 24, 2019 02:15
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