When Joker, the movie, was initially being promoted, I had my suspicions about it because it was getting a lot of negative reactions and being greeted with a great deal of concern over its presumed message and possible influence. Personally the one thing that made me feel apprehensive about it was a comment from the director regarding his motivation for making the film. Todd Phillips, who had made his name with the "frat-boy" humor of his Hangover films, had stated that he felt "pushed" out of doing comedy because of "PC culture" (political correctness). He felt that comedy had become too constrained by PC mania and that he was no longer able to produce the kinds of comedies he wanted to make.
Now, people protesting about "PC" pearl clutching have been putting me on alert a lot lately. As someone who enjoys an inappropriate laugh as much as any open minded individual should, I've also come to recognize that many of those who seem the most put out by PC criticisms are the ones least likely to be hurt by prejudice and bigotry. For a long time, I was on-side with a lot of the concerns over people getting too uptight about everything and anything, but I've come to recognize the security of my own privilege in these areas and how that makes me often immune to their damage. The main difference with me is being homosexual. That personal perspective was key for me to begin to comprehend the fine line between humor and abuse.
"Political Correctness" is something that is, fundamentally, applied to comedy in most instances where it occurs. It is frequently a response to some level of humor which an individual finds offensive, disparaging and/or cruel towards some social group. Most frequently, the people who complain about PC culture are heterosexual white males, who are feeling the pinch of a dying Caucasian patriarchy. They're upset because they can't freely use the "N" word or belittle and disrespect women or fill their locker rooms with homophobic slurs with the kind of abandon they associate with "the good old days". They're the guys who want to make things "great again". So, whenever someone whines about PC culture, my first response is, what do you want to say that you don't feel free to say now?
I still see a lot of great comedy being produced now, so I don't buy into Phillips' assertion that he can't make those kinds of movies anymore. I see them being made all the time. So this whole impetus for making the Joker movie set me into a defensive posture approaching the film because its premise is highly suspect to me. What made me want to give it a viewing, however, was when I started to read some reviews from people I respect and their feeling that it did actually have something valid to say about what's going on in our world.
That said, after watching the film, I do feel that Joker is something of an examination of the nature of humor. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers here, but be warned if you haven't seen the film that I may slip up on a couple of plot points necessary to illustrate my premises. I will try to stay focused on the primary character setup, but read on at your own risk.
Inappropriate laughter is the foundation upon which this story rests. It's integral to the character created by Joaquin Phoenix. Arthur Fleck is an individual who has a completely askew relationship with humor. He's a "professional" clown who is virtually devoid of any sense of humor, yet he is prone to fits of uncontrollable laughter to the point where he carries a laminated card around like a deaf person might to advise strangers of his affliction. Yet everything about his life is a misery. There isn't a single affirming relationship in it and every stranger he encounters offers nothing but abuse, humiliation and rejection. It's an oppressively negative existence from top to bottom, especially if you're disenfranchised.
If you're not a "have-not", like billionaire business mogul, Thomas Wayne, or late night TV host, Murray Franklin (Gotham's answer to Johnny Carson, played by Robert De Niro), you're likely indifferent to the suffering of those with nothing and view them as victims of their own weaknesses and inabilities. In the case of Franklin, you see them only as fodder for ridicule in order to satisfy the sadistic leanings of your audience. There's no empathy in this city. It really isn't very pretty what this town without pity can do!
All totaled, you have a picture painted, in grotesque, sloppy clown makeup, of a world which has lost its sense of compassion and caring and that is exactly the world we live in now. This is the real message of the movie. Personally, I don't think PC culture is what's stopping people like Phillips from making funny movies. I think the crushing, crumbling world we live in is getting harder and harder to laugh at and that's why making mindless bro-comedies about drunken abandon is less satisfying these days. It isn't that you're not allowed to laugh at anything. It's that we're in such a desperate, deplorable state as a species and a civilization, the adage that, when faced with tragedy, the best remedy is to laugh, has become too disingenuous to bare. This disaster of a time we live in simply isn't very funny when we're starring down the barrel of extinction as a real possibility.
As far as film making goes, this is a damn good movie. The look of it captures the time it aims for perfectly. It's dirty and there are some lovely callbacks to classics from the past, especially of the Scorsese variety. And it does a surprisingly good job of fitting itself into the established mythology of the character, or rather the landscape the character is meant to inhabit. There's even some nice nods to previous incarnations of the character in popular film and TV, from the loose resemblance to Cesar Romero's color scheme to Jack Nicholson's snatched string of pearls to Heath Ledger's bloody slash across his mouth. It manages to put Joker into a new perspective while acknowledging and respecting his past incarnations.
While writing this up, I notice that there's a Joker 2 movie announced, so I am hoping they don't mess up the purity of this one by overworking the concept. This current film is a bitter pill that our culture needs to swallow, not because we've lost our sense of humor under the burden of political correctness, but because we're all sitting, dull eyed and dim witted, as our ship sails off the edge of the world and nobody seems to be too bothered about trying to stop it.
