Since its release earlier this year, Todd Phillips' Joker (2019) has caused quite the stir. While some have argued that the film has the potential to inspire acts of violence against the system, others suggest that it lacks any real commitment to global issues. New York Times critic A.O. Scott, for example, calls the film an "empty foggy exercise in second-hand style and second-rate philosophising." I argue, though, that the film contains a strong political message. In anticipation of Mental Health Day - celebrated on October 10, 2019 - Phillips' film sheds important light on society's stigmatisation of the "mentally ill." Its depiction of police violence and corporate brutality begs the (quite revolutionary) question: Can we truly be satisfied under the current system, which pits one against the other, "sane" against the "insane?"
The film begins by introducing its protagonist Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a hard-working party clown and aspiring stand-up comedian living in systemic poverty. Next, we are introduced to Fleck's mother Penny (Frances Conroy), with whom he cohabits a small, run-down flat in Gotham City. Despite his hard work - and his mother's glittering hope for a financial endowment from a former employer - the situation worsens, with characters turning to extreme measures to channel their rage against the system. The straw that eventually breaks Fleck's back, so to speak, is the much-discussed train scene. Directing his rage at three corporate Johns (who, it is worth noting, instigate the fight), Fleck takes out his gun and fires numerous shots into each man, killing all three. The question that looms over the discourse on Phillips' film is as follows: Why does Fleck snap? Is he simply "insane" (perhaps the result of an implied childhood abuse) or has he reached his limit with a system that haphazardly treats its citizens as numbers, a system which removes important mental health funding and offers little consolation. I suspect that the latter is true. Joker concludes with an enduring image of a broken system: as Fleck stands atop a police vehicle, watching violence ensue, we see Gotham ignite, the police powerless against the raw power of collective action. In a time of climate anxiety and deep frustration with the corporate system, it is difficult to view Phillips' film as anything but political.
Joker also leaves us with a lasting feeling of sympathy, both for Mr. Fleck and for his mother. In spite of the his brutal attack against the three men - each representing the "corporate ideal" - we still sympathise with Fleck, who perseveres against challenging circumstances, and who is systematically judged, cast-out and treated as other (by co-workers, by passers-by, by the system). The same can be said about his mother. We are told that Penny Fleck spent her early days as a worker for the Wayne family, only to be turned out and left to rot by the same family (and system) she valiantly served. One thus leaves the cinema with a sense of deep sadness, and - for some viewers - frustration with the system, which plunders its mental health initiatives when times get tough (in fact, there is a scene which quite poignantly shows this) and treats those like Fleck as outcasts.
The question remains: Does Phillips' feed into a left-winged discourse on the corporate system? Does it attempt to incite revolutionary thinking on the issue of mental health, echoing Foucauldian concerns articulated decades before? It is difficult to say. The film is constructed in such a way as to make us doubt whose story is real and whose is not. What is clear, though, is that Phillips is trying to make us think (whether this is revolutionary is a separate question altogether). Centring his film on the "mentally ill" - and having it released just days before Mental Health Day - is no accident. Moreover, given the U.S.'s dark history of police brutality against minority groups (African Americans, Muslims, the "mentally ill"), it may also be possible that Phillips is commenting upon the roles and responsibilities of the government in a broader sense. Either way, his film begs us to think.
In an era of fake news, public scandal and Trumpian politics, Joker sheds important light on the mistreatment of the "mentally ill," a group whose rights are systematically attacked in the United States and elsewhere. By utilising a fantasy-style aesthetic/ genre (the DC universe) but keeping the themes as relatable as possible, Phillips asks that we confront some of the injustices that slip under the radar. To give this film a numerical grade (on its quality, on the feeling it leaves) is a difficult task. On the one hand, I have watched films that better handle such sensitive topics. And yet, I think that Phillips' approach is clever, insightful and well-constructed.
3/5.
BP x
See: Foucault, Michel. Folie et Déraison : Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique. Librairies plon, 1961.
Image credit: screenshot from trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWt4HVT7iY)