Arthur Fleck (JOKER)
Dwelling in a city filled with poverty, unemployment and crimes: Arthur Fleck, a simple and a sweet man suffered with a medical disorder that caused him to laugh at inappropriate times. He was extremely poor. One can see how bad his living conditions were, he was physically very week as he couldn’t afford good nourishment. In spite of having so many challenges in life, he always had a smile on his face. He liked to make other people laugh which is why he worked as a joker for a living until his dream to become a stand up comedian turned into reality. He was a good man who loved his mother very much and took care of her.
The impunity enjoyed by the goons living in a city like Gotham lead to an attack on Arthur in an ally. Because of this incident his coworker gave him a gun to defend himself. Arthur kept the gun with him at all times as he felt safe. When caught with the same during an act, his co-worker to save his ass pretended like he was not the one who gave Arthur the gun. Arthur felt betrayed by his friend but he did not express his anger. This incident is one such example where Arthur just let other people walk all over him because he never thought he had the power to defend himself. Arthur was extremely naïve, his world revolved around his stand up gig, his job and his mother that was the extend of his spectrum. He wanted a few things from life but he never had the fire to get them, he was super casual and chill.
After he got fired while travelling back home, three drunk rich snobs tried to harass Arthur due to his condition. They were beating up Arthur when he realized that he had a gun and shot them. That was the first time he killed anyone. Killing them unleashed his bottled up feelings, giving him pleasure. He felt good to hurt the people who treated him like he wasn’t a fellow human, he was finally able to release all those subdued emotions from all the humiliation and abuse he had faced since childhood. The boy whose smile could light up a room, the boy who wanted to make other people laugh now became a man that mothers tell their children to be beware off. The gun gave him a power he never thought he had.
After the first kill it became a constant way in which Arthur expressed his emotions. He went so far as to kill his own mother when he found that she had let his boyfriend abuse Arthur when he was a child. He was done playing nice in a world where people exploit the week and wanted justice for himself.
The only moment you realize that he has some conscience left is when Arthur’s ex co workers visited him. Arthur killed one in an argument and left the other alone. He tells the one alive that he won’t harm him as he was nice to him when they worked together. It shows that he was grateful to people who were nice to him.
The way the society abandons the downtrodden and mentally ill, lead to the beginning of ‘Joker’s’ own criminal empire. The guy who belonged to the weaker section of the society became the most powerful criminal ever known. He became the most feared because he had nothing to lose.
It is said that it is our choices that make us who we are, but what drives these choices? It is abysmal how the society pushes the repressed to an extent where they see no option but to either kill someone or themselves. Is it that difficult to just be nice to people? Just because you have all the privileges, doesn’t mean you can go around humiliating people who you think are inferior to you. Arthur was a good man before he was forced to kill someone to defend himself and then that became the only way he knew to protect himself. Yes, it was his choice to become a criminal but is he the only one to blame here? Sometimes all people need is a helping hand to save them from drowning. If someone would have cared enough about Arthur he probably wouldn’t have become a criminal, but now we would never know. CARE & FEEL just by doing this we can make the world a better place.
