https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=mYhwlh6YUmg
So the movie begins with a garbage strike and this accumulation of garbage in the city is of course a a very direct image of how everything is piling up in the city how the chaos is growing in the city of Gotham and You see the Joker spinning this sign which says everything must go and there you go. That’s the beginning of the movie Everything must go and that’s what this movie is about and because it it’s going to break down all the narrative structures that we identify in our culture right now and that is uncomfortable for everybody and it’s uncomfortable even for those who think That they are somehow edgy somehow that they’re the ones who are holding the revolutionary Hand but this is this will this movie has nothing to nothing to To do with that it’s gonna break everything apart And so in a way the Joker movie is the most punk rock movie that I’ve seen in a very long time Because it takes on everything and smashes it. So how does it do that? How does it break down the narratives? What it does is that it sets up certain situations and The situations which it sets up are the situations which you would expect in the current political climate in the current way that people Put facts together or put elements together and then what it does is it breaks that down it? Shatters it as it’s setting it up. And so this bully this big, you know, this big huge white guy You know, he’s got everything you need to make him look like like that bully character He gives Arthur Fleck a gun now That’s what you would expect. Of course because he fits the typified image But then the Arthur Fleck character takes this gun and he uses it But he uses it to kill these elite Kind of Wall Street types as he calls them the himself these three young Wall Street types, you know looking like the Covington kids type of guys and so Already you have this problem. You have this smash which is that on the one hand you want to Certain political narratives will want to say yes, of course Here’s this bully type character giving him a gun being interested by in guns But then the gun is used to kill the elites in society and so And so it and so how do you deal with that? because the the gun ownership in the political narrative of the US is is seen as you know the powerful who have these these guns and It’s a powerful who are defending the use of guns But now it’s used in a kind of revolutionary manner but even in that scene again everything is broke it breaks down because you see the Joker sitting in the train and You see these three kind of young rich kids who are bullying this young lady. And so when they come and They beat up on the Joker they beat up on Arthur Fleck. You feel sorry for him, of course and you you can that that story is typified these three bullies kind of harassing a young lady and so Finally you think the Joker defends himself and he shoots one of the guys and so you and so there’s this There’s this disturbing sense of catharsis in the moment But then he not only kills the guy but he goes out and he hunts the third guy down and he shoots him down in cold blood it’s already the the narrative of the revolutionary narrative you would say is already broken down because The extra step that he takes to go hunt him down to shoot him down with a gun and this gun is an evil thing in American in let’s say left-leaning American narrative the the idea of killing elites is A left-wing fantasy. And so how did you jive these things together in the modern? Political landscape so that breaks it down another way that the story gets broken down is in the very character of Arthur Fleck himself Because on the one hand he is portrayed as someone who is poor someone who is suffering someone who has been abused he has portrayed as a victim but in the modern political landscape today We have had all this talk about these dangerous incels and these kind of dangerous lonely guys who are who are a social threat, so portraying him as a victim and at the same time having him as being this this disturbing character who has become the big boogeyman of The modern world right now. It’s very interesting to see We we’re not yet going to have a not all incels hashtag. Maybe we should who knows but But we see that in that element and so another another way when which all the the Expectations are broken is that you have this poor character Arthur Fleck and his mother who’s writing letters to Thomas Wayne and so Thomas Wayne is Represented as this jerk and he’s you know, he’s got he looks exactly like you would expect him to it kind of overweight, you know big Guy, you know with a tuxedo who talks about People who are not succeeding he talks about the poor and about the marginalized in society as a bunch of clowns And so you have the story of this lady who would have in the in the past Poor lady would have had an affair with Thomas Wayne. So Thomas Wayne would have shut her up You know like an abusive man in the Epstein style would have shut her up and she couldn’t she couldn’t get anything from him So she was forced to raise this young man alone And so aha, it’s like we have it we’ve got our narrative This is this is the narrative big mean rich man abuses woman takes advantage of her She has a child and now this child is mentally ill and you know, that’s the story That’s the story, but then the story is broken because turns out that she’s delusional that it isn’t the case that in fact She you know, you know, she’s a little bit of a She uh, you know, she adopted this child and Thomas Wayne is not the joker’s father. And so Thomas Wayne remains a jerk You know the things that he said at the beginning are still extremely annoying and extremely disturbing But then he’s also not this he’s not what the story has brought him up to be and so the idea that somehow Arthur fleck would Want to wreak vengeance upon him? Doesn’t have any meaning anymore and so this this narrative is broken as well. So Constantly in the story that is what we’re seeing we’re seeing Expectations brought up and then those expectations being cut at the knees so that you cannot hold on to The narrative that you think the movie should have in order to justify its existence and all of these Identities that he has are broken down and so he becomes in a way the same kind of anonymous Identity, you know, he’s adopted. We don’t know who his real parents are. His mother is abusing him And so he he is without any identity He’s the picture of nihilism the thing about nihilism is that nihilism is Not on anybody’s side and that is why so many people are Frustrated with it, but the ultimate thing that I think is making people crazy Is how it crosses the different narratives together and gives us something which seems impossible But that people just can’t stand to watch which is that joker is the you know Is this bitter incel character But then he ends up becoming the figurehead for a type of Occupy Wall Street Movement where everybody’s wearing a mask It’s a clown mask instead of a guy fox mask, but you can see that it’s all related to the same thing There are there are places in there are little scenes in the movie where for example people hold up signs and it says wane Fascist and they have resist signs and so here is this here is the bad guy of here is the new bad guy of contemporary culture this clown incel, you know lonely guy who lives with his mother and He is the cause he is the inspiration for A movement which is an occupying movement of resistance and anti-fascist movement. And so it’s like Smash the two narratives together and no wonder people cannot stand it now mind you The movie is extremely disturbing the the to watch this character become crazy to watch him kill his mother to watch him uh, you know Become this brutal character is extremely unsettling but In terms of the actual violence it is no less unsettling than any other movie that Has that type of story in it? You know the the the movie it just came out two weeks ago There are all these horror movies which usually come out in the month of october. We are in the month of october We know this is the month for horror movies But somehow this movie is the one that is freaking people out and and and that’s what it is It really is that’s what’s so unsettling about the movie is that everything must go the whole thing is the entire narrative all the narratives are thrown up in the air smashed together and and and and broken down and Very few people can handle that and I understand why they can’t handle it But what it can help us see if we’re attentive it can help us understand What kind of narratives we are attached to what are the stories that We think are the stories which are unfolding before us. What what is holy to us? and that’s what a clown does a clown is always pointing and Taking apart the things that you care about the clown is always turning things upside down. He’s always Making fun of the things that we hold dear that is the role of a clown and just because Just because some people think that they’re right And that their narrative is the only narrative Doesn’t mean that there won’t be a clown there to poke at it You