Joker: Folie A Deux is not a bad movie in the slightest. It’s 100% a Joker origin story, just not the one fans interpreted it to be.
In 2019, Todd Phillips released Joker. Despite its low score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was a major success with viewers and the box office earning a billion dollars. Joker also received several nominations and 2 Oscar wins, including Joaquin Phoenix’s win for Best Actor as the titular character. Critics seemed unanimous, as many of them saw the film as an origin story about Arthur Fleck becoming the loveable, crazy Joker, idolized by fans of Batman and The DC Universe.
Referring to Joker as a film about one man’s descent into madness or as a the “Clown Prince of Crime that we all know and love” exposes the core reason why so many of the same fans hate this film and believe (at least by the critic below) that Todd Phillips is saying F*&K You to his fans. Arthur Fleck is not a villain. He is a victim and Phillips’s rendition of The Joker was never about Arthur Fleck becoming the Joker, it was and still is about our worlds problem with sensationalizing trauma, gratuitous violence and broken system of legal morality.
At the beginning of the film, Arthur is in prison awaiting his trial- he is represented by Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), the only person in Gotham who understands how sick he truly is. Day in and day out, Arthur is taunted and physically abused by the prison guards. They ask him if he will tell him a joke and make fun of him with the hopes that Arthur will snap and enact violence upon them. But much like the first film, Arthur is back to his natural state: docile, quiet and harmless and his medication seems to be helping him with the constant sounds of his mother’s voice.
The whole world, including those who interacted with him, have labelled him crazy and a cold-hearted killer. ‘Crime is crime is crime’ is the motto of soulless defence attorney, Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) who refuses to even look at Arthur’s case files that expose the horrific levels of sexual, physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his mother. The violence and display of Arthur’s torment from the first film seems to be what fans wanted in this sequel. They wanted a Margot Robbie and Heath Ledger-style escapade of senseless violence, but the trial as the centre of this film is essential to making viewers understand what Phillip’s has been conveying since the last film.
Arthur Fleck was never trying be “The Joker”, he was trying to find some joy in his life by making people laugh as clown doing stand-up comedy. Harley Quinzel’s band of psychotic “Joker“ supporters represents Phillips core fanbase that entirely missed the point of his first film. “The Joker” persona is a manifestation of the public’s unrealized desire for justice or power in their own selfish ways.
For his cellmates who are also facing daily police brutality, they see “The Joker“–and Arthur Fleck–as a beacon of hope that gives them a sense of confidence. The prison is full of mentally unwell people that the world has forgotten about and has pegged as psycho criminals. They have become a playground for sexual and physical abuse enacted by the pathetic, power-hungry gang of prison guards, and there is nothing they can do. They see Arthur as one of them but, like everyone else, they run with the media’s monicker of what they want “The Joker“ to be. The public interprets him as a villain but, to his cellmates, he is a hero. Arthur cannot tell what is happening because he interprets their cheers and sing alongs in his escapist world of 60’s Hollywood musicals- the only thing that brings him real peace and happiness. That is why the movie is told through songs. Arthur is experiencing love, kindness and support for the first time and it all feels the way musicals do when he watches them.
All he wants is for someone to see that his Joker act is about making people smile because, if he can do that, then he doesn’t have to be Arthur anymore, the version of himself he hates. As “The Joker“, he finally makes himself likeable and loveable like his mother promised. Just as his cellmates distort Arthur’s coping identity, so does Harley Quinzel, the privileged rich girl from upper Manhattan who uses her Psychiatry degree to manipulate him into becoming her desired version of crazy. She wants a boyfriend who will starts fires because it’s fun and she congregates all of Gotham’s ACTUAL crazy people to be his supporters because she knows that Arthur will do anything to please people, if it means they will like him.
What makes his attempt to actualize the public’s version of “The Joker“ even more devastating is that, at no point, does he present “The Joker” in the way that they want him to, which is exemplified by his performance as his own attorney. He actually acts like a clown at a birthday party. And his intention is not to exonerate himself of the charges. It’s to prove that the defendent and the public are all the same. His neighbour Sophie (Zazie Beetz) was fully aware of Arthur’s abusive mother yet she chose to ignore it and, instead, label him as odd. She says she wishes she would have spoke up sooner because maybe it would have stopped all of his murders, placing the lives of the abusers over Arthur’s protection and safety. It doesn’t even occur to her that, maybe, if she had protected Arthur, that maybe he wouldn’t have snapped.
His only friend, Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill) offers a testimony that brought me to tears, because he witnessed Arthur commit the crimes. Gary pleads to Arthur to not embrace “The Joker” and he battles with himself not to. (“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you Gary and I didn’t,” Arthur reassures.) Arthur is hurt that his only friend would see him as a monster the same way the public does. He can’t deal with the fact that his friend doesn’t understand why he snapped in the first place. Gary and Sophies hatred and fear of Arthur feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy placed upon him by his mother. If “The Joker“ is the only way people will care about him, good or bad, he will keep up the act, no matter how painful it is.
Arthur isn’t crazy, he isn’t a monster who likes to kill people. He is a human being who was failed by child protective services, his mother, the law, the police and now, by the general public. And he is fully aware of it. He tells the jury he was never going to kill Murray, he was going to kill himself. Suicide is something that Fleck speaks about frequently in both films. He is tired and has no will to live. But now he does, “The Joker“ has fans and they love him for his “monster” title. Arthur was never going to be a monster, but he will pretend to be one.
The public’s black and white obsession as the perfect victim or villain couldn’t be anymore relevant; it’s almost as if Phillip’s drew from the real life public trials and judgement of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and The Menendez Brothers.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard faced “The Joker” treatment upon her release this past January. She aided in the murder of her mother as a form of escape; what is often overlooked in her story is that Gypsy attempted to escape multiple times, only to be returned her abusive mother. She did seek help and no one listened to her. What’s even more suspicious is why doctors would continue to perform these invasive treatments on her for years before questioning if anything her mother claimed was true. Gypsy met a boy online who made her feel special and together they did something the world deemed terrible- but was it really that much worse than the abuse she endured? Was it worse then every doctor turning a blind eye to what was going on? It was the spectacle that came after her release that was truly sickening- because she was not a perfect victim. She got out of prison with the goal of trying to live a normal life, Thousands of people on TikTok advocated for her while others became obsessed with her freedom, hellbent on proving this girl as a cold, blooded, psychopath killer.
The Menenedez Brothers were the butt of many jokes in 90’s Televison- one of the most notable skits is from Saturday Night Live seen below:
Ryan Murphy released his limited series Monsters last month – he actually called it Monsters, ya’ll. The show tells a false and overtly-sexualized depiction of what happened to these men when they we children and teens. He took a deeply disturbing story of unimaginable abuse and turned into a spectacle. When he was called out for it, this is what he had this to say:
If you are not aware of the case, I urge you to check it out because contrary to Murphy’s “interpretation” of what happened to these men, there is plenty of evidence of abuse and neglect from the justice system and child protective services. Murphy, like Harley Quinzel, the entire legal system and the producers of the fake TV movie about “The Joker”, sensationalized trauma in the pursuit of a perfect villain. Never mind the child and the actual perpetrators of psychological torture, rape, torment and physical abuse, the public will only care when it’s trending or something they deem morally wrong happens.
At the end of the film, we see Arthur’s final form, a sane man who has accepted what he did and his fate. The guards who raped and killed his friend won and “The Joker” persona is now a public symbol of chaos orchestrated by the media and petty criminals. The world has abandoned him for not living up to their expectations and yet he is still a kind and gentle man simply waiting to die. The final scenes pissed a lot of people off because Phoenix doesn’t transition into The Joker but that is the point. Phillip’s is telling you some murders and some bad things don’t happen in a vacuum. So, maybe he is saying F*&k You to his fans, but wouldn’t you if the whole world took your story and distorted it into something they wanted it to be instead of understanding for what it truly is?
Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in theatres.
If you or someone you know has a mental illness, is struggling emotionally or has concerns about their mental health, please call or text 9-8-8. Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
