As an aside, everyone worried about Joker and Incels should be MUCH more worried about the connection a set of men have with Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight.
To quote my 20-year-old girl, “It’s just a deal breaker to me. At least a quarter of the guys who ask me out in college really seem to admire Ledger’s Joker and tell me how much they identify with him. Instant no second date.”
@Jonathan_Chance has it 100% correct. This film is really an indie character study about a man with mental illness. It’s connection to the Batman world is so meaningless to the plot that it could easily be removed entirely and the movie would not change one bit. Arthur Fleck is not a hero, he’s not portrayed as someone righting wrongs, he’s not looked on as someone you want to become. (Unlike, as pointed out, Ledger’s Joker.) He’s not an “incel.” He has no issues against women. He’s mentally ill, and the real message of the movie is criticizing the failure of bureaucracy to properly care for those with mental illness.
The desire and even need for, sure. The feeling of entitlement to receive it, not so much. That’s not healthy.
There is no typical incel, no archetype or particular backstory. It is not just anyone who finds themselves rejected by the world, it is only those who blame the world and wish to harm it in return.
Is the Joker an incel? I can see an argument either way, but I’d say so. Would incels identify with the Joker, as described by those defending him in this thread? Yes, absolutly.
Now, does that mean that they go out and they commit terrorist acts? No, they probably don’t. Does it mean that our stochastic chances of violence from that segment of society is increased, I’d say, yeah, most likely, by a tiny amount, but that’s not what I am worried about.
But, does it mean that some socially isolated people find validation in their feelings of alienation, and justify and rationalize their choice to withdrawal further from a world that doesn’t play by the rules they deem to be fair? Yes, I think so.
Violence can be cathartic (even though it almost never actually is), and seeing violence even fictional violence perpetuated by those who deserve it for living in a world that would treat the protagonist in such an unfair way can make someone who feels treated unfairly feel better about themselves, but not in a healthy way.
Take the movie John Q., we are meant to identify with a hostage taker and a terrorist, on the grounds that the world is being unfair to him, and his actions are justified. If you have seen this movie you cannot not identify with the father doing anything to save his son.
So, are we supposed to identify with the protagonist of “The Joker”, or condemn him entirely?
Much as I didn’t care for those movies, as they did not much interest me, it should be noted that the Joker in Dark Knight was the antagonist, who we as the audience are supposed to vilify, not the protagonist, with whom we are supposed to identify.
Main reason why I didn’t watch The Joker is because I have little interest in DC movies. Now that I know that it has nothing to with them I may take a watch if it is convenient.
You really should. It entirely earned its awards.
And you may think Ledger’s Joker was the antagonist, but as I’ve reported, there are a lot of young men who find him compelling and role-model worthy.
Not unlike all the damn cops with Punisher iconography. He’s not meant to be an example for you to live up to, people!
Explicit plot spoilers below.
Arthur had a pretty obvious condition right from the start of the movie - he carried a card describing it. He didn’t break until he found out he was adopted, and that his mother and her boyfriend abused him as a baby, that his mother was crazy herself, AND that his own girlfriend was an imaginary apparation of his own mental illness. The next day, he says quite explicitly, that’s it, life is a joke. And he smothers his mother to death.
I’m not concerned about “normal people” identifying with this fictional character and following his tragic descent into insanity. He was not a role model. You feel sympathy for his pains, you are sorry for the man and what he becomes, but that is all. His actions are never justified to the rational mind.
~Max
I’d argue neither really. We certainly are not supposed to identify with him. We pity him, both because of his mental illness and because of how he is treated by others (which I will add, is set in early 80s dystopian NYC, not current society. This is the feel of Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, etc), but we don’t identify with him. He’s pathetic, shown in grotesque imagery. His violence, other than one instance that can be argued is self-defense, is most definitely not justified. It’s shocking because it’s horrific, the people do not “have it coming.” We do condemn his violence, as well as we condemn the fact that the lack of a social net to catch him also contributed to his fall.
As the antagonist, it is even more concerning that there are those who choose to identify with him. It’s a bit like identifying with Thanos or Darth Vader. You just shouldn’t do that. They are not meant to be followed by good people.
With The Joker, he is the main character, the one that we the audience are supposed to have the most connection with. He is the one we are supposed to have sympathy for and to empathize with.
And agreed 100% on cops and Punisher. Or anyone and the Punisher, for that matter.
Which was all set off by his social worker/therapist saying that because of budget cuts they could no longer afford to keep him on his medication.
I think that if you took just about any incel, and gave them a good enough script(even sticking to the true story), you could make most people feel sympathy for their pains and for that man and what he becomes.
Interestingly, I may have changed my opinion here. I truly do not think that anything that reinforces or validates incel feelings is good for either them or for society, but something that gives society a more sympathetic look at those it rejects may have some positive implications.
“I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there”.
I would argue that we all feel innately entitled to love and compassion from other humans. I’m willing to be corrected by psychologists on that one, but I don’t see how it’s possible it’s not true.
Humans (and animals) do not thrive in non-loving environments, it seems they frequently become sociopaths based on my non-expert observations of abused children and how they turn out (news reports etc.).
We shouldn’t, because that’s the attitude that rationalizes stalking.
People may just not like you. It sucks, but there it is. You are not entitled to have people like you, love you, or feel compassion for you.
Trust me, I know, I’ve been there, and I’ve taken more steps down that path than I generally like to admit.
I really think that trying to claim Joker as an incel gives more weight to that group of people than they deserve. You might as well call every single marginalized character who gets picked on/abused from every movie/TV show ever as an “incel” in that case.
I think a lot of the trepidation around this movie before it came out was out of a concern that it would basically be that version of the Joker, as a sympathetic protagonist.
Surely you see the contradiction? It is not possible to sympathize with someone’s rejection from society without validating their sense of rejection.
~Max
I think we need to define what an incel actually is:
Oh, yeah that has nothing at all to do with this movie…?
~Max
There is a distinction between entitlement (“People who have a false sense of entitlement believe that they are more deserving of special treatments and circumstances than everyone around them.”) and frustration at need getting a basic human need met.
The joker entertains a kid on the bus with funny faces, the kid likes it and is entertained, the mom get’s mad and mischaracterizes the situation saying he’s bothering the kid. That’s not expecting special treatment, that’s expecting normal human treatment.
Besides the self-pity and resentment, no. Are the Vinyards in American History X incels because they’re motivated by resentment and racism?
Uh, no. It doesn’t. Arthur Fleck does not resent women, show any kind of misogyny or entitlement to sex. Never once during the film is it suggested that his problems have anything whatsoever to do with women rejecting him. Really, it’s literally the opposite.
Joker does not kill Sophie. He has no ill will or resentment towards her at all. When he realizes their relationship was all in his head, he doesn’t put the blame on her or do anything to her. He realizes that it’s his mind that’s the problem.
Are you trying to say that any single person is therefore by definition an “incel”?