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Joker etcetera
Jan. 28th, 2020 11:32 amWow, this has got some strange reviews.
I really enjoyed it.
It's certainly an uncomfortable film to watch. Phoenix is so ugly-graceful with his knobbled spine and jutting ribs, his dancing, his terrible mirror-eyed rictus and all that pain. Gotham's been depicted in many ways but here it's just a brutally shit city. The poor are shit, the rich are shit, there are no nice people anywhere. It's the first time I have seen Thomas Wayne depicted so unsympathetically; the thug who killed him may have robbed Bruce Wayne of a father, but also saved the city from an arrogant potato-head of a mayor with neither empathy nor political nous nor anything beyond full pockets to recommend him. Every cloud and all that.
The whole Batman phenomenon is so strange. It's basically about cheering on some rich guy who is pretty much above the law, can buy anything at all, and likes to go out each night targeting people who have a lot less than he does. Whatever drives him, his actions are about maintaining the status quo. In The Dark Knight, Alfred says; 'Some men just want to watch the world burn.' Cue horrified faces. In Joker, you see the world and ask why shouldn't it burn?
The answer, presumably, is so that grown-up Bruce Wayne can run off with the Bolshoi ballet and hold charity galas.
But of course, Arthur Fleck is not political, and he makes that clear. His outrage is a personal madness. The world done him wrong, yes he is narcissistic, he does feel entitled. But it would be a damn sight easier to sort out the mess in his head if it wasn't fuelled by extreme poverty and neglect. This is one of the things about Gotham as the City Allegorical: Gothamites tend to be very rich or very poor, so it's no surprise that Gotham is forever on fire, constantly being rescued by its Dark Knight to exactly the way it was when circumstances provoked the inferno.
Metropolis was always much smarter than Gotham, Dream New York compared to Dream Chicago. Supes' great enemy Lex Luthor was quintessentially all about the brains. Strange to think of these superheroes as Jocks beating up on Geeks and being cheered for it. It's all so establishment.
Then again, they're both creations of the 1930s, when much of the western world world was caught up in some bizarre crush-search for the 'Strong Man', so may be there's something in that. It took Marvel, and Peter Parker, to reset heroes in terms of anything other than the guys who already had everything winning yet again. No surprises that Spiderman turned up in the 60s...Though of course, he had a few issues of his own.
https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/0/5586/1079528-me8.jpg
I really enjoyed it.
It's certainly an uncomfortable film to watch. Phoenix is so ugly-graceful with his knobbled spine and jutting ribs, his dancing, his terrible mirror-eyed rictus and all that pain. Gotham's been depicted in many ways but here it's just a brutally shit city. The poor are shit, the rich are shit, there are no nice people anywhere. It's the first time I have seen Thomas Wayne depicted so unsympathetically; the thug who killed him may have robbed Bruce Wayne of a father, but also saved the city from an arrogant potato-head of a mayor with neither empathy nor political nous nor anything beyond full pockets to recommend him. Every cloud and all that.
The whole Batman phenomenon is so strange. It's basically about cheering on some rich guy who is pretty much above the law, can buy anything at all, and likes to go out each night targeting people who have a lot less than he does. Whatever drives him, his actions are about maintaining the status quo. In The Dark Knight, Alfred says; 'Some men just want to watch the world burn.' Cue horrified faces. In Joker, you see the world and ask why shouldn't it burn?
The answer, presumably, is so that grown-up Bruce Wayne can run off with the Bolshoi ballet and hold charity galas.
But of course, Arthur Fleck is not political, and he makes that clear. His outrage is a personal madness. The world done him wrong, yes he is narcissistic, he does feel entitled. But it would be a damn sight easier to sort out the mess in his head if it wasn't fuelled by extreme poverty and neglect. This is one of the things about Gotham as the City Allegorical: Gothamites tend to be very rich or very poor, so it's no surprise that Gotham is forever on fire, constantly being rescued by its Dark Knight to exactly the way it was when circumstances provoked the inferno.
Metropolis was always much smarter than Gotham, Dream New York compared to Dream Chicago. Supes' great enemy Lex Luthor was quintessentially all about the brains. Strange to think of these superheroes as Jocks beating up on Geeks and being cheered for it. It's all so establishment.
Then again, they're both creations of the 1930s, when much of the western world world was caught up in some bizarre crush-search for the 'Strong Man', so may be there's something in that. It took Marvel, and Peter Parker, to reset heroes in terms of anything other than the guys who already had everything winning yet again. No surprises that Spiderman turned up in the 60s...Though of course, he had a few issues of his own.
https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/0/5586/1079528-me8.jpg
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