JOKER’S DOUBLE BIND
Joker is an ambiguous playing card. He can replace any other card in the deck. Taken on face value, Joker means nothing. In this way, the card invites all possible readings, while at the same resisting any reading. Take this concept to the cinema, and you get Todd Phillips's JOKER - a film that plays Poker Face on its audiences.
Joaquin Phoenix is Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comedian with a laughing disorder. Living in a co-dependency with his ailing mother Penny, Arthur is jobless and depressed. He has no social life – people reject him because of his strange laughter. He gets beaten up, harassed and abandoned by the social services. Arthur becomes violent, killing three people in a subway incident. The violence inspires Gotham City’s underclasses to start a masked revolution.
Arthur never gets a diagnosis, but his ambivalent laughter may be likened to double-bind communication. The double bind refers to a simple psychological concept: an individual receives two contradictory messages, with each message negating the other. A typical example is a mother telling her child: "Be spontaneous." If the child acts spontaneously, he is not acting spontaneously because he is following his mother's direction. As a result, the child may lose his grip on reality.
True to his family name, Arthur represents nothing. To become the Joker, he must first establish himself in society. Opportunity arrives when Murray Franklin asks Arthur to appear in his comedy show. This is yet another contradiction. On the one hand, society is showing acceptance, finally giving Arthur a chance in the spotlight. On the other hand, Murray invited Arthur only to ridicule his lack of talent. Arthur’s pent-up anger turns into a violent rebellion. Finally, he becomes the dreaded anti-hero Joker. But the triumph is fleeting. Joker’s success comes from violence. His creative impulse turns into destruction. Even worse, his role as a vigilante serves Gotham city’s sinister authorities. The system scapegoats Joker’s violence as the culprit of evil. Meanwhile, the government’s creation of social inequality remains hidden.
Polarized reactions confirm the impact of this poker-faced design. Leftists see the Joker as a social justice warrior. Liberals see him as a righteous vigilante. Christians recognize a crucified Jesus, or the God of vengeance. Boomers might think of a failed Anarchist, Millennials might cheer the modern Nihilist. Common to all these reactions is a feeling of paralysis. The thought that we can neither live in an unjust system, nor succeed as individuals.
The double bind is difficult, but not entirely hopeless. As Einstein said, ‘’No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.’’ There are two ways to approach this. We can embrace the double bind, enjoy our suffering in a failed system. Or we can think of the double bind as an opportunity to create something entirely new.