Joker: Brief reflections on race, gender and class

Something about the film Joker is still niggling inside me since I saw it, and I am not exactly sure how to put it into words. Let me attempt here in this post (*spoiler alert*).

Perhaps I am still recovering from the high level of anxiety that this films places you in, and maintains for its entirety with little relief?

Perhaps I am sad about Arthur’s traumatic childhood experiences of abuse and poverty?

Perhaps I am bound to struggle with any film that positions a white man as the leader of a class-based revolution?

Let me start by saying there is no question that Joaquin Phoenix’s acting performance is spectacular, as is the cinematography.

So what’s my problem?

In the beginning Arthur Fleck is portrayed as sweet and nearly childlike. He just wants to be seen, heard and understood. This is how the film builds empathy towards its central character.

I won’t go into the plot in detail, but if you have seen it, you will know that the acts of violence committed by Fleck consistently escalate. Apart from being unpleasant to watch, there are a few aspects of this that I find particularly unsettling:

1. The first is the cathartic way in which Arthur experiences the acts of violence he commits. It is through violence that he feels seen, heard and understood. He finally “feels like he exists”. In a recent interview Director, Todd Phillips, claimed that the way violence is portrayed in the film is responsible because unlike typical comic book films there are real world consequences to it. But is this really true? Arthur seems to gain something through committing these acts. Not only is he celebrated as the “anti-hero” and inspiration for a revolt against the elite by fellow (largely male) working class citizens of Gotham; the development of his individual expression through dance and increasingly elaborate outfits/makeup are symbolic of a personal transformation. In this way the violence framed as emancipatory (and not in a Frantz Fanon/structurally significant way, though it is interpreted that way by his fellow ‘clowns’, but more in a individually significant way).
2. The second is the film’s portrayal of mental illness as a justification or precondition for violence, which seems to perpetuate an unhelpful stereotype. It seems that the film is attempting to say that society (and the bleak 70s New York cityscape) is not set up to accommodate people with mental illness. Through a series of cold and violent interactions, poverty, a lack of access to adequate support, isolation, etc it seems he is inevitably driven to a life of violence. Situated in the framework of nihilism (“I don’t belief in anything”), it seems that Fleck does not perceive any consequences to this violence. I do think the film succeeds in raising an important question about individual agency vs structures when it comes to marginalisation. It is true that society failed Fleck and this is deeply upsetting and poignant.
3. The third is violence towards women in the film. The scene is set through the sexually explicit scribbles in his journal. And the way he stalks and fantasises about the women down the hall. Towards the end of the film he is betrayed by the one woman in his life, his mother, and he ends up killing her on her hospital bed as a result. Black Women in particular have a recurring presence in the film. As a women of colour I am left wondering — why is this the case? At best it’s a ill-informed attempt at “diversity”. But given the extensive thought that has gone into each frame, it feels more intentional and symbolic than that (though I agree with critics’ sentiments that the film is not as radical as is it think it is, so I may be overestimating the creators’ depth of thinking here). There are four black women in he film: the women on the bus with her child, the “love interest”, the social worker, the staff member at the psychiatric ward in the final scene. The women on the bus and the social worker are presented as cold and uncaring. Whilst the love interest is framed as warm/attractive, even her character, like the other black women are distant and out of reach. The most eerie words said by Fleck in the entire film are in the closing scene when he’s sitting opposite the black women in a white room (presumably in a psych ward). He does his habitual maniacal laugh. She asks if something is funny, and suggest he should share. He says “you wouldn’t understand”. Then the frame cuts to Fleck walking away, red bloody footprints mark the floor. We can only assume the black Women is dead. Perhaps to him she becomes representative of all the other black women that didn’t understand him; that didn’t care. And therefore she deserved to be punished. Everyone in the film that has wronged Fleck gets punished. Other people in the film are punished for acts of unkindness, neglect, abuse, or lying. But if I am reading the final scene correctly, this women gets punished just for existing. She is not depicted as an individual, but as an extension of all of the other black Women in the film.