Why So Serious?
As of today, the fifth-ranked movie of 2019 is Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, the non-Marvel prequel to the Batman franchise. I went with my youngest son, who has been addicted to the Joker character ever since Heath Ledger made it his swan song for all intents and purposes. The trend in movies has clearly moved to a combination of Disney animation blockbusters for kids and Marvel superhero blockbusters for adolescents. In fact, the top four box office hits are two of each (Avengers, Lion King, Toy Story 4, and Captain Marvel). Joker may seem like a Marvel offshoot, but it is nothing like that at all. Heath Ledger may have made it on lots of t-shirts with his “Why so serious?” line, but Joaquin, with his emaciated, almost skeletal body, is the troubled soul who has nothing but serious thoughts throughout this movie.
I knew this would be a dark movie. Anything with Joaquin Phoenix, ever since he played Commodus in Gladiator, has been a bit strange and dark. It seems to be in his nature or maybe a direct result of his off-beat upbringing. His family went from picking fruit to being Children if God cultish missionaries in Latin America to promoting all five of their children to be actors. His older brother, River, fast-laned it into an early grave. And Joaquin’s vegan habits make him look less than healthy or stable for that matter. There is a moment in the clown locker room where we see Phoenix from the back with his spine and ribs all protruding and bruised. He looks like a cross between Gollum and an Auschwitz survivor. Psychological thrillers are an entire genre of movies from Taxi Driver to Misery and The Talented Mr. Ripley to Gone Girl. But Joker with Joaquin combines a troubling story with a troubling actor, so it takes you to a particularly spooky place for a non-horror movie. Actors who dramatically alter their body (particularly with extreme weight loss like Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club) always strike me as a bit obsessive.
The movie has created some significant controversy around the notion of a whacked-out white guy going around town violently shooting up people he decides are bad guys. The United States has enough real stories about that sort of nonsense for the problems of Gotham and the responses of Arthur Fleck to seem justifiably different. When Joker laughs himself into a rage of personal revenge while on the Murray Franklin Show and pulls out his gun, not to shoot himself as planned, but to blow apart Robert De Niro’s head on live TV, this movie starts to feel like it has crossed an ethical line. Of course, matricide (regardless of the reasons) and homicide in general, both things Joker manages to do, are certainly not ever sympathetic acts.
I agree that Joaquin Phoenix did a great job with this part and the cameraman or art director (or both) did an equally impressive job with this project. What I still need to figure out is where the socially redeeming aspect of this movie resides. Does a mother failing to tell her child he is adopted (not even clear that was the case) justify smothering her? Do Wall Street frat boys that are a bit drunk deserve to be hunted down and shot for a few kicks given the wrong guy? Does a talk show host making fun of a failed comedian deserve to be demonized? I suppose the justification lies in either the importance of sharing the demented nature of troubled souls on the edge or maybe it’s just Ars Gratia Aris (art for art’s sake). I told my son I appreciated the artistry but would not watch it again….this as he finished his second viewing of the film.
The interesting theme of the movie that struck me as important was that the anonymous joker’s vigilante activities with the frat boys brings about an anti-rich movement. This gets exacerbated by Gotham’s leading rich dude, Thomas Wayne, future Batman’s dad, calling all the poor protestors “clowns”. That generates the joker-like ire in the populace, who all don clown masks for their protest marches. These protests are very reminiscent of the Hong Kong rallies that have plagued Beijing in the last few months and continue even now. The world is roiled by the economic inequality we have created and heightened over the last forty years.
The ultra-conservative CATO Institute addresses the “myths of inequality” in a paper by saying:
- This high level of inequality is the norm in the U.S. and that the post-WWII hiatus was the aberration. The summarize by saying, “Why is inequality ipso facto bad?” Wow.
- Fairness is about recognizing that rich people mostly earn what they have and advance the world in the process for all of us. Luck and privilege are not a major part. Let’s ask Felicity Huffman about that.
- It’s untrue that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Hell, it takes three generations for rich people to squander their fortunes if they don’t get on the stick!
- Just because the rich are getting richer doesn’t mean there is more poverty. If all boats are lifted by the tide, what’s wrong with inequality? It’s not like the world has shown that rich want to get richer still at the expense of the poor. Oops, yes, that is exactly what history has shown us.
- Inequality doesn’t distort the political process. Government promotes inequality anyway. And Donald Trump has good hair and is a perfect genius.
The point is this, I’m not sure I like the concept that the oppressed and economically downtrodden of Gotham revolt finally because a guy with a clown costume shoots and kills three frat boys on a train. Cheering for violence doesn’t solve anything but creates more unnecessary violence. I agree with the writers and director of Joker that the world risks coming unhinged at these levels of inequality. They are unacceptable and dangerous (I am speaking on behalf of my granddaughters). They are also just unconscionable from a moralistic sense.
When I see people like the CATO Institute arguing that taxing the rich is simply not an effective way to promote the reduction of inequality and, more importantly, the reduction of poverty, I am sickened. Throwing money and talented and intellectually nimble academics at a problem to justify self-interest is all I see. But even with all their research rigor they cannot get past the one basic principle of how economic oppression is ever anything more than man acting out his animalistic tendencies. Joaquin Phoenix deserves an academy award for best actor, not because what he does is right, but because he reminds us convincingly that man, when stripped of dignity, “will do anything for a potato” as Christian Bale tells us in Empire of the Sun. Why so serious? Because the indignity of man by other, stronger or wealthier men needs to be highlighted if we ever hope to curtail it.