‘Joker’ Isn’t Dangerous
By: Luis Felipe Borges
Tags: Movies, Review, Film, Opinion, Conversations

‘Joker’ offers plenty to talk about. And not just the artistic side of it. There’s real conversations to be held about problems that are noted by the movie. Trying to suppress the film by merely deeming it ‘problematic’ and walking away doesn’t solve any problem. It would actually keep people from enriching discussions over delicate issues such as mental health, child abuse, nihilism. Just to name a few that ‘Joker’ does cover.

Would it be better? Not to talk about any of these real problems and shy away, for fear that the movie might incite violence?

I’ll give it to you, the movie does walk a fine, unstable line between warning and exploiting. Except, I think, they handled it with great care not to romanticize any of the violence and uproar. The movie never tries to justify the violence. In fact, it does such a great job of having us empathize with Arthur’s character that we don’t want him to fall on that destruction path.

You’re not exactly rooting for The Joker to cause as many mayhem as possible. Instead you comprehend what led him to that point because you were following him all along. And you might understand that maybe, it could have taken only one person, to extend a hand and offer genuine help, in order to prevent the chaos we see as a result.

What if we discussed that? How sincerely talking, addressing people and their problems could be the one thing that may just contain hell from breaking loose.

The film offers a chance to really talk about mental health and the best way to approach it, and it also does a great job not to simplify it either. It doesn’t carry out the ‘loonie with a gun’ narrative, instead, it provides a bigger picture on how complex these problems are, and how much of a gray area there is in morality. In a way it puts all of us on the spot, because the way society is heading might be the true catalyst to all this mayhem.

But all of this becomes hard to be debated when we simply toss a coin to decide whether something is ‘problematic’ and should be out. Joaquin Phoenix himself said best in an interview to TotalFilm:

“I think oftentimes, in these movies, we have these simplified, reductive archetypes, and that allows for the audience to be distant from the character, just like we would do in real life, where it’s easy to label somebody as evil, and therefore say, ‘Well, I’m not that’”.

The fact ‘Joker’ is so grounded in reality, showcasing the true nature of our society, is what’s gathering so much attention and engagement from audiences. And hopefully it keeps doing what is supposed to do, which is to encourage dialogue.

That’s the beauty of human beings too, we are all unique in our complexity. If we all had the same mindset no new inventions would pop-up constantly. No exciting novels would be written, no breath-taking movies made, no new medical advances. Nothing that’s truly worthwhile could arise if there was no one to think outside the box.

And if you truly think this movie might be problematic and dangerous, then argue about it. Try to make someone see your point of view, instead of labeling and stepping away, refusing to maintain a conversation, because that wouldn’t solve your problem nor anybody else’s.

If you watched ‘Joker’ closely, there’s no way to tell with conviction that what you’ve seen was what indeed happened from beginning to end. The unreliable nature of its narrator opens up room for a myriad of interpretations, reminding us again that there is no definitive answer.

These are not my answers. These are opinions, theories, suggestions at best. None of us has the definitive answers. But maybe if we make the exercise of opening up to real and honest conversations, we might just combine the best of our theories and find an answer.

Put on a Happy Face,