Joker Bad

In 2015, Joaquin Phoenix was removed from the cast of M Night Shyamalan’s psychodrama-slash-horror, Split. Oh no, we all thought. This is a dreadful shame. When will Joaquin get a chance to be in a gritty comic book movie that demonises mental illness to the point of being both tasteless and offensive? But alas, we shouldn’t have worried! Four years later and Mr Phoenix granted our wishes, coming to the big screen as the “ferocious”, “feral” “bold, devastating and utterly beautiful” Joker. Hooray! An icon for our modern age! The Scorsese-backed, De Niro-esque Tyler Durden-knock off that we’ve all been asking for. I can’t wait to see with what sensitivity Todd Phillips treats the delicate topics of mental illness, marginalisation and isolation under capitalism, I thought. Surely in today’s environment of political unrest, social instability and stratification, he will create some truly meaningful commentary on how society should not turn its back on the minorities and vulnerable groups. Surely! I was wrong.

Joker is confused. It is all the worst parts of Fight Club, without the get out of jail free card of satire. It has no true political message; glorifying anarchy and condemning capitalism while still staunchly proclaiming itself ‘apolitical’; indeed, it’s not encouraging political revolution for the benefit of the oppressed working class, but rather mindless violence for no reason other than to feel good. It claims to be anti-society, but then blames individuals instead of systemic failings such as budget cuts for mental health support. Joker does not blame the nebulous ‘society’, he explicitly blames individuals; he blames his mother and his father for abusing him, he blames his neighbour for not kissing him, he blames his therapist for something beyond her control, he blames people on the bus for looking at him.

Joker does not treat marginalised groups well, which is ironic for a story that tries to make us empathise with a man who is a victim of society. There are three black women with speaking parts in this film (none of them named until the credits, but that’s a different discussion) and they are all in part blamed for Joker’s actions and his spiral into violence and brutality. There is no empathy for these women; it’s his therapist’s fault for not listening to him, as opposed to the government’s fault for cutting mental health funding. There is no consideration for the overworked psychiatrist herself, only how she upsets Joker; the only person who is allowed suffering is our male protagonist. The individuals in Joker’s life are always framed as the perpetrators, the ones who caused him to ‘go over the edge’, it is their fault that he stops taking medication, it is their fault that he shoots people. Joker tells us, hey, stop being so selfish, go have sex with the weird guy down the hall so he doesn’t kill people. In a film that says that we shouldn’t turn our backs on marginalised groups, it’s almost laughable in its tone-deafness that not one, but three black women are all in some part blamed for one white man’s psychopathic power fantasy. There are two other women worth mentioning in the film, one being Joker’s mother, who is indirectly blamed for Joker’s actions, and the other being a woman on a television show who is only included to be sexually harassed by Joker in his final scene.

In the vein of mistreating minorities, there is one confusing, throwaway line where a person with dwarfism is made fun of for having dwarfism; the tonal whiplash between ‘we should be doing a better job of supporting minorities’ and ‘isn’t it great to make fun of minorities’ is baffling. Demi Adejuyigbe sums it up perfectly when he writes “the dwarf gag literally undermines the closest thing this movie has to a message, which is in the importance of civility and kindness, especially to the marginalised. To throw a misplaced, laughing-at-and-not-with gag where the audience laughs at a dwarf’s misfortune into all of that? Absolutely fucking bite me, War Dogs.”

So, the elephant in the room: mental illness. Joker’s portrayal of mental illness is lazy at best, morally reprehensible at worst. How many times have we been fed the narrative that mentally ill people are dangerous? That they’re big, bad monsters to be feared, bedtime stories to terrify children, cautionary tales to the rest of the world? It’s exhausting. It’s draining and demoralising to be told over and over that mentally ill people are nothing more than a danger to others; to see endless narratives ignoring the fact that mentally ill people are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else, ignoring the fact that mentally ill people are victimised by the government, the education system, the job market, and every other aspect of modern American society. Joker is victimised for his mental illness and his ‘condition’, yes, but he is only attacked by individuals. There is no mention of the systemic marginalisation of the mentally ill, just three different incidents of Joker getting punched in the face for laughing weird. There are only so many times I can watch Joaquin Phoenix get assaulted before it gets old, Todd Phillips, and I’m telling you three is too many times.

So, in conclusion, Joker mistreats its women, mistreats its marginalised groups, forgoes politics and insightful commentary in favour of multiple slow-mo dance sequences, and throws in some questionable gay-coding in the final scene just to finish everything off. I am already nauseated by the rancid cultural impact I know this film is going to have and by the men I know I am going to have to discuss it with. I can only hope my writing is not as much of a misjudged, soulless failure as this film was. I am begging you to go and see Hustlers instead.

Written by Millie Felton.
Published 14th October 2019.