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How the Joker Became the Joker

The 92nd Academy Awards are coming up on Feb. 9th, this year, so it’s time to further analyze the several movies nominated for Best Picture. One of which—arguably the most controversial of the nominees—is Todd Phillips’s installment into the DC Extended Universe, “Joker.”

Since its release, this movie has polarized both critics and audiences alike with some citing it as “one of the best movies of 2019,” and others claiming it to be “the most disappointing film of the year.”

The story revolves around Arthur Fleck, an impoverished, aspiring stand-up comic who suffers from a neurological condition which causes pathological laughter. Due to Fleck’s mental illness in the film and the spiral of tragedies that follow, he becomes Batman’s most famous nemesis, the Joker.

While Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus of the film reads “[The film] gives its infamous central character a chillingly plausible origin story,” it serves more as a dramatic allegory than an actual portrayal of the consequences of mental illness, which the review would suggest. There are multiple psychological studies that prove a mentally ill person is more likely to become a victim of a crime than the perpetrator of one.

According to a 2003 study by the National Institutes of Health, the presumption that mentally ill individuals are more likely to be violent, leads to “bullying” and “victimizing” of the mentally ill.

However, the film does present a semi-plausible argument for how his mental illness escalated to the level where he would see violence as his only solution.

In the movie, Arthur engages in fantasies constantly. For instance, he imagines having an intimate relationship with his neighbor, Sophie Dumond, and, later in the movie, a lauded appearance on the fictitious Murray Franklin show.

In addition to these delusions, Arthur suffers from low self-esteem. For instance, he wants, at least for most of the movie, to be a stand-up comedian, but believes there is no use practicing, since he will fail anyway.

Finally, Arthur has no person with whom he can honestly share his feelings. While he does have a therapist, he believes she does not listen to him. Other than that, he has no one: his mother is senile and bedridden, he has no friends at his job and he does not have a father figure.

Because of the aforementioned points and many more, Arthur feels that the only way to become noticed by his community is to turn to violence and get revenge on those who have wronged him. With that said, “Joker” is a decent movie, but it could have gone into more detail about what made him turn into a villain—because, as mentioned above, mentally ill people are more often victims of violence than initiators of it.

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