The Joker disturbed some of you.  I’m glad it did. It disturbed me too.  It should disturb everyone. Some of us have differences over the ethics of that disturbance and also over Hollywood’s so called “responsibility” governing that debate.  Herein lies a response to that criticism.

W.E.B. Dubois sees art this way.  “Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves.  It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth.”

The Joker should be seen in this light. Releasing important conversations into the air.   Creating atmosphere. Creating context.  Conversations are being renewed, or started in many cases, about gun violence and mass shootings, as a result of the controversy surrounding this film.  Hopefully, some of those discussions are also being shaped specifically by the way the film depicts those events. 

Some ask, “Do we really need a reminder of the violence in our society today?”  The answer is yes. Alternative depictions of historically relevant events are almost always vital.  This is especially true in artistic expression in film.     

Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Hitchcock’s Psycho…these are films whose initial reception was widely regarded with widespread social alarm and abandonment but have now come to be regarded, nearly universally, as Hollywood masterpieces for their hosting of alternative positions and artistic merit.  I fear to imagine the world some of the more outspoken Joker detractors may prefer we live in – that as long as the room is tidy and without provocation, and alternative narratives are not offered, feel free to watch – and say – what you want.      

Of course, the great irony here is that the Joker is socially valuable right now.  It’s a call to action over mental health awareness and the unforeseen consequences that we may encounter when we jettison vital social programs that generally target our most vulnerable populations.  Consider Arthur Fleck, as he is known, and humanized, earlier in the film. He is not a violent man. He baths his mother with a sponge. He has aspirations to be a comedian.  

Alienated?  Yes. Diagnosable?  Yes. A misfit? Yes.  A victim of child torture?  Yes. 

But violent?  Certainly not initially.  

He is a character with real human complexity, one, like all of us, who has both flaws and attributes.  It’s only after the city cuts all social spending and Fleck loses access to both therapy and the bevy of psychotropic medications he’s taking that he becomes violent.  Where might some of us be, particularly those less fortunate, you might ask, without these services.  

The Joker answers that question for us. 

The “résolution finale” occurs near the end of the film as Arthur Fleck’s downward spiral nears its fateful apogee.   He is on the Murray Franklin show and Fleck says, “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner and a society that abandons him and treats him like crap?”

How can Todd Phillips, the director, be more clear here?  This film is a veritable call to action. A plea. It almost begs us, as viewers, to do something.                  

What many of these critics detest more than the Joker itself, or Arthur Fleck himself, is the moral ambiguity his life proposes to us.  They are people, in many cases, averse to living in the morally challenging grey zones (i.e. that killers have stories) because it precludes them from taking Arthur Fleck’s entire story into account when evaluating the tragedy of his life – all the while missing the fact that most of life’s true villains have a difficult and very human story to tell. 

Arthur Fleck is that human. 

He is the tragedy in the wait.  He is the human who needs access. Understanding his condition means seeing more nuance, less absolutism and potentially holding simultaneously divergent opinions about a single event.  As viewers, we must answer a simple question. Are we prepared to bear witness to the inherent problem of evading our social duty to the less fortunate…and do nothing? Can misguided viewers continue to masquerade under the pretense that the Joker will cause more harm than good?

Since the release of the movie the number of US deaths from people killed in clown costumes who claim to be vindicated by the Joker stands at 0.  Conversely, during the same time, the number of people killed in the US by simply falling down is in the hundreds. A sense of scope may well serve us here.

We must see story.  We must see context.  It’s what every therapist strives for when they meet a new client – to understand someone’s condition.  The Joker does no more to incite violence than, say, Saving Private Ryan glorifies war, or Requiem for a Dream encourages drug abuse. These movies simply reflect real world events as best they can.  Of the many metrics that evaluate sociopathology, Arthur Fleck meets almost none of them during the first half of the film. The Joker gives us context and atmosphere, a human story, and that disturbs some people. 

Does that mean we (or the director) condone what Arthur Fleck became? The Joker.  Of course not. Does that mean criminals who come from unfair backgrounds should not be punished.  They absolutely should.  

But when it comes to Hollywood’s suggested “social responsibility” on how to rightly portray stories and not incite violence, we really need to think about what we’re asking for.  That is what we call “artistic license” – and in this film, despite many critics’s contentions, this artistic license actually serves the larger good by illustrating what can happen when we ignore mental health in the proposed servitude of a “responsibility” gone eschew.

If we had any real sense of social responsibility, we would stop releasing Marvel sequels and films with Ludacris.  Of course, those films are far less offensive, less provocative, and frankly, more boring – so watch the Joker at your own risk.  And remember what’s at stake.