#joker analysis

[veresov]

What if I told you the Joker is actually mentally healthy?

An interesting theory, isn’t it? Let’s try to dig into it.

Let’s start small. Logic.

At first glance, it seems like the Joker has none. He acts chaotically. He doesn’t follow any rules we’re used to understanding. But. There is a pattern to his actions. And that’s an important criterion.

People who are truly psychotic often lack logic as such. Or rather, it exists, but...

a) It’s extremely hard to trace.

b) It has no consistency.

In mentally ill people, cause-and-effect relationships are often broken. And logic is built precisely on that. You do something – you get a result. You don’t do something – you still get a result. Psychologically unstable people often don’t grasp this. They act without analyzing their actions. What? Why? For what purpose? They don’t ask these questions. There’s no rationality there – only irrationality, something closer to primitive instincts like fight or flight.

Yes, if you look at the Joker superficially, logic seems completely absent. Most of his actions appear disconnected, random. At first glance, it feels like he does things simply because he feels like it. But. If you look closer and start connecting everything he does, you can see that he’s leading everyone to a very specific outcome. He literally plays with other people’s minds. He makes them believe one thing while, in reality, something entirely different is happening.

And this brings us to the next criterion: awareness.

Lack of awareness of one’s own actions is one of the main patterns of madness. Mad people don’t fully understand what they’re doing. Many psychologists argue that there isn’t just one person living inside us, but several: the ego, the superego, and the unconscious. Depending on the degree of madness, one of these parts takes control. In psychotic individuals, the unconscious dominates. That’s precisely why they often don’t realize what they’re doing.

You could say that the unconscious doesn’t know how to speak. It can hear, see, and perceive things, but it has no direct connection to consciousness – to the “I.”

And this is exactly where the Joker doesn’t fit. He knows perfectly well what he’s doing and what he’s about to do. That already rules out classic madness. This is something else. Something like a radically different coordinate system of thinking. As if he consciously chose the path he’s on. And the insane don’t choose – they simply act.

Honesty.

Some might say this is a questionable criterion. But in reality, it’s one of the strongest hooks in the Joker’s personality. The Joker usually doesn’t lie. He might exaggerate, embellish, or leave something unsaid – but he doesn’t outright lie. He’s a narcissist, not a hypocrite. And the Joker hates hypocrites.

He doesn’t lie to himself, and certainly not to others. But because everyone around him considers him insane, he’s seen as an unreliable source of truth. And that’s a mistake. He may actually be the only character in DC who doesn’t lie. His truth is just uncomfortable, immoral, and bloody. And it’s easier for society to label him insane than to accept the possibility that he’s telling the truth. After all, he was created to break Batman’s world and prove that Batman’s truth is far too sweet for reality.

Take sources like Christopher Nolan’s «The Dark Knight», the comics «Death of the Family» (2012), «Endgame», or «The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox». The Joker always has one goal: to prove his point of view. And his point of view is simple – the world is ugly, and everyone in it is a mad hypocrite.

So what conclusion can we draw from all this?

The Joker is the final product of the world itself. As if he’s saying:

“Look. The world is so horrifying that it created me.”

Which leads to a disturbing thought: maybe the Joker is the only one who’s truly sane.

What do you think about this?

[never-rub-another-mans-rhubarb]

Drawing parallels between Joker folie a deux (2024) and Batman:the enemy within (2017) , why one worked and the other didn’t

I watched Folie a deux again for the first time in two years and noticed quite a few parallels between the portrayal of Joker (aswell as Harley) with the Telltale series. The first time i’d seen it my only understanding of the characters was from movies, so while i already wasn’t fond of the sequel i didn’t really make connections with other media. But now, seeing as the enemy within had a version of the Joker i really enjoyed, and folie a deux was generally a flop, i want to explore why the game worked so well, and the movie didn’t.

To begin i want to establish the similarities, before picking apart the differences and trying to see which ones caused the response from fans to be so different. Also for the sake of keeping this short(er) and clearer, I’m only going to take the villain ending of the enemy within into account

The first parallel i noticed was in how Harley fit into the dynamic. In both the movie and the game we see the usual dynamic between Harley and the Joker switched, with Harley being the one taking advantage of the Joker, being cunning, manipulative and already an established criminal before ever meeting the Joker.

That leads me to the second parallel, with the Joker being shown as a more naive, autistic coded character with allusions to potential DID or BPD tendencies, with a clear switch in behaviour between the persona of the Joker and John/Arthur respectively. (Depending on how you read it, that switch either being literal, with one alter coming to the front, or being more exaggerated and played up as a performance by the Joker when he’s met with his more violent tendencies.)

Another parallel is ofcourse that both are sequels, though John is definitely less built up in the first game than Arthur is in the first movie.

Both Jokers are derailed from a potential path of healing by the sudden falling in love with their respective Harleys.

I think the strongest connection between the two though, stem from the goal of their respective medias with their characters as a whole. To create a more sympathetic Joker. To get the audience to feel bad for him, despite knowing what he’ll become. And while i think it would be a lot more interesting to explore a more sympathetic Joker without reversing the roles in his dynamic with Harley, i do believe that this goal is the main reason for the change in both cases.

As for the differences there is obviously alot. For one, when it comes to the telltale games, the sequel definitely is the glory piece in the eyes of the Joker fans, while with the movies the sequel is considered not just a flop but a wasted opportunity, with the first movie building us up for a grand sequel and then completely failing to deliver.

With John we start to really get to know him only in the sequel, with the first game setting up a tiny bit of intrigue and the second game delivering on the buildup. By the time we meet him properly he is already in love with Harley. Harley is the thing driving him towards a criminal life.

In comparison to Arthur who is already established, already a criminal with multiple murders behind him. Harley, while still being a bad influence, is certainly not his sole reason for becoming the Joker. With him, Harley is more of a cause for relapse.

I also find it important to mention the entire characterisation of Harley in each media. In the enemy within she’s immediately shown to be brutal and manipulative. Her character is clear from the beginning. And while it’s far from anything close to canon, it’s still given proper respect. She’s written out, and her mindset is clear. In folie a deux however she’s initially introduced as a fellow sympathetic character, then unveiled to be an aggressor, before being once again put in a category of someone delusional.

One other big difference i cannot leave unmentioned is the Jokers trauma. Arthurs trauma is well established, childhood violent and sexual abuse, neglect, and being manipulated by his delusional mother make him easier to read for the viewer. We know why he is the way he is, so it’s easier to predict where his behaviour will lead. John on the other hand is left intentionally vague, with the only history of his we get being that he’s been in Arkham for a very long time. Even he doesn’t know what led him to end up there.

Undeniably age is a part of how we perceived the Joker in these medias aswell. Even with their behaviours being similar, a naive young man is always going to be more palatable than a naive middle aged man. Though John’s age is also left vague, by his appearance the player can only assume he is a young adult. And though it’s entirely possible that his looks may be deceiving and he could be much older, we still end up seeing the naivete as less out of place in him, than in Arthur.

And the final big difference that i want to point out is how each sequel connects to it’s origin. The telltale games are a direct continuation of the storyline with a small timeskip inbetween them, while Joker and it’s sequel have a more complicated timeline. In folie a deux it’s said that everything in the first movie has been made into an in universe movie too, leaving the audience questioning weather the original movie is meant to be the story that actually happened, or just a movie in the sequel’s universe.

I think what ultimately made telltales switch of the dynamic and telltales Harley a success was the willingness to commit to the role reversal. The first telltale game already introduced us to a Gotham where the characters were extremely far off from canon. The penguin being someone who turned against wealth after losing his family fortune, instead of trying to regain the money and class that came with it built us up to expect large changes in the stories and identities of the rogues. But in the 2019 Joker we weren’t immediately thrown so off course. Sure, the Joker was given a new name, but considering that the Joker’s backstories are all considered non-canon and the canoness of the name Jack Napier is also questionable Arthur Fleck wasn’t immediately too far from the Joker we knew. Especially at the end of the movie, when leaning fully into the persona of the Joker, it felt like we might still be on a course parallel to canon, so Harley, both as a character and in the dynamic, being so extremely different was unexpected. What’s more is that the enemy within managed to give us a well built identity for Harley. Folie a deux on the other hand muddied the waters alot. The reveal that her initial backstory she told to Arthur was a complete lie was honestly an interesting plot twist. It changed how we view her from just another mental patient to someone cunning, manipulative and destructive. If that would’ve been where her character would’ve been left off it would’ve likely worked alot better. It would’ve been almost as bold of a character reversal as telltale. But when near the end she reveals herself to have been smitten by the fantasy and not by Arthur it overcomplicates things. Putting her back in the position of someone unwell, who became parasocial about the Joker she saw in the movie and not really in love with the real deal. I also think that this change could have worked, if it wasn’t at her last appearance. If there was more scenes with her the audience would have time to process the difference and notice how Arthur finding out about it would’ve changed their dynamic, but instead it was sort of a slap in the face with no real payoff. In general her character came off more confusing, overly complicated and vaguer than the telltale Harley. It’s almost like the writers didn’t really dare to lean fully into the dynamic switch, so they made her fall for a version of the Joker anyway, while telltale Harley retained the indifferent position that the Joker typically takes in their relationship. The dynamic in the movie just comes off half assed.

As for the Jokers, with John he comes off more sincere when bringing up the mental switch between John and Joker than Arthur does, because despite the fact that the switch presents pretty much the same in them, John mentions feeling a part of himself pacing and waiting to pounce when he’s not under pressure to say it. Arthur on the other hand only admits to the potential of himself and the Joker being separate when his lawyer advises him to. So even with the symptom being the same, the character comes off less sincere In Arthur. In that way the audience begins to lose the sympathy built up for Arthur from the first movie, as he suddenly seems almost dishonest.

It would be careless not to bring up ofcourse that sequels are infamously easy to screw up. Telltale always set up the expectation that John would return, meaning a sequel would happen. While the 2019 Joker left the audience fairly content. All loose ends were tied up, and the little bit of ambiguity left in the air of wether or not we should expect a sequel, left me at the very least under the impression that the sequel would happen much later in the timeline. And that it might focus on the first clash between the Joker and Batman, considering the last things we saw being the Joker embracing the chaos he wreaked and Bruce Wayne’s parents being killed. So when the sequel picked up almost exactly where it left off, but with Arthur Fleck having come down from his elevated mental state, it was almost immediately disappointing. In the first movie we were shown how the Joker came to be, with his chaos being so elevated that the expectation was that this was a permanent change in character, and then we were thrown back to a calmer, more reasonable, more naive Arthur. Telltale’s sequel worked well because the first game didn’t set the bar for the Joker very high, so it was fairly quick and easy to deliver above expectation. 2019 Joker however set the bar in the clouds, and then dug a deep pit for the sequel to start in. Leaving once again the impression of half-assed-ness in the writing of the sequel. Like committing to the change to Arthurs character from the end of the first movie was too scary, so they just took it back.

With John we are met with a man who is healing, but who is at a more stable stage of healing. He’s been in the same state for a very long time, and relied heavily on a steady environment for that stability. So Harley getting into his head and destabilising him makes more sense. He’s been released from Arkham for the first time that he remembers. And having relied so heavily on being used to the environment he is already in a less stable state, more vulnerable for Harley to burst in and take advantage. It feels logical to every part of his character we have learned about. But for Arthur, he isn’t thrown into a sudden destabilising situation when Harley is introduced. If anything, he is more stable than ever before. The instability we see in the first movie is something that built up over his whole life, and we meet him again when he’s back on medication (that for once seems to be working), in an unchanging environment (Arkham), where he doesn’t have the turbulent relationships or the obligation to work like he did on the outside. So Harley managing so quickly to destabilise him seems very out of the blue, leading Arthur to seem more pathetic than sympathetic.

In both medias we see a break up between Harley and the Joker. In John’s case we see him become self destructive in his depression, which very much fits into his behaviour patterns. In Arthur’s case though, we shockingly don’t. Despite the fact that Arthur has previously well established patterns of self destruction during times of distress, we don’t see him doing it after Harley has left him, which in a way feels like a betrayal of the first movie. It’s inconsistent with the character built up so far and drives the wedge between the first movie and the second deeper.

There is one factor that in a way doomed folie a deux from the beginning. It’s a matter of foreshadowing versus building up a character. The first movie already built up the Joker as a character, and foreshadowed a Batman. But the second movie failed to take advantage of the foreshadowing of Batman, and instead veered off course into something completely disconnected. This could’ve been prevented if A. the second movie was made about Batman and the Joker. Or B. If the first movie had foreshadowed Harley Quinn instead. In the telltale games John was only foreshadowed in the first game, so building him up in the second felt right. But in the Joker movies, Arthur was already built up in the first movie, and then he was sort of cycled and built up again in the second, while also introducing a character that was never foreshadowed, and then NOT introducing the character who was. That being Batman. Which brings me to…

As you may have noticed, throughout this rant i have rarely mentioned Batman, and completely avoided bringing up the relationship between Bruce and John in the telltale games. And that is by design, as i wanted to save the best for last. I think ultimately the biggest reason why John’s story worked better than Folie a deux did, was because of Batman. It’s well established across versions, that the Joker isn’t fully the Joker without Batman, and Batman isn’t fully Batman without the Joker. With most stories either having the Joker create Batman, or Batman create the Joker. And in Folie a deux, that specifically gets neglected. In the first movie we have interactions between Arthur and young Bruce, and so the timeline created means that Batman cannot yet exist in the sequel considering how close together the two movies are in time. This is the downfall of the movie. Because without even a bit of Batman, the Joker isn’t nearly as interesting. Especially next to John, whose villain origin story is directly based on the choices the player makes as Bruce. That is, not to mention that the Joker meeting Harley before Batman even exists is absolutely wild.

Uhm also yk folie a deux was a musical and also had french words in its title which already makes any movie immidiately more disliked..

Anyhow, uhh i love the Joker, i love John, i love the first movie Arthur and uhh i pray that i’m not delulu in drawing these parallels ok

[edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

im high pls dont make me name my batjokes meta

this post may be implicit/common knowledge, but having not seen much discourse around the mechanics of batjokes' dynamic compels me to catalog. there's sm to unpack here, so excuse lapses in structure or flow.

first off and most importantly, joker's battle with bruce is an existential one, he wants to justify himself in the eyes of his maker, his reshaper, whose perpetual control and prowling enabled, and ultimately exposed, the failure of his veneer of heroism and ability/adeptness, and birthed a distillation of that failure. the failure to circumvent criminality and violence, continually indulging retaliative brutality and unresolved anger, edging catharsis in assuming a protective and dominant role as to compensate for his loss and pantomime vicarious past reclamation and authority. constantly stagnant, incessantly unfulfilled, an everlasting outburst if you will, addressing not his material conditions but feeding his metaphysical ones. joker moulds himself around bruce's worldview, concerning himself with the salvation eternally eluding bruce, achievable through the violence that birthed batman and reinvented joker in turn.

this is a dialectical affliction, one desperate in nature, to validate that he wasn’t a mistake, a deviancy, to prove that a singular, perhaps seemingly insignificant element can transform anyone, unchain them, and joker refuses alternatives because batman forever dances, is forever chained by both his insistence on normalcy, but also his neglect of it. joker wants foremost, to matter to his creator, to break perfunctory monotony and elicit true understanding and oneness, have his existence be purposeful and intentioned, proving himself worthy, the one that finally cracks the elusive figure and chiefly, achieves ordainment in the eyes of his saviour — embrace, his personhood returned to his creator’s hands as to ascend batman into godhood, inextricably coalescing them.

it’s a labour of love, devotion, joker truly loves THe BaTmaN, bleeds and lives and offers up gothamite sacrifices as to resuscitate his vacancy, bless him with unadulterated purpose, validate the meaningless of the earthly. ultimately, batjokes are cyclical, that: from ash you were birthed and to ash you shall return, sh1t. what confuses that however, is how dialectical they are (as aforementioned), they embody a yin & yang dynamic after all. however, ultimately, joker wants to birth the batman who laughs [like when you think about it — batman realizing joker's philosophy and transcending humanity], to eliminate bruce's restraint and contradictory morality as to, ironically, create a pure, militant reaper encompassing gotham's brutality and abandon. joker is fighting for gotham's soul in more ways than one, on the physical level — crippling its normative function, inundating it with senseless violence, and on a metaphysical level, fighting for its symbol of order and constraint, someone who arose as an abstract embodiment of gotham's institutional enforcement, a distillation of authoritative fear, gotham’s punitive restrictiveness, the abstraction of otherworldly, insurmountable power, an inverted reflection of the very thing bruce is and was unable to overcome, aiming to strip them of their defences as to coax their primality, a violent denuding as to be sculpted anew, the same enlightenment he was afforded. to be broken so thoroughly that you become pure. to shatter pretence and baptize gotham, or its seemingly intractable moral paragon, in hedonistic freedom, uniting them with his gory rebirth. and joker, with this hedonistic perspective, recognizes that capacity in batman, recognizes it as his truth as one who was born from that brutality and violence and continues to endure it, seeing it as the purest form of expression and the underlying nature of existence.

he glamorizes his own death at the hands of the one who rebirthed him bc it will rebirth his creator in turn, allowing him to fully embody his godhood. it will afford the joker true meaning — once again my metas coming back to the struggle for existence but universal themes gonna universe [with the melody] — however, bc of the dialectics of batjokes, the struggle is a testament to their bond, it’s a seduction, a courtship, its authenticity and potency dictated by scale and intensity (aka their Stockholm is mad), the commitment to enduring joker’s forcible conversions, and foremost, to joker martyring himself to batman’s perpetual aggrieved ministrations, the irony in trying to fix someone through cruelty, conflict everlasting in one’s subjugating machinations. the more joker seizes, the further his cost sinks. bruce becomes steadily entrapped with and by the one person who can never leave him, the magnitude of those around him continually strained against the joker, the onus to humanize a sadistic, inhumane murderer forever ballooning. joker’s mortality, his humanity becoming further pathologized, his undying ceaselessness a type of consolation, a mark on bruce’s own consciousness, to save the one person forever bound to him, justifying his heroism and the incongruity between them, the fundamentalist moral dividing them: do not kill. batman's consideration, thusly, is birthed from a deep resentment, the flagellation of abstinence, maintaining the one thing delineating human from unfeeling instrument [of violence]. that resentment festering into a neurotic sort of dependency, joker acting as his NorthStar of morality, subsuming his sense of self, entrancing and ensnaring him. without the joker, batman is slowly cannibalized, unable to exist. whatever, i’m tired. this better be good enough cause its going up either way.

to conclude, this song [pay for it by jeff and the mindful selfless chastites]

encompasses batjokes perfectly. the eternal struggle, the damned position and conundrum batjokes find themselves saddled with, their respective lives being their sort of penance, an inability to ever truly connect without eliminating the other, love transmorphed into a twisted, destructive passion disinterested in its untainted iteration and consequently further estranging them.

(there was another song too but i forgor 🤷🏿‍♂️ [AN: not bc i was high, i could not conceive of this high)

[whobloidlostingublerland]

(Joker Folie á Deux spoilers…..analysis/rant )

Say what you will about Joker Folie Á Deux but I loved the flip in dynamic they did with Joker & Harley’s relationship. I loved the angel Todd took in introducing Harley when Arthur was in such a vulnerable place mentally & emotional. I loved how Harley was the manipulator & bad influence on him this time around instead of the other way around as it’s often depicted. Harley is smart, strong independent & as portrait in the film cunning. sure she was the literal representation of all of the people who didn’t quite got the message of the first film & only took it at face value, idolizing the Joker’s violent acts & how those actions created chaos & mayhem. I loved how she egged him on to get worst instead of well which touched on their inherently toxic dynamic that is so often seen as Joker twisting her around instead of her twisting him. it was refreshing & played well with Joaquin’s vulnerable, broken mentally ill Joker who never wanted to harm anyone, but simply got pushed to his limits by society & snapped. In Harley’s & everyone else’s minds who idolized that moment in Arthur’s life, who falsely projected on to him their own inner darkness & desire for chaos & wrongly believe that because he snapped he finally showed his true colors which is explicitly depicted in the film is simply not true.

Arthur continued to be a vulnerable, soft spoken man who simply wanted to be accepted & helped but fell through the cracks of an uncaring society since childhood. I am still processing the film as a whole, & have so much more to say. But Jesus in my opinion it was exquisitely executed & told the story it needed to tell.

for those of you who are complaining about the musical numbers & felt it was probably overdone, I ask you to view them from the point of view of Arthur’s unwell mental state. Imagine being trapped in a cage day in & day out, still being ridiculed for what was at the time your moment of “breaking into freedom” of “accepting” who you thought was your true self in a moment of absolute break down as a human being.

since the first film one of Arthur’s scape was music. & it only makes sense that what is in his mind is one of the very few things he still has control over so it makes perfect sense that after meeting Lee in that music class he will retrete into more & more elaborate musical numbers in his mind to help him cope with the street of the trial & the re traumatizaron of basically reliving all of the awful things that happened to him throughout his life & face the darkness that made him so twisted to begin with.

if you pay attention to when the director chose to include each musical it is always when Arthur is going under a lot of stress. When he is locked in solitary, even he is at the trial the lawyer is talking about all of the awful things his mother thought about him. When you look at it through that lense it only but makes sense he had to retreat into his mind, into something that would take him away from the reality he was living.

Arthur is a loving, gentle person but he also commited multiple murders, all under stress sure, but that doesn’t take away the fact that he actively chose to commit murder after murder after the first incident that lead to the death of the tree bullies in the train. You can write that one off as him defending himself rightfully so at first with the first man. But feeling that rush, that power the gun in his hands gave him he chose to take out his anger & frustration he carried with himself for his entire life probably on the other two & then on the rest of his victims.

this film exposes you to many ugly realities in society. & I can expand on those for another 20 paragraphs but I think I will stop here because I think the movie was excellently made. It was brilliantly executed & continued the first movie’s story in a way that gives the original tone & message of the story justice.

I honestly have to go watch it again & I am sure I will see even more well crafted gems into the story as I urge everyone to do. To rewatch it & try to experience it for what it is & not through tainted Harley Quinzel glasses of the violent fantasy of joker you think this mentally ill, vulnerable, low IQ portrait of the man should have been.

[gigachad-joker]

At the end of Batman: The Killing Joker, Batman doesn't want to kill Joker he doesn't even want to beat Joker senselessly after everything. He wants to ‘bring him in by the book’. He wants to fulfill both his and Jim's ideals of showing Joker that the system can still work and that the world isn’t as bleak as Joker makes it seem to be. It makes me wonder if Joker ever wanted to get better. If he had ever envisioned a life for himself outside of crime, outside of being The Joker. or if he is just living in an echo chamber of his own ideals. He’s mentally ill, he’s resisted accepting change for so long and so has batman as their relationship has never taken any step towards change in the slightest (and never will seeing as Joker only gets more brutal in New 52) but now with a possibility of a new way forward he looks… sad? He looks unsure? of both himself and Batman.

Is Joker resistant to change or is he resistant to wanting to get better? Because being ‘insane’ means his actions and choices and the way he looks has meaning behind it all? Or because the change would mean his and Batman's relationship would truly end the moment he said yes. Because fighting one another is the closest Joker can get to having a 'relationship' with Batman without actually going through the trivialities of what real-world dating would be like for them.

in New 52 Alfred talks about how the story of Batman is a tragedy. That there is no happy ending. At the end of Batman: The Killing Joker the bridge of light we see in the rain puddle that eventually goes out is clearly a metaphor for Joker's earlier joke. Someone turned off the flashlight and left the other man to die. Now, who turned it off and which man was left, and what these nuances could mean is incredibly up to debate. But I think the very existence of this panel and now being able to consider how DC's comic line has morphed and changed since The Killing Joke's release, this panel feels more like a warning. Yes, the story of Batman is a tragedy and we would be fools to think that his and Joker's relationship will ever be more than what it currently is. Someone will always turn out the light and someone will always end up dying because of that decision.

[sadclownkingg]

A Scene-by-Scene Joker (2019) Analysis: Part 1/?

The first part of what I wrote in my Cursed Notebook™ instead of sleeping/doing my schoolwork a month ago. Basically what I did is I watched the movie one time through, then started it over from the beginning and stopped after every scene to recap and infer what Arthur’s inner thoughts/motivations are. I went through an entire pen writing all this down and I was also very sleep-deprived so prepare yourselves. (I’ve also seen this movie 12 times now so I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about, but if you have any concerns, just message me!)

Before the Movie (+ Diagnosis):

Arthur Fleck is completely alone in this world, with no one to lean on except for his mother. And he is forced to take care of her due to her old age and fragility, all the while facing near-total isolation and societal backlash for just trying to do his job or his neurological condition/mental illness.

Given the abuse he faced as a child, at the hands of his mother's boyfriend, and the head trauma explicitly mentioned later in the film, that could be the origin of his Pseudobulbar affect (pathological laughter). Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) "is a condition that's characterized by episodes of sudden uncontrollable and inappropriate laughing or crying. Pseudobulbar affect typically occurs in people with certain neurological conditions or injuries, which might affect the way the brain controls emotion," and has "traumatic brain injury" as a common cause. The way I see it, the "severe trauma to his head" he experienced as a kid is the direct cause of his pathological laughter, meaning that he has spent the vast majority of his life dealing with this condition and it is mainly his own mother's fault. This makes the fact that his "mother" is the only person he has left even more frustrating and tragic. Pseudobulbar Affect is also known to cause/amplify anxiety, depression, and social isolation, meaning his obvious depressive symptoms may stem from the rejection he feels due to his laughing condition.

Also, although I know that even the writers behind the film say that diagnosing Arthur is pretty much useless, I still feel it is important to mention some possible diagnoses. Due to his severe depression throughout the majority of the movie, one could assume he simply has Clinical Depression. However, when paired with his transformation into the Joker at the end of the film and his obviously manic state, this leads one to believe that Bipolar Disorder could be the culprit. But then there is also his hallucinations and delusions, which suggests the presence of some type of schizophrenia. Psychosis, or loss of touch with reality (exhibited by the aforementioned hallucinations and delusions), is a symptom commonly linked with schizophrenia and similar disorders, and is typically caused by trauma and extreme stress. The psychotic episodes we see in the film, from his relationship with Sophie to the audience reactions we hear when he's practicing for the Murray Franklin Show, all center around either erotomanic delusions or grandiose delusions. Erotomanic delusions are when the disordered person believes someone is in love with them with no real evidence (Sophie), and grandiose delusions are when the person believes that they have much greater worth and power than they do, and that they may be famous with a bunch of adoring fans (the Joker persona).

With the presence of psychotic episodes, this narrows the amount of possible diagnoses. It is unlikely that Psychotic Disorder or Paranoid/Hebephrenic Schizophrenia are responsible due to their explicit tendency to completely disrupt the sufferer's life and negatively affect communication/speech patterns (which isn't noticeable in Arthur's case). Delusional Disorder seems likely, but he meets too many of the criteria of another disorder for it to be his sole diagnosis. This disorder is Schizoaffective Disorder, and is "a chronic mental health condition that involves symptoms of both schizophrenia and a mood disorder like major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder.” This diagnosis seems much more apt for Arthur, due to the heavy emphasis on his depressive and manic states and the delusional/hallucinatory symptoms. Schizoaffective Disorder is also likely caused by extreme stress (which Arthur faces a lot of) or structural brain issues (head trauma can cause structures in the brain to be damaged).

Sorry for the long tangent, but I felt it was necessary to set the scene for how Arthur processes the events that happen to him throughout the film.

His mental illness and condition make his life incredibly difficult and emotionally draining. Even his job, which is something he seems to really enjoy, only causes more problems for him, and pushes more people away. And even though he loves his job, he dreams of being comedian rather than just a party clown, probably hoping for more respect while still doing the thing he loves: making people laugh. His sense of humor is rather off-beat, focusing on self-deprecation, dry humor, and sometimes revolving around morbid subject matter, so he instead changes it to better fit what style of humor is generally accepted by those around him. He really tries to do what he wants to do in life, but everyone around him seems to just want him to sit and stay quiet. No matter what he does the people around him are never satisfied. He's doing too much and too little at the same time. He's trying to gain recognition, and people stop that from happening, then he just tries to lay low and let life happen and people look on him with disdain, as he's just another poor person who "isn't trying hard enough" to escape his current life of near-poverty. His job pays the bills, and is the sole source of income as Penny is obviously to ill to work.

No one wants to stop and give him a chance. He feels as though the world is getting more and more incompatible with every aspect of who he is. The city he's lived in his whole life is getting buried in trash from the garbage strike. His mother is getting sicker. The therapy he’s getting is sub-par and the social programs he relies on are gradually being defunded, another way people are shoving him aside. His dreams are as far away as they've ever been, or maybe even further away, and it feels like he is going nowhere but down. He's grown disillusioned with the idea of socializing in order to solely get to know someone because no one ever does the same for him. People ignore his existence, and his mother, the only person he has, is only there because she's too old and sick to have a choice. He's trying so desperately to be happy but it's painful. 

(Next Scene: Opening)

[battlekidx2]

Joker-a Master of Perspective

Joker uses perspective to enhance the movie storytelling perspective. It is a story about the descent of a man giving into his darker desires. This is typically seen as a tragic tale, but the music and camera shots portray it as the opposite. It feels like a man going from despair to hope. 

The music in the opening shot is called “Hoyt’s Office” and it has a sinister and foreboding feel to it whereas the music at the end of the film called “Call Me Joker” is much more hopeful and delicate, the music is softer and more personal instead of the sharp low tones of the beginning. The shot choice also changes the perspective of scenes that should be dark like when Arthur kills his mother Arthur sits next to the window which bathes the shot in light and creates an uplifting atmosphere and the lens reflects light which gives the shot a dreamy look like Arthur enjoys his choice and has finally fulfilled one of his wildest dreams. The final shots of him in the asylum are again bathed in light with minimal sound and the actions are happening slower than normal giving it that dream like feel to it once again. The final shot I’ll talk about is when Joker is dancing on the car during the riot. He is the center of the frame once again and everything around him seems to fade away. This is emphasized by the shots at a superior angle where only Joker and the sky are in shot with everyone else just out of view and the wide angle view when everyone else is in shot but the noise they would have been making is overtaken by the score. He is finally “seen” by people. He has become the center of this revolution and the world can finally see his solo performance.

The perspective is also in use when it comes to the fact that Arthur is made to clearly be an unreliable narrator in the film which can bring many interpretations of the events that unfold. Until the first time Arthur gives into his darker desires most of the abuse he endures is physical. Once he kills the three men on the subway the abuse shifts to emotional with his mother and then once he kills her it becomes verbal until he kills Murray and then he becomes the Joker and the movie ends with Arthur feeling free and not hesitating to give into his desires. This can be seen as the journey of how much Arthur can justify his actions. With each killing he is able to justify his actions with less and less provocation. At the beginning he shot the men in self defense and by the end he was killing people because he deemed it “what they deserve”. (This was also seen when he killed Randall when Randall came over to try and comfort him about his mother’s death and he kills him because of what Randall did at the beginning of the movie. Now that Arthur has made it this far in his descent he sees nothing wrong with killing Randall when earlier he held himself back.) Because of how the abuse seems to shift to allow Arthur to justify his actions it can lead to questions on if the abuse was really like the way it was portrayed or if it had been warped in some way due to Arthur’s perception. (This is just a single possibility that is left up to the viewer’s interpretation)

Joker is incredibly interesting in its use of film making techniques and how it uses all of the facets of the audio visual medium to convey its story. I was left fascinated in how well made it was with a great performance by Joaquin Phoenix, masterful cinematography and directing, and an emotive score. The film and superhero nerd in me loved every second of it.

[purpleblackmask]

Joker 2019: Parallelism

Ok, so I just wanted to share something I noticed while watching this masterpiece.

The stairs scenes.

The dance on the stairs have become an icon of this movie, but do you remember when we first see them?

Yes, here.

At the beginning.

I would like to point our attention to the photography: it's cold, dark, gloomy, just few lampions that barely illuminate the way. The scene is filmed by the approaching night.

And now watch Arthur.

He is going up slowly, face down, every step is heavy, it clearly costs him a lot of effort to reach the end of the stairs.

This scene is a metaphor of Arthur's life.

His life has been so merciless that he never felt happiness, as he himself confirms, even though his job as a clown is to pretend to be happy. There is no greater conviction, to cry behind a happy face.

So all his life he struggles to arrive at the end of the day with the minor suffering possible, condemned by his own disease, his loneliness, his unreachable dream of becoming a comedian.

His life is made of dark stairs he tries to climb with unbearable hardship.

But by the end of the movie, we find the same though completely different stairs.

It's daylight.

Everything is brighter, happier, new. The gloomy atmosphere is finally gone. It's actually the first time we see this.

And now look at Joker.

Joker, not Arthur.

Arthur no longer exists. There is a new man, now. Someone who's coming down. Someone who's dancing.

This scene is the official birth of Joker.

Arthur has finally left behind everything that made his life a nightmare, he killed himself to give birth to someone who is not afraid of anything, not afraid of being himself, not afraid to exist.

His life now is made of bright stairs that he comes down with a joyful dance.

He is finally happy.

He is finally Joker.

NOT MY GIFS