Me: *writes elaborate 20-page essay about the social constructions and deep psychological perspective featured within Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019) and how Arthur’s fall into “insanity” had always been affected by his environment and not just because he was crazy from the beginning but rather neglected, traumatized, abused, underfed, and constantly ignored by those around him, even when he needed the most help and tried his hardest to seek it and take his medication, which was also ultimately stripped away from him because of society’s overall regard towards mentally ill people and the idea that those under the poverty line or that struggle with any sort of neurological issue are somehow responsible for their situation; how Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix managed to convey such powerful symbolism and imagery through tasteful stylism and a raw, emotional performance that’s revolutionary considering how popular this film has been, despite the fear and misunderstood perceptions that it would somehow spark violence, how they managed to make the depictions of an intensely lonely, mentally ill individual so vulnerable, mesmerizing, but also troubling and unsettling at the the same time, how this film shows how dangerous a man who has nothing else to lose can be and how there are red flags, there are things we can all do to better improve our health care and social services systems, the institutions we intrust to offer a safe place for people who have nowhere else to go. How beautifully constructed the question of nature versus nurture is woven through each scene, and how complex the human psyche is, how fragile and harsh reality is, such as a thin pane of glass, talking about the subtleties of Phoenix’s performances and how well developed his arc is and how much research and love and support and effort and work he put into this role in order to accurately represent mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, self-destructive habits, and self-deprecating self-images, yet the childish hope that things will get better, that things can get better, until the next blow comes, the next person brushes you off, until you realize that really, no one gives a shit and are so self-absorbed they can’t even begin to grasp the hardships you go through just to survive each day. And how by shedding himself of everything he used to know, everything he used to have, or have responsibilities toward, and reshaping his identity, Arthur ultimately became a symbol a movement he didn’t have any part in throughout the entire film because the people could see themselves in him, projecting their own issues onto this idea of a “clown” vigilante with an “eat the rich” mentality, morphing this broken man into one of the most powerful figures in Gotham history due to the political turmoil and environmental factors plaguing the city, which happened to occur during Arthur’s decent, which wasn’t even really a decent to begin with, and he could have been helped, and he could have been “saved” from himself, but society, in the end, failed him.*
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