Why Joker: folie à deux is ultimately successful
Why the Joker is ultimately successful
Warning: contains spoilers
It can’t have escaped the attention of the most inattentive observer that the sequel to Joker has been met with derision, poor reviews and an awful financial return.
However, as a whole I would argue that Joker has been successful in its ultimate aim which is to shine a light on expectation, subverted expectations and the attitudes of society as a whole to those with mental health conditions.
Arthur Fleck
Arthur Fleck is an incredibly interesting character superbly acted by Joaquin Phoenix whose painfully skinny frame highlights the malnourished soul at the heart of the character. The abuses, and deprivations of love paint themselves into every bony protrusion and contorted almost scoliotic detail of Phoenix’s Fleck.
Arthur’s mind too is wonderfully abstract given to the most fantastical flights of fantasy which ultimately lead to tragic consequences. Highlighted by a paradoxical maddeningly pathetic and desperate laugh whenever he feels sadness points to Fleck as an incredibly rich and well written character. For any psychologist or therapist, a character like Fleck would be a rich source to understanding the effects of abuse and violence can have on an individual. It is thus hard to reconcile the fascinating character with the subsequent abuses the character has met with as well as the abuses suffered by an uncomprehending audience.
So what is at the heart of this dire reception, it certainly is not the pathetic Fleck, rather I would argue that it is we, the audience whose expectations were so precious to us that we shared in the murder of Fleck just as I suspect the director knew we would.
Expectations
There is something abhorrent to us when things (or people) don’t meet our precious expectations. Arthur’s great crime come the end of the sequel is that he renounces the psychotic in favour of his own humanity. And to his followers this was unforgivable so much so that it paves the way for his own downfall. But just as Gotham ignored the emerging psychosis of Fleck, his followers abandoned him with his ownership of Fleck the man and rejection of the persona.
For Fleck, this was a lose/lose situation, for neither society nor the criminal underworld were capable of accepting him. And that brings Fleck to our screen, and we too, having been disappointed by Fleck, resolve to murder him a second time.
What does this say to the unnoticed and the desperate in our cities and towns? Only by being extreme will you be noticed. Only by conforming to expectations will you be noticed or granted notoriety.
What does it say about us as a society that we could only ever engage with Fleck’s character as long as it was leading to psychosis and insanity with plenty of bloodshed along the way?
Joker: Folie à Deux is a great film full of irony for it expresses the incivility of a society which prides itself on civility and the legal system.
This film committed a crime for which none can forgive, it messed with our expectations and it destroyed claims for which it never made that Arthur had no choice about where he would end up. It should be a cause of celebration that Arthur takes ownership, but in a world where straightforward sitcoms with neat endings and a lack of nuance are prized, Joker was doomed to fail.
Ultimately, Joker is successful because it’s unsuccessful. If it had been met with wide acclaim and love for Fleck’s potential rehabilitation it would have been a flawed representation of society. As it is, our rejection and choice made the film a fine reflection.
