Warning: Spoilers ahead.
What does the joker represent to you? A villain? a sociopath? a homicidal murderer? or maybe a reflection of a society that was crumbling. the joker has many names, he has many traits. The failed comic, the little boy who couldn't get the help that he truly deserved as a child, even the villain that has an unhealthy obsession with batman.
The movie Joker is a rollercoaster of deep plot twists, beautiful cinematography and deep rooted psychology that makes you feel for the joker. This movie made me actually feel bad for this torturous creature. For those who are fans of the DC universe, and the batman world like myself we were all skeptical to say the least about a stand alone movie that was going to be the first origin story for the Joker. Now, to be fair the first origin story in the form of a comic in regards to the joker was in The Killing Joke. Even then, we never truly get an honest origin story. Just like we never get a solid name for the joker. He was always called something different every time.
This time around, a movie was created that depicts the mental status of the joker, from a human perspective. I mean, he was always human but in a day and age where mental health is taken more seriously than in the 1980's its pretty clear that this movie is a statement piece of sorts. We see the joker as being a failing stand up comedian, and a person that was damaged from the get go. In the killing joke he referred to his life in the past as multiple choice. In the movie, even the director said "there is no tie to any of the comics." from the jokers debut, he always was revised, and changed, and revised again.
When we see this origin story for the joker, we have to take it for what it is. when i saw this movie for the first time, i was preparing for the worst. I came out of that movie theater almost in tears and shocked by the beauty and reality of it all. In this origin story, the joker is treated as a human, where in the comics, he is a supervillain who happens to be human. . the joker in this film, Arthur Fleck, was originally a mental patient at Arkham mental hospital. He was abused by the boyfriend that his mother penny fleck had, and also is the half brother to our beloved Batman, (which im not sure if it is true or not) but from the research I did, it seems to be something the director put in this film to make the story flow more evenly.
Now, let's get into some psychology behind this version of the Joker.
with the universe that we are given about this version of the joker, its fair to say that he suffers from:
CPTSD
Anxiety
depression
delusions/visual hallucinations
mania
bipolar disorder
CPTSD refers to (complex post traumatic stress disorder) from the things he suffered from as a kid from the abuse he received from his mother penny and her boyfriend.
the anxiety is attributed to the fear of his own demons and being laughed at by the world
the depression is a manifestation from what the world has left him with. Loss, fear, abandonment, and questioning right versus wrong every day.
the delusions are in response to meeting sophie. in reality Sophie is not there at the comedy club, or at the hospital. she is one of Arthur's delusions that he has in order to cope with the reality he is making for himself.
and the mania and Bi polar disorder can really go together considering he will be manic at one point (killing a former co working and smashing his brains in) then be completely calm and coherent the next.
The evolution of the joker in this movie is almost like a process of life. we see the child in the first part of the movie, clinging to the mother, unsure of where to go in the world.. after he kills for the first time its almost as if he is reborn into this new person, dancing in the shady bathroom stall under a pale moonlight. each act of rebirthing in this movie is coupled with a dance. Almost like he is morbidly dancing his way through life. the next moment that seem like his "teen years" are when he confronts his father Thomas Wayne, he will then go into his "adulthood" when he is on the Murray show, spilling his truth onto the stage. after killing the show host Fleck dances yet again and transforms into his final way of being, the joker that we all know and love. each stage of life, each dance that he does is his own form of self realization. in it that he's not sorry for who he is, he fully embraces it.
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