I'll be 39 in March. I've struggled with mental illness my entire life. I was self-harming at 13 and sent to a psychologist shortly after, and according to him, based on how mental illness was at the time and how my doctors didn't want me to be "on so many medications" because I was "too young to have anything wrong with me" (I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia at 12 so I've been in pain my entire life too), so I wasn't "allowed" to be treated with proper bipolar diagnosis and medications until I was 22. This essay and how you explain all of this is why I get SO MAD when people say about mass shooters "They're just a mentally ill lone wolf". Like, NO! Stop with that narrative! Stop it! They're not mentally ill! Like you said, they make the CHOICE to be evil and to kill!
@@mayonaise000 the funny thing about english is that it was written by people. If I write it, thats how it is. I pass that forward in my family while yours goes extinct, then I am in the right. Call it Linguistic Darwinism.
As someone with C-PTSD (and an assortment of other comorbid mental health issues), the part about anger being the thing that makes people do violence rather than mental illness resonated with me quite well, because anger is an emotion that my brain has always actively rebelled against. More than once I remember getting physically or emotionally bullied and getting angry, but my brain just actively fought against anger and I'd often start crying even as I was trying to hold onto what (I felt) was righteous anger at my own mistreatment. And if I tried to respond to violence with violence I'd start crying even more because the idea of causing someone else pain was so distressing that it often just made my anger evaporate into a horrible feeling of guilt and shame. Anyway I really liked this video. I went to see The Joker in cinemas. It was actually the last movie I went to see in the cinema, before the... you know. My friend (who also struggles with mental health issues) and I just walked out after 25 minutes because it was too distressing to watch and the thought that it was going to turn into this thing of "he kills because he's mentally ill!" just churned my stomach. My mental illness makes me fold to conflict. Conflict distresses me. Hurting other people scares me. So seeing mental illness constantly be blamed for violence just... sickens me to my core.
Apologies for leaving such a long, rambling comment on a video I know is like 18 months old. I guess I just wanted to say that it really resonated with me, and thank you for making it.
honestly the whole jojo rabbit vs. the directors take on comedy thing is fucking hysterical to me. man imagine how he felt seeing that shit when Jojo Rabbit won damn
I believe Jenny Nicholson said, in a comment about the Director of Joker "When someone says 'People don't like my jokes because I'm too edgy,' what I hear is 'People don't like my jokes.'"
I also think that non mentally ill people tend to be drawn to these types of stories because they can’t handle the idea that they too could possibly do these bad things. They have to ‘prove’ that they could never be this evil because they aren’t apart of the group of people who are. Or that they need a reason for someone to do bad things other than anger because at some point they too have been angry. Ironically I feel it is more comfortable to know that you are actively choosing not to be bad compared to not being capable of being bad
@Ev. I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people and the types you mentioned are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and want everything to be their way and are the real reason misanthropes exists
I didn't like this movie for obvious reasons, but i do actually appreciate how they never actually give him a diagnosis. Because one thing the movie does is make the point that the mental health system has failed him. And as someone who keeps getting different diagnoses and explanations on what the hell is up with me, it is pretty realistic in that sometimes nobody else is going to fully grasp what you're going through and put an accurate label on it.
I've had (multiple) people *refuse* to deliver clear diagnoses. So is it a failure of the system, or the system functioning as intended? I can only assume their are legitimate reasons for avoiding a DX--NTs do, after all, delights in their hatred of NDs--but no one has ever explained to me exactly what those reasons are. And, personally, I suspect they pale to the reality of NDs to invent our own labels.
@@Netherfly Refusing to deliver a clear diagnosis could actually come from a place of wisdom regarding mental health. (I'm not saying that it's the case all the time or even often, but it is a possibility). Mental health is very poorly understood and research into it has poor funding and a lack of oversight. A responsible mental health professional could look at the DSM, conclude that it's largely guesswork and supposition, and decide to treat people based on individual circumstances rather than general recommendations. Of course, every psychiatrist I've had has been a nightmare, so I'm not going to assume that most mental health professionals are good people.
I came here to say basically the same thing. There are a lot of pill happy psychiatrists out there, too. Still feeling bad? Here’s another pill. So ending up on 7 and still not improving is pretty realistic too, particularly for low income people who will undoubtedly have a harder time finding and affording quality care.
@@Netherfly I think that what puffin meant, that is glad that the movie did not try and label the Joker, to not put an specific mental condition on a bad light but rather make a point on the system and society and not an specific mental condition. Because both in story and theme, the mental condition was not the main reason, but how horribly society pushed him to edge, because of his condition what made him go in such a dark path. So it is an story of a man breaking due to how flawed the system is and how terrible society treated him, rather than thanks to a diagnosis. That is what I understood from Puffins comment and the movie.
I was a patient in the 80s. The ineptitude of the system is pretty dead on... For the poor. Also, the system was full of physical and sexual abuse. He was hanging on, tuen his medication is taken away. That social worker was burnt out. I bet she was good in her day. I imagine she is overworked. She had the guts to say what nobody else will. Nobody cares about us. Nobody cares about funding. The ability to get over ones condition is also directly connected to insurance and money. I used to attend a day program. The reason the day program was opened was because there were too many mentally ill people walking around downtown. This agency that was designed to help us was Really designed to keep us out of sight. Mental illness is one disease, pair it with poverty it might as well be two. "The extreme always seems to makes an impression" Heathers. This movie had to be a little over-the-top. We have to get in your face for help. Because we become invisible. I can't condone violence. The similarities between me and Joker end there. But my empathy goes on. You are right about identity. I've always explained my mental illness as Spider-Man's Venom suit. In Secret Wars, Spider-Man use the wrong machine to fix his cos. Venom did more than Encompass Peter Parker. It weaved itself so deep, it became part of him. That's my identity. I don't know where I begin in my illness ends, sometimes. Perhaps this movie doesn't understand Mental Illness, but that even makes it more poignant for me. The depiction of the system is right on. I really think the empathy is there, and is trying to make us seen. I'm sorry what you had to go through, I really do have empathy. I'm sorry we have two different takes. I respect yours. Only through conversation can we really overcome.
although I am not mentally ill myself, I would like to add that part when the joker was talking about repressed anger and how you are not allowed to be angry when you a minority when you have the right to be pissed. I think it was powerful in a sense that it did talk about that and how it effected him in that way, it isn't a good reason for murder but I just like how they talked about it because I feel like not many people do
@@shelbyinmon8654 I have anger, and resentment. I am bitter. But, whom do I lash out at? I tried to sue the Diocese that oversaw one of the schools I attended. They moved a bunch of abusive priests, and brothers from Australia to Connecticut. The state was abusive, and inept. Being a ward of the state, I was released at 18, with nowhere to go. That's a little of my situation. But, it would make for an origin story. But sooner, or later I had to stop blaming,, and get my shit together. I do feel the world owes me, but the world doesn't owe me. No one's going to bail me out of this. Capitalism needs poverty to exist. The mentally ill, well um indigent, even with some work time will always be on the underside of poverty. It was hard for me to get a really good education under the trauma of being a child. I've tried to make up with that by educating myself. Because I'm inconsistent with my abilities, I sell on eBay. I only have to work when I'm well. Rich people in Connecticut sell their old stuff cheap...I'm so good at being poor, that it's not much of an issue anymore. With the exception of being able to choose where I live. I would love a condo. Something bigger than the 400 square feet that I exist in. Don't get me wrong and I'm very grateful for this place. But I strive for more, and a condo would be the most more I could get. I also come here, and vent. I try to share my experience, to the point of vulnerability. I want people to know what I go through, what we go through. Because nothing will change if I shut up. Compliance was never a strong suit. As fun as watching violence in the consequence-free atmosphere of movies, I could never go to that. Violence is not the answer to my problems. Very rarely is it anyone's.
It could have done all of the good things you mentioned without making the only mentally ill character in the movie be a serial killer explicitly because he’s mentally ill… If he had killed himself on live TV it would have been just as extreme, and left a bit impression. But then maybe it wouldn’t have worked as well as a villain origin… oh well, maybe you shouldn’t make a villain origin movie that’s also trying to be a gritty and meaningful movie about mental illness… because the serious topic that a super villain movie is actually about is violence… and making it a serious, meaningful movie about violence and mental illness, like they did, where the mentally ill person is the violent person, and then explicitly connecting the two, and not even having anybody else who is also focused on who could demonstrate the fact that it’s a choice, and not something inherent to mental illness, like they did, reinforces perceptions of the mentally ill as inherently more violent, and is therefore bad for mentally ill people in our society. I say this as someone who struggles with mental illness, ADHD and addiction/alcoholism (in recovery, thankfully), and works at a residential treatment center for mental health.
My god. I am so horrified that you were put into solitary confinement in school. It's torture when done to adults, and I can't even imagine the extent of the damage that it does to children. I am so, so sorry that this happened to you.
It's given me a permanent fear of being trapped in rooms so that's fun. Whenever I'd get angry or whatever they'd just drag me to a room and lock me in there for hours until I "calmed down". Calmed down as in literally begging to be let out of the room. This isn't even something that happened many years ago. It happened all throughout elementary school for me, which is 7-12 years ago. It's fucking twisted and is not how you deal with a problem.
resulted in the first time I seriously hurt someone. I've always been inordinately strong and after an hour in that room I managed to break the door teacher came in to yell at me and that didn't end well for her I wasn't exactly rational at that point.
@@darkdragonsoul99 she might be a woman and all, but I can't help feeling that it was well deserved. I doubt she'll figure out 2&2 that locking up a kid is traumatizing and results in violent outbursts.
its interesting that anger is brought up as a more central issue cause other depictions of the Joker (especially the DCAU of the 90s and the recent harly quinn series) really push that aspect of the joker, that his laughter and joker persona is fake and he is really the angriest person in the story and those rare outbursts are usually when he is most dangerous.
“I’m too close to the issue” Don’t give me that. You’re closer to the issue than the directors could ever dream to be. We _need_ you and others to be close to the production and criticism of works like this, because you alone have the experiences necessary to dredge up the real problems in the works. An eye on the ground is exactly what we need.
@@liittlemiissd “the movie is about the mind of the joker”. Bear that in mind. Anyway, “journos” be damned, my problem is this. Like said in the video, the movie makes explicit causal connections between mental illness and violence. This is exacerbated by the vagueness of his diagnosis, which means any statements made will invariably be applied to the entire spectrum of illness. Now, as someone who’s suffered mental illness I have a few objections to the implication that it makes me a murderer waiting to happen. I’m sure you see a dramatic tale of pain and strife, but our problem with it is that it treats “mental illness” as nothing more than a prop for drama, an excuse for violence. This is shit real people go through represented in a way that serves only to misinform and scaremonger, even if only by accident. And the analogy of “descending down into it” is just... worlds of bad. It’s an awful statement on how any illness works and the implication that within every mentally ill person is a supervillain waiting to shoot people, and that somehow the best thing for us would be to become that is a new level of bad on every step of the staircase.
@@Fluffkitscripts Of course not every mentally ill person will kill people. They just want to be love and enjoy life. But here's a simple question. If one wants to make a movie about characters who have mental illness, do all of them have to be good people or one of them can be bad? I mean, an artist can decide whatever they want to make in their creations. But i understand that implications of media can do if not taken into consideration. Though I can see this as some limitation. I mean, and this is just an example, if i want to make a villain who is dark skinned, but is very complex, is that necesarily racist or not or it depends on more factors?
@16:52 "It's just how I am". Thank you. That right there. This movie made me so uncomfortable because my ex also struggled with a mental illness but deliberately went off his meds. When he started gaslighting me as our arguments got worse and worse, he would always utter that line. I left the cinema shook because the movie just felt so familiar and uncomfortable that I couldn't put my finger on it. Thanks for that. It's been years already and I'm still discovering and understanding things about that failed relationship.
@@soupsoup4245 Maybe you're right. But then again, if following your own mundane statements with an expression that you're "laughing your ass off" is something you do fairly often, then your sense of comedy might not be relatable enough to matter, anyways.
Dramatizing mental illness can be counterproductive on a certain level, in terms of optics, as much of real mental illness is inherently mundane. It teaches people to understand mental health issues in terms that are narratively pleasing; inciting incident, dramatic tension, catharsis, etc. But real mental illness doesn't speak in the language of film. It is subtle, and therefore more insidious, it creeps up on you in ways you don't notice until suddenly you're saying dozens of horrible things to yourself every day and every happy memory you've ever had is completely blurred out, and you've forgotten that that isn't normal. Other people can't see that easily and they never will if they're expecting some overt plot point to signal mental illness to them, and they'll never really be able to help if they're expecting any sort of cinematic resolution as recovery often takes the rest of a person's life.
@@weggygaygay9940 'Scuse me if I doubt the credibility of someone who both calls people massive losers and doesn't understand hyperbole. Read between the lines a little, dude, sheesh.
@@weggygaygay9940 ceci ne pas une film, the best way i can describe it is an video essay it has no plot or drama, it merely offers a take just because it's entertainment doesn't mean it's film
That's not necessarily true. It's true for depression and anxiety, usually. But lots don't. Bipolar hits you like a tonne of bricks. Psychotic episodes are episodes BECAUSE they're not the normal. Practically any latent mental illness can be triggered by shocking life stressors like bereavement, natural disasters, and being fired or evicted. There is no way in which the mind ceases to fully function.
Damn, I'd kill for a 'mundane' mental illness. Joker was a dark movie, sure, but I don't view it as an attack on those with mental health problems any more than I view Kill Bill as an attack on Martial Artists.
At least in the comics, and earlier batman movies, he's a normal guy or a gangster who has one bad day/is expossed to chemicals. in other media, he shoes how the joker is different because the bad day broke him, while batman grew from it. He's not mentally ill before becoming joker.
Yeah the whole "Joker is mentally ill" always struck me as a cheap trick with no actual payoff. Just trying to make a villain who isn't sympathetic seem so, I always read it as the guy lives in a world where superheroes and crocodile people exist and he thinks it's fucking hilarious how batshit that is. So he does the clown thing as kayfabe. The Joker is a posturing edgelord
In the early comics, and through the bulk of the Silver Age, there wast even a 'bad day' per se. He was a mobster with a gimmick and a dark sense of humor, plain and simple. Serial killer/domestic terrorist/idealogue Joker is fairly new. The closest to his original personality in recent years is ironically the Jared Leto version, though there are many *many* other problems with that one.
@@ganganthefatman1382 Heath came out of nowhere, and there wasn’t a clue of who he was. He was like a force of nature. That’s how the real joker is. And yeah some characters are better without a backstory.
"i'm the Joker baby" still the best representation of the Joker He isn't a self pity hipocrite or a bad representation of a mentally ill person, he is just the Joker, baby
Thanks so much! I'm definitely still working on new videos! If you liked this one, you might like my one on New Mutants. But I'll have even more in the future. Thanks for watching!
@@LordRavenscraft hope that you see this, I really think you'd appreciate looking at the recent episode of Cinema Therapy that talks about the Joker. I'd be so interested to hear your thoughts on their video.
Hey man, just saw this now. And I'd like to say thanks. I know something was off about this movie like how or why people liked it. I honestly found most of it annoying and contrived even. Thanks again keep it up!
Can I just say how weird I find it, even today, that they made a movie about the Joker and tried to make him seem sympathetic? Like... this is the Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime. The Harlequin of Hate. The man whose atrocities have become only more sadistic and macabre as the decades have gone on. The psychopath who took a crowbar to Jason Todd and beat him to death with it while laughing. I'm sorry but... whatever sob story they wanted to spin about Joker's "One Bad Day" would pale in comparison to the nightmare he is portrayed as in almost all other DC media. I cannot watch a movie called Joker and forget that it's about the character who shoots Barbara Gordon and paralyzes her just so he can screw with her father's mind.
Yep. And seriously before I saw the movie, I basically said it was based on the "Killing Joke", A.K.A "One Bad Day." And, I was pretty on the nose with that. Though, it failed in some places, but over all it was a good movie. Though, I'm not going to defend it.
honestly as the least 'comic book fan' person ever, i saw this trailer back in the day and thought... why do i care to watch a movie about the joker's pathos? i once had a friend who just loved the joker. and i remember, through viewing the things they said about him, the 'point' of the joker never seemed to be 'why' he was the way he was, like that has never even been a little important. and now the cruella movie is coming so i guess people don't learn /sarcasm.... mostly
@@Tinuvielthefair Except the Killing Joke was more about how not everyone automatically becomes like the Joker if they go through the same trauma. Everyone seems to miss that part about the Killing Joke. The Joker put Jim Gordon through the worst trauma of his life, psychologically tortured him and even nearly killed his daughter. Yet Gordon didn't crack. The Joker failed. As Batman said to him-"maybe it was just you."
@@GeneralKenobi75 I totally, completely agree. Which is why I said the movie failed in many places. That was absolutely the message of The Killing Joke.
@@Tinuvielthefair Yeah, and it really annoys me when fans or creators want to invoke the Killing Joke because of its popularity and completely fail to understand it. The Dark Knight did it better. The Joker in that movie makes the same argument as he does in the Killing Joke, and gets proven completely wrong when the people he says will turn on each other and become as bad as him when the chips are down, refuse to do that.
genuinely shocked that you don't have more views. your videos have such a good layout and i can not emphasize how much i appreciate the fact you put content warnings on your videos. idk brain sees you in my recommended and goes bRRRRR
Hahaha, thank you so much! I only just got started this year and, well pandemic hit everyone, but I'd love to keep doing this. Everyone that watches and shares helps, though, so thank you for watching!
@@LordRavenscraft dunno if you’re still getting notifications for this but OP’s comment is a hard agree on a sentiment i’ve been struggling to word for ages! your vidoes are so well made i was genuinely surprised you didnt have years and years of backcatalog perfecting the art. excited to see what else you come out with my dude, you’ve got some really good things to say.
Oh shit, I haven't noticed 30k subscribers until you said it. That should be 10 times that, for starters. Production quality is certainly higher than most of the 250-300k sub count channels
Just wanna say that, after subscribing to this channel after watching the two Animorphs videos, it was an unprecedented delight to see you open this one by quoting Marco.
The way I saw Joker was not blaming the mental illness but more the idea that his mental illness just made everything he went through worse and the joker himself felt trapped and his choice to kill was his way out of feeling trapped but I completely see the connections in this video that I didn’t see before
I really appreciate you saying "and utter malpractice of a line" before the doctor says "you're on seven medications surely they must be doing something" because I have had doctors legit say that to me and then refuse to help me, so like yeah good to have some validation that that is awful and I am justified in getting the hell away from said doctor as soon as I possibly can.
One way that I think this movie could have been a lot more self aware is not have Arthur be the Joker. Have Arthur be just a mentally ill aspiring stand up comic, and then come across this strange charismatic dangerous man who makes him feel like he belongs. A man who turns out to be... (dun dun dun!) the Joker. Maybe still have Arthur shoot those wall street guys, because it could be framed as an accident, incentivizing Arthur to become more dependent on this one person who claims he understands Arthur, because now he thinks he has no-one else to turn to. And through his constant struggles the Joker gaslights Arthur into thinking that he did all those things, when really the Joker was using Arthur and in the end framing him for murdering Arthurs mother, friends and Murray. Not a story about a mentally ill man who just becomes a villian with the subtext "It was inevitable BEWARE THE VIOLIENT CRAZIES" But the story of a mentally ill victim who vulnerability makes him prey to a charismatic psychopath.
Jean Luc-Godard said that the best way to criticize a film is to make another film. I’d love to watch a movie like what you described! Sounds like it’d be an interesting conversation to have with Joker. Write the script, man!!
i'd like to point out that you're criticizing the idea of mentally ill=violent while also using the word 'psychopath' as a synonym for 'murderer'. mixed messages, mate
Im trying to think on how to phrase this. As someone who has been tumbling through dealing with mental illness and a psychologist (ikr), I think theres an issue of focus. Risk factors for extremely violent people and mental illness meet in a lot of points. And almost all of these risk factors are related to society, systems and economy. Even if the trauma comes from the persons family life as a child, we as a society failed that child, the systems in place that should protect children arent enough or arent working properly. But the narrative is constantly individualized and then gets generalized. Cause then governments, communities and societies dont need to think about how they are failing the people living in them, or how they should change. You reduce it to a personal problem, give it an explanation of trauma or mental illness and move on. But even if the person has mental illness that is merely the begining to understanding how to make things better so it doesnt happen to others, it doesnt justify a shrug, or fear of people with mental illnesses. This might be a silly example but, we know that happy healthy people dont get caught up in psychoactive substance abuse. Its a self destructive coping mechanism. Its a mental/emotional crutch the same way you'd use one for a hurt leg so you could walk. We known this for decades. But instead of find ways of making kids and people in general lives better, implementing systems to help and safety nets, we declare a war on drugs and pour resources into playing a cat and mouse game with users and dealers. We criminalize them and paint them as violent and dangerous. They the individuals are the problem, you see, that way we dont have any thing to do with it
In comics, the Joker isn’t really meant to be understood. He _has_ to be a static character to make sense. He doesn’t gradually develop into a psychotic villain he just is one. He starts out “normal” but he was born with screws lose. The Joker’s origins isn’t gradual it’s a quick snap. The joker is a symbol more than he is a person (there’s technically 3 of him, it’s canon but not really, then there’s the “batman who laughs” which DC abused the shit out of) so any story that makes him too human fails.
@Blah I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
@Blah if DC wanted to a movie where they humanize their villains, they have so many better ones: Red Hood (and making Joker, Harley Quinn, and the GCPD the antagonists), Godspeed (making eobard thawne the antagonist), etc
It always gives me a giggle when people who complain about virtue signalling try to virtue signal I don't know how anyone can think this was a genuine effort to explore mental illness after comments like that
@@Batchall_Accepted I keep coming back to the notion that like... If his stuff was really that funny, that appealing, then the detracting voices might be loud and numerous, but the movies would still get made because capitalism - fiscal votes count more than moral votes. It seems more like what's happened is that studio execs no longer believe *his brand* of funny will sell movie tickets, at least, not compared to their next tent pole franchise event. At that point, one must rebrand oneself in order to remain saleable. It doesn't seem like a movie made to make any point other than "I am hirable in the new world order."
This just brings to mind that "Speak Up, Reach Out" or whatever everybody was pushing a few years ago in response to a school shooting. Something like "identify the quiet loner kid in your grade and reach out, speak to them so they won't turn into the next school shooter" (super simplified and more on-the-nose than the actual slogan they came up with to make it sound better than what they were actually advocating for, but that was the main gist of it). And it UPSET me because it was me, *I* was that quiet kid these politicians were framing as some dangerous closet psychopath who would eventually snap and shoot up a school if the other students didn't.......sit with me at lunch? Frankly if I *was* that type of person and found out that my best friend had only become my best friend because they thought I was some dangerous psychopath who would "inevitably" shoot up the school but would spare them, because they were "my best friend", I'd fuckin' shoot them first 🙃 IDK, this movie just seems like a movie The Abled's made to make themselves feel better about their general distrust of any neurodivergent person. "See! This movie is GRITTY and REALISTIC and REALISTICALLY PORTRAYS {my own narrow, heavily biased view of} mental illness! This is ART IN CINEMA!!", *movie casually alienates a large part of its audience by having the title character who they'd up until then been able to relate to commit 3 murders on the subway*, "ART I SAY!!!"
I had to deal with similar shit (ASD + selective mutism) and it was especially bad in contexts where I couldn't speak (most of them). No one ever "reached out" and I don't know how I would have reacted to that at the time, but in general I'd say the whole effect exacerbated my problems: whether I spoke or remained silent, things went poorly. For a certain period of my life I was stuck in a situation where I could either endure extreme stress and inevitable come across as "weird" or withdraw entirely and be seen as "dangerous." It's amazing watching videos like this and realizing just how little society has progressed since I was in elementary school.
THE ABLEDS, i howled. cannot believe yet another movie making its violent, murdering protagonist mentally ill would go 'but we're so serious and touching real issues isnt this great representation???'
@@Netherfly I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
It's endlessly relieving to hear you talk about this film. The way everyone I was hearing from held it up as some wonderful piece about mental illness genuinely frightened me, and really only made me feel far LESS understood and much more afraid to be open and honest about my issues. This video was obviously personal to you but in it's own way it's personal to me too, and it legitimately helps ease my fear to hear someone more eloquent than me talk about it in this way.
I do like the movie, but just as a movie, because thanks to this video it opened up my perception about it. And they're better movies that deal on the topic of mental illness.
Joker was never even meant to be about mental illness. Mental illness was just one of the many issues that Arthur faced in his life which everyone ignored and pushed him over the edge
@@Arlesmon I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
I spent half my childhood in those concrete exclusion rooms in my elementary school, and... god, I just can't believe that most people don't know about them, and those that do usually seem to think it's okay. I had more isolation-based trauma than a POW before I was a fucking teenager, because of the american school system doing totally legal things to me every day. There's no moral behind this or anything, I just feel like more people should know that this is what life is often like for the mentally ill - it really does happen.
@@polygondeath2361 I don't think it's an unreasonable comparison - sometimes prisoners of war are treated well, sometimes they're tortured; it's a sliding scale, and on that scale, I certainly had it worse than those who were treated well, and better than those who were tortured. Studies have also shown that PTSD largely manifests in the same ways regardless of where you got it, and there are many veterans with PTSD who speak out against those who minimize the PTSD of people who got the condition in more "mundane" ways, stressing that different situations can break different people and none are more valid than others. Finally, your post seems to needlessly venerate the military, as if it deserves inherent respect. It does not. In fact, there are many reasons to be very critical of the institution, though specific people within it have indeed had heartbreaking experiences that I do empathize with. I do not mean to seem self-important, I was actually trying to do the opposite through mentioning that concrete exclusion rooms are extremely common in American schools, and therefore my experiences weren't special - the creator of the video, myself, and millions of other random people have experienced this form of normalized yet secretive torture of minors. It's just part of life. The fact that this is something that regularly and constantly traumatizes children, and gets swept under the rug, is what I'm attempting to bring to attention.
@@A6by it’s an extremely unreasonable comparison. Yes you may have been deprived of some humanity but prisoners of war first have to complete basic training, building up rapport with fellow soldiers, and then training further in many cases, building up even more rapport, just to possibly lose them in battle or watch them be tortured with you changes you for life. And many POW’s can’t function back at home due to severe PTSD with common things, such as the smell of gasoline or hum of a car. Don’t ever compare yourself to something you don’t know shit about.
@@polygondeath2361 Two people are allowed to have PTSD at the same time, no one's trying to erase one or the other here. I'm sorry if any mention of trauma related to military contexts is painful for you personally, due to yourself or a loved one having experienced it. My comment did not mean to belittle that trauma, it was sympathizing with fellow trauma survivors. Because there are lots of different types of trauma and they are all awful, to those experiencing them. The military is not special. The same bad things that happen to them happen to all of us. Your family, biological or otherwise, can die in front of you, you can be isolated, you can be tortured, you can be betrayed and hurt and never allowed to see the light of day. Those things all happen to people regardless of whether they have signed up to commit random acts of state-sanctioned violence overseas or not. Reverence is dangerous. We are all equals, our trauma is just trauma, and I suggest we stop having this discussion if it is triggering unpleasant memories or emotions for you. I apologize for my tone, I just don't think this is fruitful or healthy.
I love that you begin and end this video with quotes from Marco. His views on life really did alter my own when I was growing up (honestly, all the Animorphs did. I see a bit of each of them in myself, both good and bad.) But Marco's "laugh at tragedy because the other option is to cry" really resonated with me. Laughing something off lets you get to focusing on how to deal with the problem a lot sooner than crying about it. It kinda makes me think that Marco and the Joker are two sides of the humor coin. Marco laughs at tragedy as a way to cope, where the Joker makes tragedy so he can laugh. I really think if there was a Batman/Animorphs crossover, Marco would be the best one to confront the Joker because of this. He could call out the Joker like no one else could.
I'm gonna scream. I thought he said the closing quote was from animaniacs. I distinctly heard "animaniacs". Wondered what part of that show one of the funny animal people started talking about using comedy to hid their pain born of trauma. Thanks for the clarification.
In response to everyone posting about their school experiences and the example in the video, I would like to add my experience as an ex-Ed teaching assistant and mentally ill / neurodivergant person - 1) I have never locked a kid in a room by themselves. If because of staff safety a child needs to be left alone, we NEVER lock the door, we are ALWAYS right outside the room, we REPEATEDLY check on them until they are ready to calm down, and then we stay with them in the room when it is safe. I have been left alone in a room by myself before because of behavior. Sometimes if the child is endangering themselves or staff they need a break. That’s what it is though, a break, not a punishment. 2) Restraint is necessary for some situations. Example: A six year old trying to leave the school by themselves. The restraint should always be for the benefit of the student, as in they are not in an appropriate mental state and are making decisions that my harm others. In our state, mechanical restraints are flat out illegal and I have never used this technique. Only one type of restraint is acceptable, with variants for sitting and standing. It mostly involves keeping the arms still and does not put pressure on the chest, head, or neck. Restraint techniques that do are EXTREMELY dangerous and are being phased out. As far as body weight, one variation where adults and student are in sitting position involves pushing a portion body weight into the shoulders / upper arms, which is as close to applying weight to the torso as you are allowed to get. 3) It is hard for special Ed students to understand what they’ve done wrong sometimes. The key to teaching is not punishment. It is patience, reminders, reenforcement, and understanding. Not every behavior needs to be corrected and some of us adults need to remember that. Behaviors that are dangerous and harm the student or others should be worked on, but the focus is finding the source of those behaviors, which is almost always emotional. Anyway, that is my two cents and I hope I can be a better educator than others that have caused so much pain to so many children.
I’ve always felt similarly about The Joker, and I remember that I was absolutely terrified of going to even see it in the theatre. I’ve suffered from mental illness longer than I’ve been without it, starting meds at eight. When I watched the movie I promised myself that I’d never watch it again, because it left such a bad taste in my mouth. It’s a dangerous film. I came out of it feeling scared of myself in some odd way. And though Arthur might share some similar mental health problems as me, I can’t sympathize with him at all. They somehow masked his anger with mental illness and that’s so irresponsible on the writers behalf. As someone who’s been through it all, I’ve never thought of seriously hurting anyone other than myself. I genuinely hope more people see your video, it’s informative and really shows a perspective that is important. Also love your other content, keep it up :)!
I think the main problem with this movie is just that it looks at people who are unwell, and says "yup, you're all in this neat little box of the mentally ill". The us vs them, the others. Its saying "oh Arthur has a problem, and he has a foot in this box, so obviously its the box not him." It treats a personality disorder the same as an involuntary stress condition the same as complete dissociation, and says that they're all equally an issue. Sure they compound, but conditions in loved ones that you personally should be worried about, are very very limited and usually you'll know if you personally are in danger.
the idea of a man saying "people are too offended these days, all the good comedy writers are leaving", and having his movie lose to a movie about a boys imaginary friend hitler is such poetic irony, and i love it
This is one of the best videos about this topic I haven seen. You made cogent points and drew facts to what the writers, directors and producers overlooked in the film. I am not saying it is a completely bad film and yet at the same time, it could have been much better. For me the multiple threads is what did it for me in terms of losing me through the film. The mental illness issues, though never really fully suffering them myself (at least without a proper diagnosis), I can empathize with. That being said, they took the cop out to use the stereotyping of mental illness = violent, which I fully agree with you, is not a direct relationship at all. There are multiple sides to all of this (the movie, mental illness, violence, human connection, the state of society etc), of which a YT comment section cannot be the right avenue to discuss. For what it is worth, this was a well researched and made video and you should definitely keep up the videos. I would not expect one everyday, but quality requires time and I would be willing to watch more of your videos when they are produced.
33:04 Thank you! It feels so good to hear someone else say this. I found this so frustrating when watching the movie - you can tell that they really wanted to depict Arthur as just being a victim of circumstance, but he wasn't. Throughout the entire movie, Arthur never takes accountability for his own actions, and doesn't even attempt to do so. He just constantly blames everyone and everything else for his problems while failing to even attempt the most basic acts to avoid them and improve his situation. There are a lot of people who have gone through similar things depicted in the movie but never snapped and killed people. Nothing that Arthur did was inevitable or unavoidable. It's very clear, watching the movie, that you're seeing someone who has no idea what it's like to live with a mental illness or mental disorder try to depict what living with a mental illness is like. The vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit violent acts.
This video is a good articulation of my own - biased - frustrations with Joker. I'm not going to fault it for its technical execution, decision to frame it as a tragedy, or judge it for being dark. But I'm really, really, really tired of narratives in which Mentally Ill people are beaten down by society to the point where they become "monsters". Not only is it not demonstrative of my experience with mental illness, but it's also not for mentally ill people. It's for people who look at Mentally ill people in a play for sympathy. It's so common and utterly cloying, which is why Joker fell flat for me, and why its particular brand of cruelty upset me so much. At this point in my life, I'm more interested in stories about mentally ill people that actually make them the heroes of their stories, rather than as perpetual victims who become monsters. Or stories in which the mentally ill are given some kind of agency that doesn't involve guns and retaliatory violence, that is then gussied up with political theatre messaging about class warfare. The structure of which in this film makes it seem like the fact that the Joker becomes...the Joker a comprehensible, morally understandable way to deal with the shit hand he's been dealt. The stories that have helped me heal and become a functional, healthy person were not those cruel depictions. They were the stuff like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or Mob Psycho 100, in which the mentally ill (literally and metaphorically) have agency and are shown compassion, and make their own healthy choices. Great video, my friend. Good work.
@@WhipKick Hey, if you really enjoyed the film, that's great. I don't think that's a bad thing. I didn't think the film was bad on a technical level, or necessarily inaccurate in its depiction of Social Work; from what I've seen, a lot of mental illness treatment falls flat in the ways depicted in this film. I just used to watch a lot of films like it when I was young, and it had a negative impact on my wellbeing. As I said. Because I've watched so many of those types of films, I no longer like them as much. It's also not reflective of my own experience with mental illness. And I want more stories that are. As I said. So if you love it, great. Keep on enjoying it and recommending it. All the best
Agreed. The lesson movies like this actually teach is “be empathetic to those around you, because otherwise they will become dangerous animals and hurt you”
For good representation of mental illness, I strongly recommend a korean series called Flower of Evil. The main character has antisocial personality disorder, and he's the hero! His disorder is explicitly stated and his loving wife knew about it even before they started dating. The series shows really well what it's like being mentally ill; he watches videos that teach different expressions, asks why others laughed at certain points, and it's shown how he's the victim in most if not all violent situations. The show is about the main character clearing his name, because his father was a serial killer and he's suspected to be have helped his father. He lives under a false name and tries to find his father's real accomplice
As a person who has suffered from mental illness my whole life, while I was watching this video I kept thinking, "This guy is talking like he knows what he talking about." He obviously does and I appreciate his honesty more than I can say. I had to come back and edit this post to talk about "seven different" medications. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in my teens after a severe manic episode. That was in the 80's (yes, I'm old, so what..). There were not seven different psychiatric meds available in the 80's that could possibly be taken together without fatal results. It wasn't like it is now where you take a nice little antidepressant your P.C. gives you and life gets better. Those drugs were heavy and awful and I often thought it might be more comfortable to just be crazy. And the crazy was fucking painful so that says something. I thought I was gonna watch a video and get a few laughs. I was wrong....but that's okay. I didn't get a few laughs but I do feel like I got seen for a change.
It’s true that SSRIs weren’t really around in “let’s call it 1981” (they were just about to hit the scene), but he could be taking a tricyclic antidepressant (basically the predecessor to SSRIs, generally with more side effects as you mentioned), lithium carbonate as a mood stabilizer, some type of antipsychotic (they had both typical and atypical antipsychotics by then), hydroxyzine and clonidine as daily meds to help with the symptoms of anxiety, a benzodiazepine such as Xanax on a PRN (as needed) basis for strong anxiety attacks/panic attacks, and finally he could be taking cogentin/benztropine to help with the extrapyramidal side effects of his anti-psychotic, and that’s just one possibility. I don’t think there’s any interactions that would fully contraindicate every combination that fits this description in every individual, so I believe it’s certainly possible, and I see similar medication regimens at my job (I work in mental health), and I checked to make sure all of the medications I named were around in “let’s call it 1981”… At the least I doubt it would be fatal, even if there were certain interactions or increased side effects from the polypharmacy. Oh and it’s not that I’m advocating for this practice, I’m just mentioning that it is possible and it does happen, based on my experience, and my research on what drugs were available then. It’s certainly dicey to give people so many different medications to treat like 2 or 3 mental health diagnoses… seems like some work could be done to narrow things down a bit but sometimes either the patient doesn’t want to change what they’re taking because it’s finally working for them, or the doctor might be a bit lazy or just not wanna rock the boat by trying to figure out which meds aren’t really helping.
@@ByzantineDarkwraith individual pairings may not be contraindicated, but taken all together would likely be fatal, or at least make the one taking them completely nonfunctional.
Just stumbled across this channel and I'm really glad someone else clocked the messed up way this film handles mental illness. As someone with a mental illness, I got seriously annoyed with people going, "OoH! aAh! ThIs FiLm ReAlLy HaS sOmEtHiNg PoWeRfUl To SaY aBoUt MeNtAl iLlNeSs"
@@lampad4549 The worst thing is these people that think that they are just misunderstood. That if they just get support they will do fine. Tell me anyone that is comfortable with waking up in the middle of having someone standing in the corner of the room staring at you. They can be fucking terrifying to live with.
The list of demographics harmed by irresponsible depictions by Hollywood is LONG, including everything from the military to poor people to racial demographics to women to ... so it's pretty much everyone. It was great to see you stand up for one of the most vulnerable groups hurt by this.
Excellent analysis on both this and the chess/Sherlock holmes vid. I would like to argue that @18:37 when Arthur says "I'm off my medication, I feel good." doesn't necessarily mean Arthur being off his meds is a "good thing", it's just that maybe Arthur feels free to finally not be trying to fit in on his meds and "act normal". Kinda like saying "I don't have a mental problem, you have a problem with my mental state." I would also say that just because he murders someone doesn't mean he doesn't feel good. Correlation does not equal causation. I absolutely agree with the ending of your vid and I thank you for you sharing your personal story.
I think the irony here, other than that Jojo Rabbit won, is that the character that does tend to fall in those "one bad day" stories is Superman. You know the guy who tends to have loving parents, stable relationships, a stable job, on demand emotional support and guidance, and is generally regarded as a paragon? Yeah, that guy. And while those stories usually involve a traumatic incident never addresses it as him having just "gone crazy" or anything diminishing and tend to even reinforce the idea that he hasn't actually changed that much at all.
That's kind of a cliché also, is'nt it? People who generally have "good" lifes, tend to repress or hide a lot of things that push them over the edge. In reality, i feel that being yourself while having all those things and being emotionally balanced is one of the pillars of mental health.
@@desanctisapostata the thing about that is it’s not really hidden the cause of Superman’s trauma when he goes bad unless the writer just doesn’t explain. Injustice for example he’s very open about Why he’s doing things and it’s because everyone’s kinda like “well I guess so” and Wonder Woman continuing to push him that things turned out the way they did
I once heard someone say something, that I think fits kinda well here: "Wennever someone uses the word "woke", they have no Idea what they talk about."
In regards to Joker emphasizing the lack of available resources to people who have mental problems, I do agree that it is a major problem (the lack of available source for mental illness, that is). As far as Joker going off the deep end, "Run, Hide, Fight." Tristan is another perfect example of someone looking for help but gets turned away by the system and promptly feeds off of social media to get his fix.
The issue with people like Todd Phillips isn't their audiences are "too offended", it's that their worldviews is just wrong. It ultimately won't matter what genre he chooses to work in, comedy, drama, etc, if his portrayal of the world leans on such outdated and inaccurate stereotypes, he's gonna fail.
Plus alot of the people they're punching down on are at the stage where they decide to not take their bs anymore. Jokes are not an excuse to be a bigot.
Maybe I’ve just seen more movies then the average person, but I honestly will never stop being blown away by comments like this - the notion that Phillips “failed” is just bonkers to me. Just because the audience was split on this movie (for good reason, I find much of the criticism of the movie’s ethics to be very interesting and I agree the screenplay isn’t perfect) doesn’t mean the movie failed, or that it was bad, or anything like that. You can dislike a movie but still recognize the artistry, craftsmanship, effort and thought put into it. The film is gorgeous, it’s expertly shot and composed, the performances and directing are stunning. Criticisms of this film almost entirely come down to the writing, and if an iffy script is enough to make an entire movie a failure to you then I think you’re being incredibly reductive.
@@zenleeparadise the directing is shitty, the performances ok, the script is ok in parts and god awful in others and overall the movie is as original as a 10 years old ikea table but less functional. And I have definitely seen more movies than the average person, not that it matters but still
@@MJGianesello “not that it matters” - uhm I’d have to hardline disagree with you here. Anyone who’s watched a lot of movies has probably sat through a lot of garbage. Anyone who has seriously watched through incompetent filmmaking like Birdemic or something cannot seriously look at a film like Joker and say with a straight face that it’s incompetent trash. You can think it’s poorly written, you can say it’s in poor taste, you can say you didn’t care for directing choices. But when it comes down to the criticisms of it; it’s not that they failed to achieve what they were aiming for, it’s that they hit what they were aiming for and you just didn’t like it. It’s a matter of taste and preference.
@@zenleeparadise ok let me put it another way, it doesn't matter that I disliked it and that I am fairly knowledgeable, exactly how it doesn't matter that you liked it, what matters is its actual flaws. I didn't say the film was incompetent, no big hollywood production is incompetent, I'm talking art here not woodworking, if philips couldn't put a shot in focus I wouldn't be talking about it. However, you say they achieved what they were aiming for and thus the film is good on its own regardless? Well, to my mind, they were aiming to make a thoughtful character study about a well established pop culture character with a big social commentary angle and an inner-fantasy angle taken respectevely from taxi driver and king of comedy. Well, this movie fails pretty badly as a character study, fails pretty badly as far as any directing choice regarding "representation of fantasy" go and fails very very very badly when it comes to social commentary or even as a movie about joker. Now maybe the goal was just to make a shitload of money and nothing else, in that case kudos to them because it feels like they perfected to a T Nolan's formula for wanna-be thought-provoking-fluff-that-is actually-pretty-dumb, which explains its success along with a few more things, but in that case I'd care even less.
As a kid, I didn't really identify with Marco the way I did with some of the others. But looking back, he shaped me at least as much as anything else from my childhood, _especially_ that philosophy. You can choose to laugh or cry. That idea helped me a lot last year, because there was a lot to cry about.
I internalized Alfreds words over Joker from the Dark Knight. I never made the mistake of associating mental illness with Joker afterward. The Joker movie does just that. They keep bringing up an undisclosed mental condition whenever Joker makes someone his victim, as if to explain away that only a deranged man could be capable of such sudden, violent actions. The Joker is not the monster that he is because of any mental issues or abuse. What makes the Joker evil is that he consciously decides to hurt other people. Initially, I liked this movie. Now I realize I was mashing the events of the film with the preexisting rationale I expected Joker to be operating under. In a vacuum, this movie's Joker character is a mash of conflicting themes.
The most important thing to remember about the Joker as a character is that he isn't insane. He's just very, very good at convincing people less intelligent than him that he is. He isn't mentally ill. He's a genius of genuinely terrifying proportions who lacks empathy or compassion for others, and takes joy in the suffering of others. And seeing him get distilled down to the idea that he's just a really crazy guy has always annoyed me
I just stumbled onto your channel. Everything I've watched from you so far has been excellent. This video really hit different though. As someone who's been living with mental illness, has been in those rooms, has seen the looks in people's eyes when they find out I have a diagnosis its so good to see someone so effectively call out the harm that hese depictions do. It really means a lot to me. Thank you so much.
And it's good that we have those perceptions so that people can take into consideration about that stuff and make other things. Though i do have a simple question. If someone wants to make a character who has a mental illness, do all of them have to be heroes or normal people, or one can make them into a villain if they handle it correctly?
The last physical confrontation I had with my dad, he tried to force his way into my room to keep my door open. I was pushing him out when he said that I was bigger than him, and something to the effect of "why don't you just beat me with violence?". I answered that "No. I'm not you." Victims of abuse, trauma, neglect and mental illness who have been controlled, terrified and threatened into subservience don't have many choices, or even are aware that they are capable of having free will or choice. But we do have the choice of not hurting others, when and where we are able.
I think that "compassionate portrayal of mental illness" doesn't and shouldn't be used to describe a VILLAIN'S ORIGIN STORY, much more that of THE JOKER's, one of the most infamous and evil villains of pop culture.
i had a different oppinion before i came here. youve tuirned that around. you hang in there buddy. ive know my fair share of "brainshit" as I call it. ive had recurrent depression with a strong affnity to dissociation. (rough translation, might not come out correct) so i feel you. in my youth i used to lash out and hurt me /others in anger. ive managed to acclimate that and mostly gotten that recurrent depression in check. trying to claw my way into a normal job/life atm. not that easy. anyway it doesnt matter. what im trying to say: The pain in your eyes whilst talking about that topic is hard to watch. thanks for hanging in there buddy. sending love from germany
The mere fact that a film features ideas and themes worth exploring and discussing does not mean it is a good film, let alone a masterpiece. That, in a nutshell, is what fans of the vastly overrated Joker don't understand. It just isn't a very good movie, for many reasons, some mentioned in this video, some mentioned in other videos, and some I've spoken on (one of which I've not seen discussed anywhere else). And then they accuse detractors of not understanding Joker, which is laughable (no pun intended), seeing as the film beats you over the head with each plot development.
I think more of an argument could be made that Arthur’s mental health issues are only a negative force in the sense that it is one of several stressors for Arthur. I think Arthur does not kill because he’s mentally ill - he starts killing because he’s pissed about all his compounding issues and continues because it’s cathartic, because it gives him a sliver of control. The mental illness only shows when he dances as part of this catharsis.
@@heroofthewest The major issue he brings up in the video is that right before each time Arthur kills, his mental illness is brought up, creating a very problematic association. There could be a lot of ways to analyze and break it down that don't put the blame on mental illness, but that idea still gets planted in many people's brains.
@@iliakatster I feel your sentiment. I understand why you wouldn’t want mental health conditions misrepresented, because I don’t either. I have a friend who has these movement tics that cause immense pain on a regular basis, and interferes with their sleep, all on top of depression. I have multiple friends who grapple with PTSD and anxiety every day. But we cannot prove that Joker is misrepresenting issues like theirs to the public, because to my knowledge, there are no studies performed that specifically demonstrate a change of opinion towards people like my friends after watching Joker, without which your argument, unfortunately, becomes a sort of ad populum fallacy.
I didn’t either until this guy clearly pointed out that every murder without a self defense component are immediately predicated by him reminding everyone that he is mentally ill
Just stumbled on your channel through the Animorphs videos (which are really good! I'm excited about Part 3). Thank you for addressing this movie in a calm and collected manner and not matching it's overly bombastic approach. You did good, definitely got a new subscriber here.
I know I'm writing this a year late and only partially into the video but I've had sort of the same type of things happen. Therapists berating you for being untreatable, psychiatrists telling you you don't need more medicine even after you tell them it's not working. Getting put in mental hospitals to just lie and cheat your way out cause they don't do their jobs right. I agree that this movie just is bad for mental health awareness but I think it also shows that these things do actually kinda happen. No one talks about when it does cause it shows a collosal failure as a society
The one thing I hated about this movie is that 1)was clearly Oscar bate. 2) Got the Joker,as a character,wrong. The thing about the Joker is that he is chaos in human form. He will wake up one day and deside to he wants to blow up a building,but might at the last moment, to just leave a note in the building the saids "BOOM!!!". I feel that the Joker does not need to have a reason as to why he is. That is where the movie faked.
Glad to see someone else felt uncomfortable with the Joker’s portrayal of mental illness when it seems like everyone else is in awe of it. There were good elements to the movie. But I didn’t think it was a super deep cinematic masterpiece. And actually the framing perpetuates an incorrect and marginalizing public connection between mental illness and violence.
Hullo! It’s me, your local neurotypical descending from on high to tell you about your own representation! Music by sia was the greatest thing ever to happen to autistic people! Joker is amazing! Look how woke I am! Bow to my supreme sensitivity!
Am very late but if you consider the movie in the context of Batman lore and cannon, (mostly from comics), then it is a very good study into the character of joker, especially in the context of the killing joke and other such stories. As someone who'd read nearly every joker comic and seen every movie and cartoon under the sun, this movie was so satisfying because it had all the nihilism, futility, and anarchy that a joker "origin" needs. Watching it, it was never really about the mental illness aspect. The point of the movie is not to accurately depict these things, however it maybe should have been considered more in production as misrepresentation can always be bad especially with these kinds of issues. But the point of the movie was this: it doesnt matter exactly what mental illness the joker had or whether he had them at all, what events traumatized him or didnt traumatize him when he was child, whether or not his mother loved him, what matters is that it is possible in this world for someone to experience in their life a perfect storm. One that leaves them utterly broken and unable to relate in any positive or meaningful way to another human being. To empathize with this character is wrong, especially if you've read the comics and know all the crap this guys done, but in every joker story there is a sense of failure in the people around Arthur that suggests that maybe if someone would have helped him, this never would have happened, which is explored in batman comics, as in the traditional origin of joker, batman fails to catch him before he falls into the vat of chemicals that finally turns an already broken individual into a super villain (weird, but that's what comics are like). But the rule always is, it doesnt matter what happened to thr guy up till that point because it could literally be anything or nothing at all. The same themes apply here but can we really believe this? If someone would have given him a kind word would it have really helped? If batman would have caught him, would there be no joker? The answer to this question doesnt really matter, because the joker isn't really a person but an anomaly that occurs regardless of societies failings and successes, regardless of batman's failures or successes, regardless of whether we would give him a kind word or not, regardless of whether we empathize with him or not, (which is a thing that should never happen, as we saw in Mad Love). Definitely wasn't a perfect movie, but at the very end when he dances on top of the police car or whatever, it felt like the purest and most faithful recreation of the character in cinema for me, at least on a thematic level, someone who has nothing to lose, doesnt care about anything, and believes all life is futile and meaningless, (which is not a good way to frame mentally ill people and does perpetuate stereotypes and stigma which is quite inexcusable, but it is a great way to frame the joker) and does it really matter if there is a tragic story behind how he got there? No, and that's the beauty of the joker as a character, he could literally just be a guy who had one bad day and found himself battling a bat-shaoed man for all eternity, do we need any more justification? Deserved the oscar for best actor and music, but that was it, jojo rabbit and parasite were definitely more coherent overall.
Yes, thank you. This is a wonderful character study on the Joker and the way he thinks, which is all it was ever meant to be. The film itself goes out of its way to show that you can't trust that its depictions of reality are accurate, but the feeling behind the Joker is there. His mind is there. And it does that really, really well. I was also confined as a kid using seclusion & restraint, among other horrors, and the Joker actually helps me see somebody who manages to mostly heal from their trauma by embracing who they are now and laughing at their own misfortune, which I think is empowering and healing.
I liked this movie when I watched it, but it fell short of what I was expecting from all the praise it was receiving. I had my problems with it, but I swoon enough for Joaquin on the regular that it was easy to brush aside my misgivings. You have now made me look upon this film in closer detail and all the reasons why it is harmful. This was truly an enlightening video. Also, as someone with mental illness who has tried to take their own life about 5 times with varying severity, what you said about wondering who you are when you're mentally ill really hit me, so much so that I almost cried while I was cooking. Am I just my mental illness? Will I be able to fulfill the potential I could have if my brain wasn't against me? Thank you for this video. I have since subscribed and will share this everywhere I can.
@@SA80TAGE Indeed. Joker has never been insane. He's just been very good at convincing people less intelligent than him that he is, and that they can be the first ones to "figure him out", as it were
Right off the bat, I have autism, I don't suffer from it, it is who I am. I watched much of this video and started to skip around when I realized that you are talking about this movie as if there are not decades of backstory for the character. If this was a movie about anyone else other than the Joker I would respect much of what you have to say. I am personally very sensitive of how people with disabilities are depicted in media, so I gave this a watch. What I have come to realize from watching much of the beginning and the reason why you can't be fair. I respect your personal issues but if can't recognize the difference between a movie about a normal fictional world and a world where the Amazons living on an invisible island and a universal police force that have color coded rings to their superpowers, I question your ability as a writer. Joker is in an established universe and is the very embodiment of homicidal mania, if anything the movie didn't go as far as it should have. He is not a normal character.
I too am Autistic myself. Honestly, I don't blame mental illness for his behavior. I blame his surroundings the most, and it's very clear to me at least that those were Arthur's biggest stressors that caused him to choose violence. He was sick of people misunderstanding him, and walking all over him. It was because no one understood him, and rather than attempting to, they took everything he did at face-value. Even when he tried to justify himself, he was always shot down. The system of which was built around him in the form of a government, and society ended up ultimately failing him. He was assaulted many times throughout the movie, and eventually got sick of everyone's shit, and chose violence, he chose to fight back because he had nothing to lose in his eyes. I should also mention that Arthur had an exceptional knack for making mistakes which also deeply worsened his situation. Not to say all mentally ill people become violent, and evil but, but rather people handle their mental illness differently, and some exceptional individuals have a propensity for evil. Again, not all, but some. (ex: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Zodiac Killer, Elliot Rodgers, etc.)
First of all, this is an awesome video and I’m absolutely delighted to have stumbled upon your channel! I love how you break the issues down piece by piece and this is a fantastic explanation of how the movie can add to the stigma against mental illness. The only bit that I would have liked to see more discussion of, was the concept of “choice” vs “victim of circumstance/consequence”. Because you’re right, the movie *doesn’t* provide good depictions of choice - for example, they missed an opportunity of depicting the Joker making a choice to *not* kill his romantic interest (if their goal was to make him empathetic/deserving of empathy). The movie depicts a character caught in a metaphorical storm of life difficulties to which he is just constantly *reacting* in an attempt to cope. Your video’s final message about the importance of choice is uplifting and I think part of what makes this a good video, however… I think there’s more to be discussed in terms of how anger and reactionary cascades lead to chaos and bad societal situations… because while the movie’s shift of blame from a person’s “bad”/“evil”/“villainous” choices to “bad circumstances” is inadequate, neither is the idea that all negative human actions are purely the result of that person’s choices. It’s a combination of the two, but I’d love to see discussion of where and how those concepts meet.
Arthur's line before shooting the host reminds me a lot of Elliot Rodger, and his "justification" for the Isla Vista spree killing back in 2014. I read his manifesto when doing my undergrad thesis (it made its way online after law enforcement recovered it), and there's very much a through-line of "if people had just treated me differently, then I wouldn't have become the way I am." Though the way he imagined that he should have been treated was for everyone, particularly women, to praise and reward him for being "better" than other people. He explicitly talked about feeling like the world was against him and that everyone, particularly women, was trying to stop him from being happy. He too wanted to kill several people and then himself in a very dramatic way explicitly to call attention to something he thought people should see. And in a lot of ways, he definitely didn't get all the help that he needed, and it's a failure of US mental health infrastructure that he fell through the gigantic cracks. But what concerns me is that a lot of people, particularly young white men struggling through hard and painful life experiences (like Rodger himself), took a very bad message from Rodger's words. That bad message being, "society needs to entertain and humor toxic, maladaptive, antisocial behavior from young men so that they won't go critical and kill people, and if they do then it's our fault for not giving them what they want." Which not only blames the direct victims of antisocial violence for that violence, but it also blames the rest of the community collectively, and the community as a unit is absolutely a victim too. That's simply a bad read. Nobody *made* Rodger the way he was. Nobody put anything into him that wasn't already there, certainly not intentionally. He had struggles that he needed help to deal with, and of course it would have been better if he got that help. But to say that every individual person needs to tiptoe around and placate people like Rodger will NOT improve the mental health infrastructure or resolve their struggles. In fact, what it's much more likely to do is teach young men that they can *use* the threat of going critical and shooting people to manipulate others into giving them what they want. And that's absolutely not something good for anyone. I appreciate the video and thoughts shared; I'm so sorry to hear about the painful things done to you over your life, and admire your willingness to share them. I like the stuff on your channel a lot, and hope to see much more of it over the years.
Imagine being an educator and saying "oh hey this inhumane practice they use in high security prisons and that the psychological community say is effectively torture? Yeah lets do that to kids who won't stop passing notes, that's definitely not a total dereliction of my duty not just as an educator but as a human being." We really need to stop running schools like prisons. The fact that basically everybody has had at least one run in with school administration that was somewhere between inhumanly incompetent or just flat out not legal but the school was doing it anyway tells us a lot about the state of the American educational system.
As someone who has struggled with depression and I am diagnosed with general anxiety along with dyslexia and add which all feeds on each other I totally agree with this video and your conclusion just because you have a mental illness does not mean you're going to lash out at people and you're more likely to lash out at yourself which can very easily spiral if you don't have a support system
While I always disliked the addition of mental illness to the character of the Joker because imo it takes the interesting concept of the "one bad day" and undermines it, but from what I gathered from this video, we took completely different messages from the film. Where you saw a "mentally ill people are dangerous" I saw a critique on the American health system and a call to action to not abandon people with mental illnesses. As the woman said: People lash out because of anger. Every one of Arthur's murders is done in a fit of anger against people that actively made his life worse in a significant way. I don't think the mental illness is there to explain his violent behavior, rather it's there to explain what caused him to be shunned and left alone by the world and ultimately led to his anger building up and exploding.
I like the way you timestamp different points in your essays. It's really nice and makes your videos easy to watch, and shows respect for your audience. It would be nice if it became more of a norm
I'm so glad you made this video. Yes it's old but it sums up everything that I found disturbing and abhorrent about Joker. The amount of people who are STILL trying to talk me into watching it because 'it's so good at talking about mental illness' is staggering. As someone who is a mess of mental illnesses and comorbidities, this is exactly what I DON'T need now or ever.
Thank you gor the personal connection story. I, too, have CPTSD, and I couldn't get past the train scene. Something like that happened to me when I was a kid. Not on a train, mind you, but in my own house. Constantly. And I didn't have a gun. I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch Joker, because Joker was my step-dad. He had mental illness, too, but he chose to become Joker. I choose not to, but those traumas still exist. And movies like that make it seem like I have no choice. That that is my outcome. And it scares me into paralysis around my own kids sometimes...
This film actually dehumanizes the mentally ill, by making us look like victims of circumstance, in which violence is an inevitability; so it feels like more of a tastelessly written fatalistic horror story than a well-written tragedy. I feel what you said at the end, about choice. It is exactly that. This narrative needed some basic things to keep it from being problematic... chiefly an antithesis, a foil for Arthur. That's why Batman and Joker work so well together, they're foils. Two sides of a choice addressing their mental states and personal trauma. If Joker is gonna have his own movie, he is gonna need a lesser foil, one to pose the alternative outcome but ultimately fail.
I enjoyed this a lot. Thank you for your well thought out words and I would like to hear more of what you have to say about any media topics you come up with.
I came to this after one of your Animorphs videos (you actually got me into the series with those, so thanks for that), and I cannot describe how I feel to see that someone agrees with my take on the Joker movie. An additional point I would like to bring up is how this seems to be affecting fiction as a whole is two major ways, realism equals grimdark and everything has to seem deep. Reality is NOT constant suffering and misery. There is good in the world, and you can choose to see it, as you brought up in those Marco quotes. Anyone can choose to embrace the good in the world or to fall into darkness, but it is just that, a choice. On everything needs to be deep, and this is something I've been saying since the trailer for the Joker released, the Joker is the kind of character that was never meant to be sympathetic, at least in my eyes. He wasn't meant to be a symbol of a failed society or how the lowest of the world are treated, he was meant to be a crazy comic book villain. Trying to make him anything more than that robs him of what makes him a good villain and reduces him to a poorly handled symbol. Sorry for the long comment, but I just had to get this out there to you. Hoping you see this.
First thing, I admire the work you put into this and the other things I've seen. I skipped this video a dozen times for the eyeroller of a title, but I've given in. Now, middle of sandwich: The point about him saying he's off his meds is commentary on the penalties society pays for not supporting people who may genuinely need that kind of assistance. It may not be the majority of sufferers, but there are absolutely individuals who without medication can become confused, euphoric, delusional, paranoid etc. enough to commit violence. Again, rare, but it happens. This story is about that one type of individual, he is the archetype of the mass murderer we see daily in the U.S. My first viewing, I found it impactful, and one of the most disturbingly profound and profoundly disturbing movies I ever witnessed. The reason is the same that Ledger's Joker was impactful: the performance was rooted in honesty and truth (emphasis on "rooted"). Joker (2019) saw this opportunity and further connected with viewers of all stripes for its honest roots. It's the kind of story you can't invent, can't fake, because it's already reality. The movie is also a meta-reference to the type of person who fancied themselves a Ledger-style Joker (we all know the type) and the factors that can radicalize them, including isolation, dunning-kruger effect, mental illness precursors. You say mental illness is portrayed as the "main cause" of Joker's creation, but I think he's clearly emotionally underdeveloped (his iconic tyrade) and raised by a mentally ill parent. Even if you're correct, the movie is clearly concerned with mental illness and lack of access to care. That's the story it's telling. And that's how good stories work. I think the big problem with your critique is that you're taking the messaging personally or to be a blanket truth. Ironic, as you also said the movie is intentionally ambiguous and portrays an unreliable narrator. We don't know if his laughing tic is mental or just because he's poorly adjusted and has a warped sense of humor, like a common internet troll. So which is it? Is it harmful or ambiguous? And in your mind, does mature art give right answers, or ask good questions and let the audience think for themselves? And then maybe your wildest take: "you can choose not to be evil"? So... you're saying it IS okay to go off your meds and just uh.. choose to be fine? How does that relate to this story about someone with potentially a slurry of diagnosed coping deficiencies? Bias or no bias, your reading of this movie's storytelling is astonishingly off the mark. The majority of your early points amount to "this is problematic" and "um... lol wut?" Pure subjectivity. I think maybe you came at this with a particular slant and once you started that's all you could see. Maybe you've come around in the last four years, but if not, rethink your ability to assess media. End of sandwich: I think your concern and intention are well-placed, but your eyes were glued shut on this one. I'm a big fan of Animorphs fan and its bright-eyed optimism, but if you think Arthur Fleck is the kind of kid who had the privilege of forming his identity around such morally pure media influences, I think it's time for you to rewatch Joker. P.S. Jojo Rabbit is great too... it won Best Screenplay at the Oscars. Split the difference.
I've learned over time that generally, if a creator prefaces something by saying "Yeah I would've made it differently but y'all get too offended", the end product is probably still gonna be pretty bad.
I loved Joker. But i also hated how people reviewed it. " Mental health is so important" " See what happens to people with mental health issues" Like a lot of people want this movie to mean something more than it does. That it has a big important message about the real world. I saw it more as an alternative setting for the Joker character. And not as a reflection of the real world. it is just too.... comical for that. Yes, people that have mental issues can snap and hurt someone, but so can sane people. If anything I felt it was more a commentary about the dangers of guns being so readily available in society ( but we don't wanna have that conversation)
Just found your vids through UA-cam’s algorithm, and as scary as it is to let google learn more and more about my psyche, I am genuinely glad I was recommended your channel! Your videos examine EXACTLY the kind of stuff that I space out thinking about in an incredibly entertaining, well-produced, and NUANCED way. I love your genuine nerdiness (and your nails)!! I usually don’t leave comments, but it’s the least I can do to boost your numbers and hopefully get more ppl watching! If you see this, I hope you have a good day! PS: Totally agree with your comment about Jo Jo Rabbit; I adore that movie.
I honestly never got the feeling that the filmmakers were blaming the jokers mental illness as the cause for why he kills people. (And I 100% agree with you that having the marketing focus on his mental illness was fucking stupid, since that wasnt the point if the movie) I believe the point of the movie was to show that people, mentally ill or not, will go crazy and do horrible things when they are hurt, angry, and isolated and arent given compassion and the ability to be heard. So, if we want that to stop, we need to be compassionate to all people who have those feelings. (Which can be seen a lot of now of days) Anyway, all that being said, you made some really good points and the format of your video was very good. Keep up the good work.
@Eric Ellsworht then this movie should have been a criticism on society and the average Joe and everyday man as a whole and not just capitalism. And if they want to show Joker do horrible things, then they should have not made him a sympathetic antihero, they should have had him be the one who does something awful out of no where
I liked joker and actually think it’s one of the best DC films made ever. That said I 100 percent agree on almost everything you said... Jojo rabbit IS the best film released that year and deserved all the awards. Fantastic film!
I was so pissed that people laughted at the midget scene... it's such a idiotic humor, and it's there to cause a reaction on people (and it shows a lot about the movie directors lack of understanding)... I was kinda pittyfull the whole movie, about the whole "sociey sucks" thing like everyone else, but i still believe that it's a choice, like you said. You chose to not being an asshole and discount on everyone your traumas . Instead, brought it to the light and talked about it in a serious way. Jung said something like “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” And it works both ways: you can understand and flirt with the darkness and still not be evil, and that is exactly the genius about Batman and Joker Stories, so this film messed up everything, i totally agree with you. Also: I wanna see more of your content, thanks a lot!!!!
Stumbled upon your channel due to an Animorphs video, which referenced this video, that references the Animorphs. Really gratifying full circle! Thanks, mate. I've subscribed.
"Like it's an 8th grade book report."
Huh, guess that explains what all these Themes are doing here.
I'll be 39 in March. I've struggled with mental illness my entire life. I was self-harming at 13 and sent to a psychologist shortly after, and according to him, based on how mental illness was at the time and how my doctors didn't want me to be "on so many medications" because I was "too young to have anything wrong with me" (I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia at 12 so I've been in pain my entire life too), so I wasn't "allowed" to be treated with proper bipolar diagnosis and medications until I was 22.
This essay and how you explain all of this is why I get SO MAD when people say about mass shooters "They're just a mentally ill lone wolf". Like, NO! Stop with that narrative! Stop it! They're not mentally ill! Like you said, they make the CHOICE to be evil and to kill!
Welp, time to take the clip of you pointing at a picture of Hitler and saying, "I voted for that one" completely out of context.
A lot of folks voted for that one. They dont regret voting, just loosing.
@@SMunro losing*
@@mayonaise000 the funny thing about english is that it was written by people. If I write it, thats how it is. I pass that forward in my family while yours goes extinct, then I am in the right.
Call it Linguistic Darwinism.
@@SMunro well, you're quite lose with your words.
He’s clearly a nazi
As someone with C-PTSD (and an assortment of other comorbid mental health issues), the part about anger being the thing that makes people do violence rather than mental illness resonated with me quite well, because anger is an emotion that my brain has always actively rebelled against. More than once I remember getting physically or emotionally bullied and getting angry, but my brain just actively fought against anger and I'd often start crying even as I was trying to hold onto what (I felt) was righteous anger at my own mistreatment. And if I tried to respond to violence with violence I'd start crying even more because the idea of causing someone else pain was so distressing that it often just made my anger evaporate into a horrible feeling of guilt and shame.
Anyway I really liked this video. I went to see The Joker in cinemas. It was actually the last movie I went to see in the cinema, before the... you know. My friend (who also struggles with mental health issues) and I just walked out after 25 minutes because it was too distressing to watch and the thought that it was going to turn into this thing of "he kills because he's mentally ill!" just churned my stomach.
My mental illness makes me fold to conflict. Conflict distresses me. Hurting other people scares me. So seeing mental illness constantly be blamed for violence just... sickens me to my core.
Apologies for leaving such a long, rambling comment on a video I know is like 18 months old. I guess I just wanted to say that it really resonated with me, and thank you for making it.
honestly the whole jojo rabbit vs. the directors take on comedy thing is fucking hysterical to me. man imagine how he felt seeing that shit when Jojo Rabbit won damn
I believe Jenny Nicholson said, in a comment about the Director of Joker
"When someone says 'People don't like my jokes because I'm too edgy,' what I hear is 'People don't like my jokes.'"
@@theintrovertedbrotherandsi6254 Jenny Nicholson is fuckin hilarious
Don't say stupid things.
@@theintrovertedbrotherandsi6254 ¿?
@@AcornPlays No.
I also think that non mentally ill people tend to be drawn to these types of stories because they can’t handle the idea that they too could possibly do these bad things. They have to ‘prove’ that they could never be this evil because they aren’t apart of the group of people who are. Or that they need a reason for someone to do bad things other than anger because at some point they too have been angry. Ironically I feel it is more comfortable to know that you are actively choosing not to be bad compared to not being capable of being bad
@Ev. I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people and the types you mentioned are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and want everything to be their way and are the real reason misanthropes exists
I didn't like this movie for obvious reasons, but i do actually appreciate how they never actually give him a diagnosis. Because one thing the movie does is make the point that the mental health system has failed him. And as someone who keeps getting different diagnoses and explanations on what the hell is up with me, it is pretty realistic in that sometimes nobody else is going to fully grasp what you're going through and put an accurate label on it.
I've had (multiple) people *refuse* to deliver clear diagnoses. So is it a failure of the system, or the system functioning as intended? I can only assume their are legitimate reasons for avoiding a DX--NTs do, after all, delights in their hatred of NDs--but no one has ever explained to me exactly what those reasons are. And, personally, I suspect they pale to the reality of NDs to invent our own labels.
@@Netherfly Refusing to deliver a clear diagnosis could actually come from a place of wisdom regarding mental health. (I'm not saying that it's the case all the time or even often, but it is a possibility). Mental health is very poorly understood and research into it has poor funding and a lack of oversight. A responsible mental health professional could look at the DSM, conclude that it's largely guesswork and supposition, and decide to treat people based on individual circumstances rather than general recommendations.
Of course, every psychiatrist I've had has been a nightmare, so I'm not going to assume that most mental health professionals are good people.
I came here to say basically the same thing. There are a lot of pill happy psychiatrists out there, too. Still feeling bad? Here’s another pill. So ending up on 7 and still not improving is pretty realistic too, particularly for low income people who will undoubtedly have a harder time finding and affording quality care.
@@Netherfly I think that what puffin meant, that is glad that the movie did not try and label the Joker, to not put an specific mental condition on a bad light but rather make a point on the system and society and not an specific mental condition. Because both in story and theme, the mental condition was not the main reason, but how horribly society pushed him to edge, because of his condition what made him go in such a dark path. So it is an story of a man breaking due to how flawed the system is and how terrible society treated him, rather than thanks to a diagnosis. That is what I understood from Puffins comment and the movie.
"For obvious reasons"? As someone who liked it alot, care to elaborate?
I was a patient in the 80s. The ineptitude of the system is pretty dead on... For the poor. Also, the system was full of physical and sexual abuse. He was hanging on, tuen his medication is taken away. That social worker was burnt out. I bet she was good in her day. I imagine she is overworked. She had the guts to say what nobody else will. Nobody cares about us. Nobody cares about funding. The ability to get over ones condition is also directly connected to insurance and money. I used to attend a day program. The reason the day program was opened was because there were too many mentally ill people walking around downtown. This agency that was designed to help us was Really designed to keep us out of sight. Mental illness is one disease, pair it with poverty it might as well be two.
"The extreme always seems to makes an impression" Heathers. This movie had to be a little over-the-top. We have to get in your face for help. Because we become invisible.
I can't condone violence. The similarities between me and Joker end there. But my empathy goes on.
You are right about identity. I've always explained my mental illness as Spider-Man's Venom suit. In Secret Wars, Spider-Man use the wrong machine to fix his cos. Venom did more than Encompass Peter Parker. It weaved itself so deep, it became part of him. That's my identity. I don't know where I begin in my illness ends, sometimes.
Perhaps this movie doesn't understand Mental Illness, but that even makes it more poignant for me. The depiction of the system is right on. I really think the empathy is there, and is trying to make us seen.
I'm sorry what you had to go through, I really do have empathy. I'm sorry we have two different takes. I respect yours. Only through conversation can we really overcome.
although I am not mentally ill myself, I would like to add that part when the joker was talking about repressed anger and how you are not allowed to be angry when you a minority when you have the right to be pissed. I think it was powerful in a sense that it did talk about that and how it effected him in that way, it isn't a good reason for murder but I just like how they talked about it because I feel like not many people do
@@shelbyinmon8654 I have anger, and resentment. I am bitter. But, whom do I lash out at? I tried to sue the Diocese that oversaw one of the schools I attended. They moved a bunch of abusive priests, and brothers from Australia to Connecticut. The state was abusive, and inept. Being a ward of the state, I was released at 18, with nowhere to go. That's a little of my situation. But, it would make for an origin story. But sooner, or later I had to stop blaming,, and get my shit together. I do feel the world owes me, but the world doesn't owe me. No one's going to bail me out of this. Capitalism needs poverty to exist. The mentally ill, well um indigent, even with some work time will always be on the underside of poverty. It was hard for me to get a really good education under the trauma of being a child. I've tried to make up with that by educating myself. Because I'm inconsistent with my abilities, I sell on eBay. I only have to work when I'm well. Rich people in Connecticut sell their old stuff cheap...I'm so good at being poor, that it's not much of an issue anymore. With the exception of being able to choose where I live. I would love a condo. Something bigger than the 400 square feet that I exist in. Don't get me wrong and I'm very grateful for this place. But I strive for more, and a condo would be the most more I could get.
I also come here, and vent. I try to share my experience, to the point of vulnerability. I want people to know what I go through, what we go through. Because nothing will change if I shut up. Compliance was never a strong suit.
As fun as watching violence in the consequence-free atmosphere of movies, I could never go to that. Violence is not the answer to my problems. Very rarely is it anyone's.
This is the only important comment in this whole comment section
It could have done all of the good things you mentioned without making the only mentally ill character in the movie be a serial killer explicitly because he’s mentally ill… If he had killed himself on live TV it would have been just as extreme, and left a bit impression. But then maybe it wouldn’t have worked as well as a villain origin… oh well, maybe you shouldn’t make a villain origin movie that’s also trying to be a gritty and meaningful movie about mental illness… because the serious topic that a super villain movie is actually about is violence… and making it a serious, meaningful movie about violence and mental illness, like they did, where the mentally ill person is the violent person, and then explicitly connecting the two, and not even having anybody else who is also focused on who could demonstrate the fact that it’s a choice, and not something inherent to mental illness, like they did, reinforces perceptions of the mentally ill as inherently more violent, and is therefore bad for mentally ill people in our society. I say this as someone who struggles with mental illness, ADHD and addiction/alcoholism (in recovery, thankfully), and works at a residential treatment center for mental health.
About the “I’m off my medication I’m fine now” line
Just because someone says they are ok doesn’t mean they are
That's what the movie is probably trying to say, but then we're supposed to listen to what Arthur says later in the film. Is he right or isn't he?
@@Arkegox I guess it’s up to the viewer to decide
@@skyblue2708 but hats how society is now
You do realise he mentions this point at 18:58, right?
Are you guys even watching the video or not?
My god. I am so horrified that you were put into solitary confinement in school. It's torture when done to adults, and I can't even imagine the extent of the damage that it does to children. I am so, so sorry that this happened to you.
It's given me a permanent fear of being trapped in rooms so that's fun. Whenever I'd get angry or whatever they'd just drag me to a room and lock me in there for hours until I "calmed down". Calmed down as in literally begging to be let out of the room. This isn't even something that happened many years ago. It happened all throughout elementary school for me, which is 7-12 years ago. It's fucking twisted and is not how you deal with a problem.
They did the same thing in my school when I was a kid. Though I think they stopped literally right after I went on to high school, lol, nice.
@@pluto3194 damn like sounds worse than corporal punishment.
resulted in the first time I seriously hurt someone. I've always been inordinately strong and after an hour in that room I managed to break the door teacher came in to yell at me and that didn't end well for her I wasn't exactly rational at that point.
@@darkdragonsoul99 she might be a woman and all, but I can't help feeling that it was well deserved. I doubt she'll figure out 2&2 that locking up a kid is traumatizing and results in violent outbursts.
its interesting that anger is brought up as a more central issue cause other depictions of the Joker (especially the DCAU of the 90s and the recent harly quinn series) really push that aspect of the joker, that his laughter and joker persona is fake and he is really the angriest person in the story and those rare outbursts are usually when he is most dangerous.
“I’m too close to the issue”
Don’t give me that. You’re closer to the issue than the directors could ever dream to be. We _need_ you and others to be close to the production and criticism of works like this, because you alone have the experiences necessary to dredge up the real problems in the works. An eye on the ground is exactly what we need.
You could do technical advice, to prevent this kind of stereotype in suspense and horror movies!
@@liittlemiissd what are you blathering about? Judging by your... everything, I should probably assume you’re trolling.
@@liittlemiissd omfg lol you can’t be serious this is great
@@liittlemiissd “the movie is about the mind of the joker”. Bear that in mind. Anyway, “journos” be damned, my problem is this. Like said in the video, the movie makes explicit causal connections between mental illness and violence. This is exacerbated by the vagueness of his diagnosis, which means any statements made will invariably be applied to the entire spectrum of illness. Now, as someone who’s suffered mental illness I have a few objections to the implication that it makes me a murderer waiting to happen. I’m sure you see a dramatic tale of pain and strife, but our problem with it is that it treats “mental illness” as nothing more than a prop for drama, an excuse for violence. This is shit real people go through represented in a way that serves only to misinform and scaremonger, even if only by accident. And the analogy of “descending down into it” is just... worlds of bad. It’s an awful statement on how any illness works and the implication that within every mentally ill person is a supervillain waiting to shoot people, and that somehow the best thing for us would be to become that is a new level of bad on every step of the staircase.
@@Fluffkitscripts Of course not every mentally ill person will kill people. They just want to be love and enjoy life.
But here's a simple question. If one wants to make a movie about characters who have mental illness, do all of them have to be good people or one of them can be bad?
I mean, an artist can decide whatever they want to make in their creations. But i understand that implications of media can do if not taken into consideration. Though I can see this as some limitation.
I mean, and this is just an example, if i want to make a villain who is dark skinned, but is very complex, is that necesarily racist or not or it depends on more factors?
@16:52 "It's just how I am". Thank you. That right there. This movie made me so uncomfortable because my ex also struggled with a mental illness but deliberately went off his meds. When he started gaslighting me as our arguments got worse and worse, he would always utter that line. I left the cinema shook because the movie just felt so familiar and uncomfortable that I couldn't put my finger on it. Thanks for that. It's been years already and I'm still discovering and understanding things about that failed relationship.
Jojo Rabbit deserved it more, tbh
It's so funny how the guy who complained that "wokeness is killing comedy" lost his award to a comedy film
@@c.l.6957 a comedy film about imaginary friend hitler at that.
@@c.l.6957 Comedians who complain about wokeness in comedy usually aren't funny lmao
@@soupsoup4245 Maybe you're right. But then again, if following your own mundane statements with an expression that you're "laughing your ass off" is something you do fairly often, then your sense of comedy might not be relatable enough to matter, anyways.
@@delanogerber3715 dude i just use 'lmao' as filler, it isn't that deep
Dramatizing mental illness can be counterproductive on a certain level, in terms of optics, as much of real mental illness is inherently mundane. It teaches people to understand mental health issues in terms that are narratively pleasing; inciting incident, dramatic tension, catharsis, etc. But real mental illness doesn't speak in the language of film. It is subtle, and therefore more insidious, it creeps up on you in ways you don't notice until suddenly you're saying dozens of horrible things to yourself every day and every happy memory you've ever had is completely blurred out, and you've forgotten that that isn't normal. Other people can't see that easily and they never will if they're expecting some overt plot point to signal mental illness to them, and they'll never really be able to help if they're expecting any sort of cinematic resolution as recovery often takes the rest of a person's life.
@@weggygaygay9940 'Scuse me if I doubt the credibility of someone who both calls people massive losers and doesn't understand hyperbole.
Read between the lines a little, dude, sheesh.
@@weggygaygay9940 ceci ne pas une film, the best way i can describe it is an video essay
it has no plot or drama, it merely offers a take
just because it's entertainment doesn't mean it's film
That's not necessarily true. It's true for depression and anxiety, usually. But lots don't. Bipolar hits you like a tonne of bricks. Psychotic episodes are episodes BECAUSE they're not the normal. Practically any latent mental illness can be triggered by shocking life stressors like bereavement, natural disasters, and being fired or evicted. There is no way in which the mind ceases to fully function.
Damn, I'd kill for a 'mundane' mental illness.
Joker was a dark movie, sure, but I don't view it as an attack on those with mental health problems any more than I view Kill Bill as an attack on Martial Artists.
@@HashbrownMashup what were your thoughts on Benjamin Pointdexter from Daredevil season 3?
At least in the comics, and earlier batman movies, he's a normal guy or a gangster who has one bad day/is expossed to chemicals. in other media, he shoes how the joker is different because the bad day broke him, while batman grew from it. He's not mentally ill before becoming joker.
Yeah the whole "Joker is mentally ill" always struck me as a cheap trick with no actual payoff.
Just trying to make a villain who isn't sympathetic seem so, I always read it as the guy lives in a world where superheroes and crocodile people exist and he thinks it's fucking hilarious how batshit that is.
So he does the clown thing as kayfabe. The Joker is a posturing edgelord
In the early comics, and through the bulk of the Silver Age, there wast even a 'bad day' per se. He was a mobster with a gimmick and a dark sense of humor, plain and simple. Serial killer/domestic terrorist/idealogue Joker is fairly new. The closest to his original personality in recent years is ironically the Jared Leto version, though there are many *many* other problems with that one.
@@ganganthefatman1382 Exactly
@@ganganthefatman1382 Heath came out of nowhere, and there wasn’t a clue of who he was. He was like a force of nature. That’s how the real joker is. And yeah some characters are better without a backstory.
@@lampad4549 thank you!!
"i'm the Joker baby" still the best representation of the Joker
He isn't a self pity hipocrite or a bad representation of a mentally ill person, he is just the Joker, baby
¿?
If he goes to such lengths to impress people online, I think he probably should talk to a professional
I know this vid is a year old, but these are really good, and I hope to see more in the future. You got a new subscriber
Thanks so much! I'm definitely still working on new videos! If you liked this one, you might like my one on New Mutants. But I'll have even more in the future. Thanks for watching!
@@LordRavenscraft 👍
@@LordRavenscraft hope that you see this, I really think you'd appreciate looking at the recent episode of Cinema Therapy that talks about the Joker. I'd be so interested to hear your thoughts on their video.
Hey man, just saw this now. And I'd like to say thanks. I know something was off about this movie like how or why people liked it. I honestly found most of it annoying and contrived even. Thanks again keep it up!
Finally a good pov for this movie I appreciate your content and hope you keep pushing onward
"the boy is ok with it" that's some fucking cuties shit right there
Can I just say how weird I find it, even today, that they made a movie about the Joker and tried to make him seem sympathetic?
Like... this is the Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime. The Harlequin of Hate. The man whose atrocities have become only more sadistic and macabre as the decades have gone on. The psychopath who took a crowbar to Jason Todd and beat him to death with it while laughing.
I'm sorry but... whatever sob story they wanted to spin about Joker's "One Bad Day" would pale in comparison to the nightmare he is portrayed as in almost all other DC media. I cannot watch a movie called Joker and forget that it's about the character who shoots Barbara Gordon and paralyzes her just so he can screw with her father's mind.
Yep. And seriously before I saw the movie, I basically said it was based on the "Killing Joke", A.K.A "One Bad Day."
And, I was pretty on the nose with that. Though, it failed in some places, but over all it was a good movie. Though, I'm not going to defend it.
honestly as the least 'comic book fan' person ever, i saw this trailer back in the day and thought... why do i care to watch a movie about the joker's pathos? i once had a friend who just loved the joker. and i remember, through viewing the things they said about him, the 'point' of the joker never seemed to be 'why' he was the way he was, like that has never even been a little important.
and now the cruella movie is coming so i guess people don't learn /sarcasm.... mostly
@@Tinuvielthefair Except the Killing Joke was more about how not everyone automatically becomes like the Joker if they go through the same trauma. Everyone seems to miss that part about the Killing Joke. The Joker put Jim Gordon through the worst trauma of his life, psychologically tortured him and even nearly killed his daughter. Yet Gordon didn't crack. The Joker failed. As Batman said to him-"maybe it was just you."
@@GeneralKenobi75 I totally, completely agree. Which is why I said the movie failed in many places.
That was absolutely the message of The Killing Joke.
@@Tinuvielthefair Yeah, and it really annoys me when fans or creators want to invoke the Killing Joke because of its popularity and completely fail to understand it.
The Dark Knight did it better. The Joker in that movie makes the same argument as he does in the Killing Joke, and gets proven completely wrong when the people he says will turn on each other and become as bad as him when the chips are down, refuse to do that.
genuinely shocked that you don't have more views. your videos have such a good layout and i can not emphasize how much i appreciate the fact you put content warnings on your videos. idk brain sees you in my recommended and goes bRRRRR
Hahaha, thank you so much! I only just got started this year and, well pandemic hit everyone, but I'd love to keep doing this. Everyone that watches and shares helps, though, so thank you for watching!
@@LordRavenscraft dunno if you’re still getting notifications for this but OP’s comment is a hard agree on a sentiment i’ve been struggling to word for ages! your vidoes are so well made i was genuinely surprised you didnt have years and years of backcatalog perfecting the art. excited to see what else you come out with my dude, you’ve got some really good things to say.
Oh shit, I haven't noticed 30k subscribers until you said it. That should be 10 times that, for starters.
Production quality is certainly higher than most of the 250-300k sub count channels
Just wanna say that, after subscribing to this channel after watching the two Animorphs videos, it was an unprecedented delight to see you open this one by quoting Marco.
Exact same experience. Blessed that those vids were recommended!
The way I saw Joker was not blaming the mental illness but more the idea that his mental illness just made everything he went through worse and the joker himself felt trapped and his choice to kill was his way out of feeling trapped but I completely see the connections in this video that I didn’t see before
I really appreciate you saying "and utter malpractice of a line" before the doctor says "you're on seven medications surely they must be doing something" because I have had doctors legit say that to me and then refuse to help me, so like yeah good to have some validation that that is awful and I am justified in getting the hell away from said doctor as soon as I possibly can.
the moment you have to specify "the boy is okay with it" you've already done something wrong
Side note: the film has a weird as hell relationship with how it portrays Black women.
One way that I think this movie could have been a lot more self aware is not have Arthur be the Joker.
Have Arthur be just a mentally ill aspiring stand up comic, and then come across this strange charismatic dangerous man who makes him feel like he belongs. A man who turns out to be... (dun dun dun!) the Joker.
Maybe still have Arthur shoot those wall street guys, because it could be framed as an accident, incentivizing Arthur to become more dependent on this one person who claims he understands Arthur, because now he thinks he has no-one else to turn to.
And through his constant struggles the Joker gaslights Arthur into thinking that he did all those things, when really the Joker was using Arthur and in the end framing him for murdering Arthurs mother, friends and Murray.
Not a story about a mentally ill man who just becomes a villian with the subtext "It was inevitable BEWARE THE VIOLIENT CRAZIES"
But the story of a mentally ill victim who vulnerability makes him prey to a charismatic psychopath.
Yes, that is more realistic.
Jean Luc-Godard said that the best way to criticize a film is to make another film.
I’d love to watch a movie like what you described! Sounds like it’d be an interesting conversation to have with Joker.
Write the script, man!!
A far more interesting idea.
i'd like to point out that you're criticizing the idea of mentally ill=violent while also using the word 'psychopath' as a synonym for 'murderer'. mixed messages, mate
Im trying to think on how to phrase this. As someone who has been tumbling through dealing with mental illness and a psychologist (ikr), I think theres an issue of focus.
Risk factors for extremely violent people and mental illness meet in a lot of points. And almost all of these risk factors are related to society, systems and economy. Even if the trauma comes from the persons family life as a child, we as a society failed that child, the systems in place that should protect children arent enough or arent working properly. But the narrative is constantly individualized and then gets generalized. Cause then governments, communities and societies dont need to think about how they are failing the people living in them, or how they should change. You reduce it to a personal problem, give it an explanation of trauma or mental illness and move on. But even if the person has mental illness that is merely the begining to understanding how to make things better so it doesnt happen to others, it doesnt justify a shrug, or fear of people with mental illnesses.
This might be a silly example but, we know that happy healthy people dont get caught up in psychoactive substance abuse. Its a self destructive coping mechanism. Its a mental/emotional crutch the same way you'd use one for a hurt leg so you could walk. We known this for decades. But instead of find ways of making kids and people in general lives better, implementing systems to help and safety nets, we declare a war on drugs and pour resources into playing a cat and mouse game with users and dealers. We criminalize them and paint them as violent and dangerous. They the individuals are the problem, you see, that way we dont have any thing to do with it
In comics, the Joker isn’t really meant to be understood. He _has_ to be a static character to make sense. He doesn’t gradually develop into a psychotic villain he just is one. He starts out “normal” but he was born with screws lose. The Joker’s origins isn’t gradual it’s a quick snap. The joker is a symbol more than he is a person (there’s technically 3 of him, it’s canon but not really, then there’s the “batman who laughs” which DC abused the shit out of) so any story that makes him too human fails.
@Blah I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
@Blah if DC wanted to a movie where they humanize their villains, they have so many better ones: Red Hood (and making Joker, Harley Quinn, and the GCPD the antagonists), Godspeed (making eobard thawne the antagonist), etc
'People are too easily offended these days, comedy is dead!!'
'We made this movie about Empathizing with the Downtrodden.'
🤔🤔🤔
It always gives me a giggle when people who complain about virtue signalling try to virtue signal
I don't know how anyone can think this was a genuine effort to explore mental illness after comments like that
@@Batchall_Accepted I keep coming back to the notion that like... If his stuff was really that funny, that appealing, then the detracting voices might be loud and numerous, but the movies would still get made because capitalism - fiscal votes count more than moral votes.
It seems more like what's happened is that studio execs no longer believe *his brand* of funny will sell movie tickets, at least, not compared to their next tent pole franchise event. At that point, one must rebrand oneself in order to remain saleable.
It doesn't seem like a movie made to make any point other than "I am hirable in the new world order."
People who whine about “PC CuLtRE” are obnoxious
Came for the Animorphs and interesting takes. Stayed for the Blue nails, honest commentary, and vulnerability.
Honestly, same
This just brings to mind that "Speak Up, Reach Out" or whatever everybody was pushing a few years ago in response to a school shooting. Something like "identify the quiet loner kid in your grade and reach out, speak to them so they won't turn into the next school shooter" (super simplified and more on-the-nose than the actual slogan they came up with to make it sound better than what they were actually advocating for, but that was the main gist of it). And it UPSET me because it was me, *I* was that quiet kid these politicians were framing as some dangerous closet psychopath who would eventually snap and shoot up a school if the other students didn't.......sit with me at lunch? Frankly if I *was* that type of person and found out that my best friend had only become my best friend because they thought I was some dangerous psychopath who would "inevitably" shoot up the school but would spare them, because they were "my best friend", I'd fuckin' shoot them first 🙃
IDK, this movie just seems like a movie The Abled's made to make themselves feel better about their general distrust of any neurodivergent person. "See! This movie is GRITTY and REALISTIC and REALISTICALLY PORTRAYS {my own narrow, heavily biased view of} mental illness! This is ART IN CINEMA!!", *movie casually alienates a large part of its audience by having the title character who they'd up until then been able to relate to commit 3 murders on the subway*, "ART I SAY!!!"
I had to deal with similar shit (ASD + selective mutism) and it was especially bad in contexts where I couldn't speak (most of them). No one ever "reached out" and I don't know how I would have reacted to that at the time, but in general I'd say the whole effect exacerbated my problems: whether I spoke or remained silent, things went poorly. For a certain period of my life I was stuck in a situation where I could either endure extreme stress and inevitable come across as "weird" or withdraw entirely and be seen as "dangerous."
It's amazing watching videos like this and realizing just how little society has progressed since I was in elementary school.
THE ABLEDS, i howled. cannot believe yet another movie making its violent, murdering protagonist mentally ill would go 'but we're so serious and touching real issues isnt this great representation???'
@@Netherfly I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
It's endlessly relieving to hear you talk about this film. The way everyone I was hearing from held it up as some wonderful piece about mental illness genuinely frightened me, and really only made me feel far LESS understood and much more afraid to be open and honest about my issues. This video was obviously personal to you but in it's own way it's personal to me too, and it legitimately helps ease my fear to hear someone more eloquent than me talk about it in this way.
I do like the movie, but just as a movie, because thanks to this video it opened up my perception about it.
And they're better movies that deal on the topic of mental illness.
Joker was never even meant to be about mental illness. Mental illness was just one of the many issues that Arthur faced in his life which everyone ignored and pushed him over the edge
@@Arlesmon I can't believe Martin Scorsese produced this crap and the amount of clout Martin Scorsese gets and how ignorant he, Film critics, and "Cinema" people are disgusts me and these people are just whiny grumps who act like the world only revolves around them and are the reason misanthropes exists
I want to point out as soon as you mentioned the"put fingers in a kids mouth" part I immediately got a midroll ad for a dentures program.
I spent half my childhood in those concrete exclusion rooms in my elementary school, and... god, I just can't believe that most people don't know about them, and those that do usually seem to think it's okay. I had more isolation-based trauma than a POW before I was a fucking teenager, because of the american school system doing totally legal things to me every day.
There's no moral behind this or anything, I just feel like more people should know that this is what life is often like for the mentally ill - it really does happen.
What the fuck kind of self pity and ego do you have when you compare yourself to a fucking prisoner of war? Disgusting comment, you should be ashamed.
@@polygondeath2361 I don't think it's an unreasonable comparison - sometimes prisoners of war are treated well, sometimes they're tortured; it's a sliding scale, and on that scale, I certainly had it worse than those who were treated well, and better than those who were tortured.
Studies have also shown that PTSD largely manifests in the same ways regardless of where you got it, and there are many veterans with PTSD who speak out against those who minimize the PTSD of people who got the condition in more "mundane" ways, stressing that different situations can break different people and none are more valid than others.
Finally, your post seems to needlessly venerate the military, as if it deserves inherent respect. It does not. In fact, there are many reasons to be very critical of the institution, though specific people within it have indeed had heartbreaking experiences that I do empathize with.
I do not mean to seem self-important, I was actually trying to do the opposite through mentioning that concrete exclusion rooms are extremely common in American schools, and therefore my experiences weren't special - the creator of the video, myself, and millions of other random people have experienced this form of normalized yet secretive torture of minors. It's just part of life. The fact that this is something that regularly and constantly traumatizes children, and gets swept under the rug, is what I'm attempting to bring to attention.
@@A6by it’s an extremely unreasonable comparison. Yes you may have been deprived of some humanity but prisoners of war first have to complete basic training, building up rapport with fellow soldiers, and then training further in many cases, building up even more rapport, just to possibly lose them in battle or watch them be tortured with you changes you for life. And many POW’s can’t function back at home due to severe PTSD with common things, such as the smell of gasoline or hum of a car. Don’t ever compare yourself to something you don’t know shit about.
@@polygondeath2361 Two people are allowed to have PTSD at the same time, no one's trying to erase one or the other here. I'm sorry if any mention of trauma related to military contexts is painful for you personally, due to yourself or a loved one having experienced it. My comment did not mean to belittle that trauma, it was sympathizing with fellow trauma survivors. Because there are lots of different types of trauma and they are all awful, to those experiencing them. The military is not special. The same bad things that happen to them happen to all of us. Your family, biological or otherwise, can die in front of you, you can be isolated, you can be tortured, you can be betrayed and hurt and never allowed to see the light of day. Those things all happen to people regardless of whether they have signed up to commit random acts of state-sanctioned violence overseas or not. Reverence is dangerous. We are all equals, our trauma is just trauma, and I suggest we stop having this discussion if it is triggering unpleasant memories or emotions for you. I apologize for my tone, I just don't think this is fruitful or healthy.
@@A6by trauma is trauma but not all trauma can nor should be compared. Again, don't compare two different things, it's insulting.
I love that you begin and end this video with quotes from Marco. His views on life really did alter my own when I was growing up (honestly, all the Animorphs did. I see a bit of each of them in myself, both good and bad.) But Marco's "laugh at tragedy because the other option is to cry" really resonated with me. Laughing something off lets you get to focusing on how to deal with the problem a lot sooner than crying about it.
It kinda makes me think that Marco and the Joker are two sides of the humor coin. Marco laughs at tragedy as a way to cope, where the Joker makes tragedy so he can laugh. I really think if there was a Batman/Animorphs crossover, Marco would be the best one to confront the Joker because of this. He could call out the Joker like no one else could.
I'm gonna scream. I thought he said the closing quote was from animaniacs. I distinctly heard "animaniacs". Wondered what part of that show one of the funny animal people started talking about using comedy to hid their pain born of trauma. Thanks for the clarification.
In response to everyone posting about their school experiences and the example in the video, I would like to add my experience as an ex-Ed teaching assistant and mentally ill / neurodivergant person -
1) I have never locked a kid in a room by themselves. If because of staff safety a child needs to be left alone, we NEVER lock the door, we are ALWAYS right outside the room, we REPEATEDLY check on them until they are ready to calm down, and then we stay with them in the room when it is safe. I have been left alone in a room by myself before because of behavior. Sometimes if the child is endangering themselves or staff they need a break. That’s what it is though, a break, not a punishment.
2) Restraint is necessary for some situations. Example: A six year old trying to leave the school by themselves. The restraint should always be for the benefit of the student, as in they are not in an appropriate mental state and are making decisions that my harm others. In our state, mechanical restraints are flat out illegal and I have never used this technique. Only one type of restraint is acceptable, with variants for sitting and standing. It mostly involves keeping the arms still and does not put pressure on the chest, head, or neck. Restraint techniques that do are EXTREMELY dangerous and are being phased out. As far as body weight, one variation where adults and student are in sitting position involves pushing a portion body weight into the shoulders / upper arms, which is as close to applying weight to the torso as you are allowed to get.
3) It is hard for special Ed students to understand what they’ve done wrong sometimes. The key to teaching is not punishment. It is patience, reminders, reenforcement, and understanding. Not every behavior needs to be corrected and some of us adults need to remember that. Behaviors that are dangerous and harm the student or others should be worked on, but the focus is finding the source of those behaviors, which is almost always emotional.
Anyway, that is my two cents and I hope I can be a better educator than others that have caused so much pain to so many children.
I’ve always felt similarly about The Joker, and I remember that I was absolutely terrified of going to even see it in the theatre. I’ve suffered from mental illness longer than I’ve been without it, starting meds at eight. When I watched the movie I promised myself that I’d never watch it again, because it left such a bad taste in my mouth. It’s a dangerous film. I came out of it feeling scared of myself in some odd way. And though Arthur might share some similar mental health problems as me, I can’t sympathize with him at all. They somehow masked his anger with mental illness and that’s so irresponsible on the writers behalf. As someone who’s been through it all, I’ve never thought of seriously hurting anyone other than myself. I genuinely hope more people see your video, it’s informative and really shows a perspective that is important. Also love your other content, keep it up :)!
@ultisles Im really sorry you have had to deal with all of this, this is why I feel Martin Scorsese and his cinema followers are insensitive jerks
I think the main problem with this movie is just that it looks at people who are unwell, and says "yup, you're all in this neat little box of the mentally ill". The us vs them, the others. Its saying "oh Arthur has a problem, and he has a foot in this box, so obviously its the box not him." It treats a personality disorder the same as an involuntary stress condition the same as complete dissociation, and says that they're all equally an issue. Sure they compound, but conditions in loved ones that you personally should be worried about, are very very limited and usually you'll know if you personally are in danger.
the idea of a man saying "people are too offended these days, all the good comedy writers are leaving", and having his movie lose to a movie about a boys imaginary friend hitler is such poetic irony, and i love it
This is one of the best videos about this topic I haven seen. You made cogent points and drew facts to what the writers, directors and producers overlooked in the film. I am not saying it is a completely bad film and yet at the same time, it could have been much better. For me the multiple threads is what did it for me in terms of losing me through the film. The mental illness issues, though never really fully suffering them myself (at least without a proper diagnosis), I can empathize with. That being said, they took the cop out to use the stereotyping of mental illness = violent, which I fully agree with you, is not a direct relationship at all. There are multiple sides to all of this (the movie, mental illness, violence, human connection, the state of society etc), of which a YT comment section cannot be the right avenue to discuss. For what it is worth, this was a well researched and made video and you should definitely keep up the videos. I would not expect one everyday, but quality requires time and I would be willing to watch more of your videos when they are produced.
4:03 With each giggle another angel got it's wings
33:04 Thank you! It feels so good to hear someone else say this. I found this so frustrating when watching the movie - you can tell that they really wanted to depict Arthur as just being a victim of circumstance, but he wasn't. Throughout the entire movie, Arthur never takes accountability for his own actions, and doesn't even attempt to do so. He just constantly blames everyone and everything else for his problems while failing to even attempt the most basic acts to avoid them and improve his situation.
There are a lot of people who have gone through similar things depicted in the movie but never snapped and killed people. Nothing that Arthur did was inevitable or unavoidable. It's very clear, watching the movie, that you're seeing someone who has no idea what it's like to live with a mental illness or mental disorder try to depict what living with a mental illness is like.
The vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit violent acts.
This video is a good articulation of my own - biased - frustrations with Joker. I'm not going to fault it for its technical execution, decision to frame it as a tragedy, or judge it for being dark.
But I'm really, really, really tired of narratives in which Mentally Ill people are beaten down by society to the point where they become "monsters". Not only is it not demonstrative of my experience with mental illness, but it's also not for mentally ill people. It's for people who look at Mentally ill people in a play for sympathy. It's so common and utterly cloying, which is why Joker fell flat for me, and why its particular brand of cruelty upset me so much.
At this point in my life, I'm more interested in stories about mentally ill people that actually make them the heroes of their stories, rather than as perpetual victims who become monsters. Or stories in which the mentally ill are given some kind of agency that doesn't involve guns and retaliatory violence, that is then gussied up with political theatre messaging about class warfare. The structure of which in this film makes it seem like the fact that the Joker becomes...the Joker a comprehensible, morally understandable way to deal with the shit hand he's been dealt.
The stories that have helped me heal and become a functional, healthy person were not those cruel depictions. They were the stuff like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or Mob Psycho 100, in which the mentally ill (literally and metaphorically) have agency and are shown compassion, and make their own healthy choices.
Great video, my friend. Good work.
@@WhipKick Hey, if you really enjoyed the film, that's great. I don't think that's a bad thing.
I didn't think the film was bad on a technical level, or necessarily inaccurate in its depiction of Social Work; from what I've seen, a lot of mental illness treatment falls flat in the ways depicted in this film.
I just used to watch a lot of films like it when I was young, and it had a negative impact on my wellbeing. As I said. Because I've watched so many of those types of films, I no longer like them as much.
It's also not reflective of my own experience with mental illness. And I want more stories that are. As I said.
So if you love it, great. Keep on enjoying it and recommending it.
All the best
Agreed. The lesson movies like this actually teach is “be empathetic to those around you, because otherwise they will become dangerous animals and hurt you”
Accidentally found this channel due to the Animorphs video
I love it now
Same!
Diddo.
How did the UA-cam Algorithm know?
For good representation of mental illness, I strongly recommend a korean series called Flower of Evil.
The main character has antisocial personality disorder, and he's the hero! His disorder is explicitly stated and his loving wife knew about it even before they started dating. The series shows really well what it's like being mentally ill; he watches videos that teach different expressions, asks why others laughed at certain points, and it's shown how he's the victim in most if not all violent situations.
The show is about the main character clearing his name, because his father was a serial killer and he's suspected to be have helped his father. He lives under a false name and tries to find his father's real accomplice
Deffo adding that to the watchlist 👀📝
Anyone who claims that you can't make offensive humour in the modern day has clearly not watched Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
It's always sunny hasn't been funny for a few seasons now and they've gotten less offensive as the show has worn on.
@@thenorsepioneer7311 lmao Dee Day from the recent season got taken off Hulu for the blackface and racist characters dee does wdym
Or Brandon Rogers.
My favourite movies of 2019 top 5 are at number 5. Marriage story. 4. Once upon a time in Hollywood 3. Joker 2. Jojo rabbit and number one Parasite.
@@jadeharley7190 isn’t the fact it was taken off Hulu prove that point though?
As a person who has suffered from mental illness my whole life, while I was watching this video I kept thinking, "This guy is talking like he knows what he talking about." He obviously does and I appreciate his honesty more than I can say.
I had to come back and edit this post to talk about "seven different" medications. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in my teens after a severe manic episode. That was in the 80's (yes, I'm old, so what..). There were not seven different psychiatric meds available in the 80's that could possibly be taken together without fatal results. It wasn't like it is now where you take a nice little antidepressant your P.C. gives you and life gets better. Those drugs were heavy and awful and I often thought it might be more comfortable to just be crazy. And the crazy was fucking painful so that says something.
I thought I was gonna watch a video and get a few laughs. I was wrong....but that's okay. I didn't get a few laughs but I do feel like I got seen for a change.
It’s true that SSRIs weren’t really around in “let’s call it 1981” (they were just about to hit the scene), but he could be taking a tricyclic antidepressant (basically the predecessor to SSRIs, generally with more side effects as you mentioned), lithium carbonate as a mood stabilizer, some type of antipsychotic (they had both typical and atypical antipsychotics by then), hydroxyzine and clonidine as daily meds to help with the symptoms of anxiety, a benzodiazepine such as Xanax on a PRN (as needed) basis for strong anxiety attacks/panic attacks, and finally he could be taking cogentin/benztropine to help with the extrapyramidal side effects of his anti-psychotic, and that’s just one possibility. I don’t think there’s any interactions that would fully contraindicate every combination that fits this description in every individual, so I believe it’s certainly possible, and I see similar medication regimens at my job (I work in mental health), and I checked to make sure all of the medications I named were around in “let’s call it 1981”… At the least I doubt it would be fatal, even if there were certain interactions or increased side effects from the polypharmacy. Oh and it’s not that I’m advocating for this practice, I’m just mentioning that it is possible and it does happen, based on my experience, and my research on what drugs were available then. It’s certainly dicey to give people so many different medications to treat like 2 or 3 mental health diagnoses… seems like some work could be done to narrow things down a bit but sometimes either the patient doesn’t want to change what they’re taking because it’s finally working for them, or the doctor might be a bit lazy or just not wanna rock the boat by trying to figure out which meds aren’t really helping.
@@ByzantineDarkwraith individual pairings may not be contraindicated, but taken all together would likely be fatal, or at least make the one taking them completely nonfunctional.
@@Irisarc1 fatal? how much education/reading on psychopharmacology have you done? do you care to propose a mechanism?
@@ByzantineDarkwraith forget it
Came back to this video years later after the film was assigned to me in a class. Gonna rip it a new one.
I'm sure the class is long since over 🥺 I would have liked to assist you! I have a bunch of beefs with this goofy and overrated film called Joker.
Just stumbled across this channel and I'm really glad someone else clocked the messed up way this film handles mental illness.
As someone with a mental illness, I got seriously annoyed with people going, "OoH! aAh! ThIs FiLm ReAlLy HaS sOmEtHiNg PoWeRfUl To SaY aBoUt MeNtAl iLlNeSs"
Not all mental illness is the same. Have you met a person with schizophrenia that murdered someone?
@@lampad4549
The worst thing is these people that think that they are just misunderstood. That if they just get support they will do fine. Tell me anyone that is comfortable with waking up in the middle of having someone standing in the corner of the room staring at you. They can be fucking terrifying to live with.
The list of demographics harmed by irresponsible depictions by Hollywood is LONG, including everything from the military to poor people to racial demographics to women to ... so it's pretty much everyone. It was great to see you stand up for one of the most vulnerable groups hurt by this.
Excellent analysis on both this and the chess/Sherlock holmes vid. I would like to argue that @18:37 when Arthur says "I'm off my medication, I feel good." doesn't necessarily mean Arthur being off his meds is a "good thing", it's just that maybe Arthur feels free to finally not be trying to fit in on his meds and "act normal". Kinda like saying "I don't have a mental problem, you have a problem with my mental state." I would also say that just because he murders someone doesn't mean he doesn't feel good. Correlation does not equal causation. I absolutely agree with the ending of your vid and I thank you for you sharing your personal story.
I think the irony here, other than that Jojo Rabbit won, is that the character that does tend to fall in those "one bad day" stories is Superman. You know the guy who tends to have loving parents, stable relationships, a stable job, on demand emotional support and guidance, and is generally regarded as a paragon? Yeah, that guy.
And while those stories usually involve a traumatic incident never addresses it as him having just "gone crazy" or anything diminishing and tend to even reinforce the idea that he hasn't actually changed that much at all.
I’m pretty sure the phrasing Batman has always used in relation to Clark turning evil is “snapped”
That's kind of a cliché also, is'nt it?
People who generally have "good" lifes, tend to repress or hide a lot of things that push them over the edge. In reality, i feel that being yourself while having all those things and being emotionally balanced is one of the pillars of mental health.
@@desanctisapostata the thing about that is it’s not really hidden the cause of Superman’s trauma when he goes bad unless the writer just doesn’t explain. Injustice for example he’s very open about Why he’s doing things and it’s because everyone’s kinda like “well I guess so” and Wonder Woman continuing to push him that things turned out the way they did
@@creed8712 ok... But i was refering to real people, like the ones the other commenter mentioned
ronald reagan is responsible for the joker in-universe
I once heard someone say something, that I think fits kinda well here: "Wennever someone uses the word "woke", they have no Idea what they talk about."
In regards to Joker emphasizing the lack of available resources to people who have mental problems, I do agree that it is a major problem (the lack of available source for mental illness, that is). As far as Joker going off the deep end, "Run, Hide, Fight." Tristan is another perfect example of someone looking for help but gets turned away by the system and promptly feeds off of social media to get his fix.
The issue with people like Todd Phillips isn't their audiences are "too offended", it's that their worldviews is just wrong. It ultimately won't matter what genre he chooses to work in, comedy, drama, etc, if his portrayal of the world leans on such outdated and inaccurate stereotypes, he's gonna fail.
Plus alot of the people they're punching down on are at the stage where they decide to not take their bs anymore. Jokes are not an excuse to be a bigot.
Maybe I’ve just seen more movies then the average person, but I honestly will never stop being blown away by comments like this - the notion that Phillips “failed” is just bonkers to me. Just because the audience was split on this movie (for good reason, I find much of the criticism of the movie’s ethics to be very interesting and I agree the screenplay isn’t perfect) doesn’t mean the movie failed, or that it was bad, or anything like that. You can dislike a movie but still recognize the artistry, craftsmanship, effort and thought put into it. The film is gorgeous, it’s expertly shot and composed, the performances and directing are stunning. Criticisms of this film almost entirely come down to the writing, and if an iffy script is enough to make an entire movie a failure to you then I think you’re being incredibly reductive.
@@zenleeparadise the directing is shitty, the performances ok, the script is ok in parts and god awful in others and overall the movie is as original as a 10 years old ikea table but less functional. And I have definitely seen more movies than the average person, not that it matters but still
@@MJGianesello “not that it matters” - uhm I’d have to hardline disagree with you here. Anyone who’s watched a lot of movies has probably sat through a lot of garbage. Anyone who has seriously watched through incompetent filmmaking like Birdemic or something cannot seriously look at a film like Joker and say with a straight face that it’s incompetent trash. You can think it’s poorly written, you can say it’s in poor taste, you can say you didn’t care for directing choices. But when it comes down to the criticisms of it; it’s not that they failed to achieve what they were aiming for, it’s that they hit what they were aiming for and you just didn’t like it. It’s a matter of taste and preference.
@@zenleeparadise ok let me put it another way, it doesn't matter that I disliked it and that I am fairly knowledgeable, exactly how it doesn't matter that you liked it, what matters is its actual flaws. I didn't say the film was incompetent, no big hollywood production is incompetent, I'm talking art here not woodworking, if philips couldn't put a shot in focus I wouldn't be talking about it. However, you say they achieved what they were aiming for and thus the film is good on its own regardless? Well, to my mind, they were aiming to make a thoughtful character study about a well established pop culture character with a big social commentary angle and an inner-fantasy angle taken respectevely from taxi driver and king of comedy. Well, this movie fails pretty badly as a character study, fails pretty badly as far as any directing choice regarding "representation of fantasy" go and fails very very very badly when it comes to social commentary or even as a movie about joker. Now maybe the goal was just to make a shitload of money and nothing else, in that case kudos to them because it feels like they perfected to a T Nolan's formula for wanna-be thought-provoking-fluff-that-is actually-pretty-dumb, which explains its success along with a few more things, but in that case I'd care even less.
First time seeing a video of yours. Instantly subscribed.
I really liked Marco's line of, you can either go through life crying or go through it laughing. It really help me to this day.
As a kid, I didn't really identify with Marco the way I did with some of the others. But looking back, he shaped me at least as much as anything else from my childhood, _especially_ that philosophy. You can choose to laugh or cry. That idea helped me a lot last year, because there was a lot to cry about.
Some people do neither.
Subscribed, liked, and commented. Saved a bunch of your videos to watch later. Thanks for being here and making this.
I internalized Alfreds words over Joker from the Dark Knight. I never made the mistake of associating mental illness with Joker afterward. The Joker movie does just that. They keep bringing up an undisclosed mental condition whenever Joker makes someone his victim, as if to explain away that only a deranged man could be capable of such sudden, violent actions. The Joker is not the monster that he is because of any mental issues or abuse. What makes the Joker evil is that he consciously decides to hurt other people. Initially, I liked this movie. Now I realize I was mashing the events of the film with the preexisting rationale I expected Joker to be operating under. In a vacuum, this movie's Joker character is a mash of conflicting themes.
The most important thing to remember about the Joker as a character is that he isn't insane. He's just very, very good at convincing people less intelligent than him that he is. He isn't mentally ill. He's a genius of genuinely terrifying proportions who lacks empathy or compassion for others, and takes joy in the suffering of others. And seeing him get distilled down to the idea that he's just a really crazy guy has always annoyed me
@@Randerson2409 I just loved how Jason Todd roasted Joker by brining this up on his face in the Under the Red Hood comic storyline
I just stumbled onto your channel. Everything I've watched from you so far has been excellent. This video really hit different though. As someone who's been living with mental illness, has been in those rooms, has seen the looks in people's eyes when they find out I have a diagnosis its so good to see someone so effectively call out the harm that hese depictions do. It really means a lot to me. Thank you so much.
I have not been in those rooms but I knew they existed, and everything else, really true.
And it's good that we have those perceptions so that people can take into consideration about that stuff and make other things.
Though i do have a simple question. If someone wants to make a character who has a mental illness, do all of them have to be heroes or normal people, or one can make them into a villain if they handle it correctly?
@@Arlesmon it's okay to have a villain who has mental illness. It's not okay to make a character a villain because of their mental illness.
@@shouphf I agree with that. And I want to make some stories, so I want to take some notes in order to learn to make better media.
The last physical confrontation I had with my dad, he tried to force his way into my room to keep my door open. I was pushing him out when he said that I was bigger than him, and something to the effect of "why don't you just beat me with violence?". I answered that "No. I'm not you." Victims of abuse, trauma, neglect and mental illness who have been controlled, terrified and threatened into subservience don't have many choices, or even are aware that they are capable of having free will or choice. But we do have the choice of not hurting others, when and where we are able.
I think that "compassionate portrayal of mental illness" doesn't and shouldn't be used to describe a VILLAIN'S ORIGIN STORY, much more that of THE JOKER's, one of the most infamous and evil villains of pop culture.
i had a different oppinion before i came here. youve tuirned that around. you hang in there buddy. ive know my fair share of "brainshit" as I call it. ive had recurrent depression with a strong affnity to dissociation. (rough translation, might not come out correct) so i feel you. in my youth i used to lash out and hurt me /others in anger. ive managed to acclimate that and mostly gotten that recurrent depression in check. trying to claw my way into a normal job/life atm. not that easy. anyway it doesnt matter. what im trying to say:
The pain in your eyes whilst talking about that topic is hard to watch. thanks for hanging in there buddy. sending love from germany
The mere fact that a film features ideas and themes worth exploring and discussing does not mean it is a good film, let alone a masterpiece. That, in a nutshell, is what fans of the vastly overrated Joker don't understand. It just isn't a very good movie, for many reasons, some mentioned in this video, some mentioned in other videos, and some I've spoken on (one of which I've not seen discussed anywhere else). And then they accuse detractors of not understanding Joker, which is laughable (no pun intended), seeing as the film beats you over the head with each plot development.
You read the movies differently than I did... I don't see a connection between mental health and violence in the movie. It's the anger.
I think more of an argument could be made that Arthur’s mental health issues are only a negative force in the sense that it is one of several stressors for Arthur. I think Arthur does not kill because he’s mentally ill - he starts killing because he’s pissed about all his compounding issues and continues because it’s cathartic, because it gives him a sliver of control. The mental illness only shows when he dances as part of this catharsis.
@@heroofthewest The major issue he brings up in the video is that right before each time Arthur kills, his mental illness is brought up, creating a very problematic association. There could be a lot of ways to analyze and break it down that don't put the blame on mental illness, but that idea still gets planted in many people's brains.
@@iliakatster I feel your sentiment. I understand why you wouldn’t want mental health conditions misrepresented, because I don’t either. I have a friend who has these movement tics that cause immense pain on a regular basis, and interferes with their sleep, all on top of depression. I have multiple friends who grapple with PTSD and anxiety every day.
But we cannot prove that Joker is misrepresenting issues like theirs to the public, because to my knowledge, there are no studies performed that specifically demonstrate a change of opinion towards people like my friends after watching Joker, without which your argument, unfortunately, becomes a sort of ad populum fallacy.
I didn’t either until this guy clearly pointed out that every murder without a self defense component are immediately predicated by him reminding everyone that he is mentally ill
Just stumbled on your channel through the Animorphs videos (which are really good! I'm excited about Part 3). Thank you for addressing this movie in a calm and collected manner and not matching it's overly bombastic approach. You did good, definitely got a new subscriber here.
I know I'm writing this a year late and only partially into the video but I've had sort of the same type of things happen. Therapists berating you for being untreatable, psychiatrists telling you you don't need more medicine even after you tell them it's not working. Getting put in mental hospitals to just lie and cheat your way out cause they don't do their jobs right. I agree that this movie just is bad for mental health awareness but I think it also shows that these things do actually kinda happen. No one talks about when it does cause it shows a collosal failure as a society
The one thing I hated about this movie is that 1)was clearly Oscar bate. 2) Got the Joker,as a character,wrong. The thing about the Joker is that he is chaos in human form. He will wake up one day and deside to he wants to blow up a building,but might at the last moment, to just leave a note in the building the saids "BOOM!!!". I feel that the Joker does not need to have a reason as to why he is. That is where the movie faked.
Glad to see someone else felt uncomfortable with the Joker’s portrayal of mental illness when it seems like everyone else is in awe of it. There were good elements to the movie. But I didn’t think it was a super deep cinematic masterpiece. And actually the framing perpetuates an incorrect and marginalizing public connection between mental illness and violence.
Hullo! It’s me, your local neurotypical descending from on high to tell you about your own representation! Music by sia was the greatest thing ever to happen to autistic people! Joker is amazing! Look how woke I am! Bow to my supreme sensitivity!
All hail!
Just watch You Were Never Really Here, Taxi Driver and King of Comedy back to back, and you will of seen a better version of this movie....
Am very late but if you consider the movie in the context of Batman lore and cannon, (mostly from comics), then it is a very good study into the character of joker, especially in the context of the killing joke and other such stories. As someone who'd read nearly every joker comic and seen every movie and cartoon under the sun, this movie was so satisfying because it had all the nihilism, futility, and anarchy that a joker "origin" needs. Watching it, it was never really about the mental illness aspect. The point of the movie is not to accurately depict these things, however it maybe should have been considered more in production as misrepresentation can always be bad especially with these kinds of issues. But the point of the movie was this: it doesnt matter exactly what mental illness the joker had or whether he had them at all, what events traumatized him or didnt traumatize him when he was child, whether or not his mother loved him, what matters is that it is possible in this world for someone to experience in their life a perfect storm. One that leaves them utterly broken and unable to relate in any positive or meaningful way to another human being. To empathize with this character is wrong, especially if you've read the comics and know all the crap this guys done, but in every joker story there is a sense of failure in the people around Arthur that suggests that maybe if someone would have helped him, this never would have happened, which is explored in batman comics, as in the traditional origin of joker, batman fails to catch him before he falls into the vat of chemicals that finally turns an already broken individual into a super villain (weird, but that's what comics are like). But the rule always is, it doesnt matter what happened to thr guy up till that point because it could literally be anything or nothing at all. The same themes apply here but can we really believe this? If someone would have given him a kind word would it have really helped? If batman would have caught him, would there be no joker? The answer to this question doesnt really matter, because the joker isn't really a person but an anomaly that occurs regardless of societies failings and successes, regardless of batman's failures or successes, regardless of whether we would give him a kind word or not, regardless of whether we empathize with him or not, (which is a thing that should never happen, as we saw in Mad Love). Definitely wasn't a perfect movie, but at the very end when he dances on top of the police car or whatever, it felt like the purest and most faithful recreation of the character in cinema for me, at least on a thematic level, someone who has nothing to lose, doesnt care about anything, and believes all life is futile and meaningless, (which is not a good way to frame mentally ill people and does perpetuate stereotypes and stigma which is quite inexcusable, but it is a great way to frame the joker) and does it really matter if there is a tragic story behind how he got there? No, and that's the beauty of the joker as a character, he could literally just be a guy who had one bad day and found himself battling a bat-shaoed man for all eternity, do we need any more justification? Deserved the oscar for best actor and music, but that was it, jojo rabbit and parasite were definitely more coherent overall.
Yes, thank you. This is a wonderful character study on the Joker and the way he thinks, which is all it was ever meant to be. The film itself goes out of its way to show that you can't trust that its depictions of reality are accurate, but the feeling behind the Joker is there. His mind is there. And it does that really, really well. I was also confined as a kid using seclusion & restraint, among other horrors, and the Joker actually helps me see somebody who manages to mostly heal from their trauma by embracing who they are now and laughing at their own misfortune, which I think is empowering and healing.
I liked this movie when I watched it, but it fell short of what I was expecting from all the praise it was receiving. I had my problems with it, but I swoon enough for Joaquin on the regular that it was easy to brush aside my misgivings.
You have now made me look upon this film in closer detail and all the reasons why it is harmful. This was truly an enlightening video.
Also, as someone with mental illness who has tried to take their own life about 5 times with varying severity, what you said about wondering who you are when you're mentally ill really hit me, so much so that I almost cried while I was cooking. Am I just my mental illness? Will I be able to fulfill the potential I could have if my brain wasn't against me?
Thank you for this video. I have since subscribed and will share this everywhere I can.
“The boy is ok with it.” I wish those words appeared on the screen like a giant watermark during the entire sequence.
THANK YOU! As an aspiring therapist, I despise this movie's portrayal of mental illness
@@SA80TAGE Indeed. Joker has never been insane. He's just been very good at convincing people less intelligent than him that he is, and that they can be the first ones to "figure him out", as it were
Yup. One garbage element among many in this overrated atrocity undeservedly called by so many a "masterpiece".
Right off the bat, I have autism, I don't suffer from it, it is who I am. I watched much of this video and started to skip around when I realized that you are talking about this movie as if there are not decades of backstory for the character. If this was a movie about anyone else other than the Joker I would respect much of what you have to say. I am personally very sensitive of how people with disabilities are depicted in media, so I gave this a watch. What I have come to realize from watching much of the beginning and the reason why you can't be fair. I respect your personal issues but if can't recognize the difference between a movie about a normal fictional world and a world where the Amazons living on an invisible island and a universal police force that have color coded rings to their superpowers, I question your ability as a writer. Joker is in an established universe and is the very embodiment of homicidal mania, if anything the movie didn't go as far as it should have. He is not a normal character.
I too am Autistic myself. Honestly, I don't blame mental illness for his behavior. I blame his surroundings the most, and it's very clear to me at least that those were Arthur's biggest stressors that caused him to choose violence. He was sick of people misunderstanding him, and walking all over him. It was because no one understood him, and rather than attempting to, they took everything he did at face-value. Even when he tried to justify himself, he was always shot down. The system of which was built around him in the form of a government, and society ended up ultimately failing him. He was assaulted many times throughout the movie, and eventually got sick of everyone's shit, and chose violence, he chose to fight back because he had nothing to lose in his eyes. I should also mention that Arthur had an exceptional knack for making mistakes which also deeply worsened his situation. Not to say all mentally ill people become violent, and evil but, but rather people handle their mental illness differently, and some exceptional individuals have a propensity for evil. Again, not all, but some. (ex: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Zodiac Killer, Elliot Rodgers, etc.)
First of all, this is an awesome video and I’m absolutely delighted to have stumbled upon your channel! I love how you break the issues down piece by piece and this is a fantastic explanation of how the movie can add to the stigma against mental illness.
The only bit that I would have liked to see more discussion of, was the concept of “choice” vs “victim of circumstance/consequence”. Because you’re right, the movie *doesn’t* provide good depictions of choice - for example, they missed an opportunity of depicting the Joker making a choice to *not* kill his romantic interest (if their goal was to make him empathetic/deserving of empathy). The movie depicts a character caught in a metaphorical storm of life difficulties to which he is just constantly *reacting* in an attempt to cope. Your video’s final message about the importance of choice is uplifting and I think part of what makes this a good video, however… I think there’s more to be discussed in terms of how anger and reactionary cascades lead to chaos and bad societal situations… because while the movie’s shift of blame from a person’s “bad”/“evil”/“villainous” choices to “bad circumstances” is inadequate, neither is the idea that all negative human actions are purely the result of that person’s choices. It’s a combination of the two, but I’d love to see discussion of where and how those concepts meet.
Arthur's line before shooting the host reminds me a lot of Elliot Rodger, and his "justification" for the Isla Vista spree killing back in 2014. I read his manifesto when doing my undergrad thesis (it made its way online after law enforcement recovered it), and there's very much a through-line of "if people had just treated me differently, then I wouldn't have become the way I am." Though the way he imagined that he should have been treated was for everyone, particularly women, to praise and reward him for being "better" than other people. He explicitly talked about feeling like the world was against him and that everyone, particularly women, was trying to stop him from being happy. He too wanted to kill several people and then himself in a very dramatic way explicitly to call attention to something he thought people should see. And in a lot of ways, he definitely didn't get all the help that he needed, and it's a failure of US mental health infrastructure that he fell through the gigantic cracks.
But what concerns me is that a lot of people, particularly young white men struggling through hard and painful life experiences (like Rodger himself), took a very bad message from Rodger's words. That bad message being, "society needs to entertain and humor toxic, maladaptive, antisocial behavior from young men so that they won't go critical and kill people, and if they do then it's our fault for not giving them what they want." Which not only blames the direct victims of antisocial violence for that violence, but it also blames the rest of the community collectively, and the community as a unit is absolutely a victim too. That's simply a bad read. Nobody *made* Rodger the way he was. Nobody put anything into him that wasn't already there, certainly not intentionally. He had struggles that he needed help to deal with, and of course it would have been better if he got that help. But to say that every individual person needs to tiptoe around and placate people like Rodger will NOT improve the mental health infrastructure or resolve their struggles.
In fact, what it's much more likely to do is teach young men that they can *use* the threat of going critical and shooting people to manipulate others into giving them what they want. And that's absolutely not something good for anyone.
I appreciate the video and thoughts shared; I'm so sorry to hear about the painful things done to you over your life, and admire your willingness to share them. I like the stuff on your channel a lot, and hope to see much more of it over the years.
Imagine being an educator and saying "oh hey this inhumane practice they use in high security prisons and that the psychological community say is effectively torture? Yeah lets do that to kids who won't stop passing notes, that's definitely not a total dereliction of my duty not just as an educator but as a human being." We really need to stop running schools like prisons. The fact that basically everybody has had at least one run in with school administration that was somewhere between inhumanly incompetent or just flat out not legal but the school was doing it anyway tells us a lot about the state of the American educational system.
As someone who has struggled with depression and I am diagnosed with general anxiety along with dyslexia and add which all feeds on each other I totally agree with this video and your conclusion just because you have a mental illness does not mean you're going to lash out at people and you're more likely to lash out at yourself which can very easily spiral if you don't have a support system
While I always disliked the addition of mental illness to the character of the Joker because imo it takes the interesting concept of the "one bad day" and undermines it, but from what I gathered from this video, we took completely different messages from the film.
Where you saw a "mentally ill people are dangerous" I saw a critique on the American health system and a call to action to not abandon people with mental illnesses. As the woman said: People lash out because of anger. Every one of Arthur's murders is done in a fit of anger against people that actively made his life worse in a significant way.
I don't think the mental illness is there to explain his violent behavior, rather it's there to explain what caused him to be shunned and left alone by the world and ultimately led to his anger building up and exploding.
I like the way you timestamp different points in your essays. It's really nice and makes your videos easy to watch, and shows respect for your audience. It would be nice if it became more of a norm
I'm so glad you made this video. Yes it's old but it sums up everything that I found disturbing and abhorrent about Joker. The amount of people who are STILL trying to talk me into watching it because 'it's so good at talking about mental illness' is staggering. As someone who is a mess of mental illnesses and comorbidities, this is exactly what I DON'T need now or ever.
Indeed. Don't bother watching it. It is garbage on so many levels.
Thank you gor the personal connection story. I, too, have CPTSD, and I couldn't get past the train scene. Something like that happened to me when I was a kid. Not on a train, mind you, but in my own house. Constantly. And I didn't have a gun. I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch Joker, because Joker was my step-dad. He had mental illness, too, but he chose to become Joker. I choose not to, but those traumas still exist. And movies like that make it seem like I have no choice. That that is my outcome. And it scares me into paralysis around my own kids sometimes...
This film actually dehumanizes the mentally ill, by making us look like victims of circumstance, in which violence is an inevitability; so it feels like more of a tastelessly written fatalistic horror story than a well-written tragedy. I feel what you said at the end, about choice. It is exactly that.
This narrative needed some basic things to keep it from being problematic... chiefly an antithesis, a foil for Arthur. That's why Batman and Joker work so well together, they're foils. Two sides of a choice addressing their mental states and personal trauma. If Joker is gonna have his own movie, he is gonna need a lesser foil, one to pose the alternative outcome but ultimately fail.
I enjoyed this a lot. Thank you for your well thought out words and I would like to hear more of what you have to say about any media topics you come up with.
I came to this after one of your Animorphs videos (you actually got me into the series with those, so thanks for that), and I cannot describe how I feel to see that someone agrees with my take on the Joker movie.
An additional point I would like to bring up is how this seems to be affecting fiction as a whole is two major ways, realism equals grimdark and everything has to seem deep.
Reality is NOT constant suffering and misery. There is good in the world, and you can choose to see it, as you brought up in those Marco quotes. Anyone can choose to embrace the good in the world or to fall into darkness, but it is just that, a choice.
On everything needs to be deep, and this is something I've been saying since the trailer for the Joker released, the Joker is the kind of character that was never meant to be sympathetic, at least in my eyes. He wasn't meant to be a symbol of a failed society or how the lowest of the world are treated, he was meant to be a crazy comic book villain. Trying to make him anything more than that robs him of what makes him a good villain and reduces him to a poorly handled symbol.
Sorry for the long comment, but I just had to get this out there to you. Hoping you see this.
The book report comment made me spit out my drink 🤣, excuse me while I listen to the rest of the video while cleaning my desk
First thing, I admire the work you put into this and the other things I've seen. I skipped this video a dozen times for the eyeroller of a title, but I've given in.
Now, middle of sandwich:
The point about him saying he's off his meds is commentary on the penalties society pays for not supporting people who may genuinely need that kind of assistance. It may not be the majority of sufferers, but there are absolutely individuals who without medication can become confused, euphoric, delusional, paranoid etc. enough to commit violence. Again, rare, but it happens. This story is about that one type of individual, he is the archetype of the mass murderer we see daily in the U.S.
My first viewing, I found it impactful, and one of the most disturbingly profound and profoundly disturbing movies I ever witnessed. The reason is the same that Ledger's Joker was impactful: the performance was rooted in honesty and truth (emphasis on "rooted"). Joker (2019) saw this opportunity and further connected with viewers of all stripes for its honest roots. It's the kind of story you can't invent, can't fake, because it's already reality.
The movie is also a meta-reference to the type of person who fancied themselves a Ledger-style Joker (we all know the type) and the factors that can radicalize them, including isolation, dunning-kruger effect, mental illness precursors.
You say mental illness is portrayed as the "main cause" of Joker's creation, but I think he's clearly emotionally underdeveloped (his iconic tyrade) and raised by a mentally ill parent. Even if you're correct, the movie is clearly concerned with mental illness and lack of access to care. That's the story it's telling. And that's how good stories work.
I think the big problem with your critique is that you're taking the messaging personally or to be a blanket truth. Ironic, as you also said the movie is intentionally ambiguous and portrays an unreliable narrator. We don't know if his laughing tic is mental or just because he's poorly adjusted and has a warped sense of humor, like a common internet troll. So which is it? Is it harmful or ambiguous? And in your mind, does mature art give right answers, or ask good questions and let the audience think for themselves?
And then maybe your wildest take: "you can choose not to be evil"? So... you're saying it IS okay to go off your meds and just uh.. choose to be fine? How does that relate to this story about someone with potentially a slurry of diagnosed coping deficiencies?
Bias or no bias, your reading of this movie's storytelling is astonishingly off the mark. The majority of your early points amount to "this is problematic" and "um... lol wut?" Pure subjectivity. I think maybe you came at this with a particular slant and once you started that's all you could see. Maybe you've come around in the last four years, but if not, rethink your ability to assess media.
End of sandwich: I think your concern and intention are well-placed, but your eyes were glued shut on this one. I'm a big fan of Animorphs fan and its bright-eyed optimism, but if you think Arthur Fleck is the kind of kid who had the privilege of forming his identity around such morally pure media influences, I think it's time for you to rewatch Joker.
P.S. Jojo Rabbit is great too... it won Best Screenplay at the Oscars. Split the difference.
I've learned over time that generally, if a creator prefaces something by saying "Yeah I would've made it differently but y'all get too offended", the end product is probably still gonna be pretty bad.
Are we talking about the same guy who did "The Hangover" movies? Jesus Christ.🙃
I loved Joker. But i also hated how people reviewed it. " Mental health is so important"
" See what happens to people with mental health issues" Like a lot of people want this movie to mean something more than it does.
That it has a big important message about the real world. I saw it more as an alternative setting for the Joker character. And not as a reflection of the real world.
it is just too.... comical for that. Yes, people that have mental issues can snap and hurt someone, but so can sane people.
If anything I felt it was more a commentary about the dangers of guns being so readily available in society ( but we don't wanna have that conversation)
Just found your vids through UA-cam’s algorithm, and as scary as it is to let google learn more and more about my psyche, I am genuinely glad I was recommended your channel! Your videos examine EXACTLY the kind of stuff that I space out thinking about in an incredibly entertaining, well-produced, and NUANCED way. I love your genuine nerdiness (and your nails)!! I usually don’t leave comments, but it’s the least I can do to boost your numbers and hopefully get more ppl watching! If you see this, I hope you have a good day! PS: Totally agree with your comment about Jo Jo Rabbit; I adore that movie.
I honestly never got the feeling that the filmmakers were blaming the jokers mental illness as the cause for why he kills people.
(And I 100% agree with you that having the marketing focus on his mental illness was fucking stupid, since that wasnt the point if the movie)
I believe the point of the movie was to show that people, mentally ill or not, will go crazy and do horrible things when they are hurt, angry, and isolated and arent given compassion and the ability to be heard. So, if we want that to stop, we need to be compassionate to all people who have those feelings.
(Which can be seen a lot of now of days)
Anyway, all that being said, you made some really good points and the format of your video was very good. Keep up the good work.
@Eric Ellsworht then this movie should have been a criticism on society and the average Joe and everyday man as a whole and not just capitalism. And if they want to show Joker do horrible things, then they should have not made him a sympathetic antihero, they should have had him be the one who does something awful out of no where
I liked joker and actually think it’s one of the best DC films made ever. That said I 100 percent agree on almost everything you said...
Jojo rabbit IS the best film released that year and deserved all the awards. Fantastic film!
I was so pissed that people laughted at the midget scene... it's such a idiotic humor, and it's there to cause a reaction on people (and it shows a lot about the movie directors lack of understanding)... I was kinda pittyfull the whole movie, about the whole "sociey sucks" thing like everyone else, but i still believe that it's a choice, like you said. You chose to not being an asshole and discount on everyone your traumas . Instead, brought it to the light and talked about it in a serious way. Jung said something like “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” And it works both ways: you can understand and flirt with the darkness and still not be evil, and that is exactly the genius about Batman and Joker Stories, so this film messed up everything, i totally agree with you.
Also: I wanna see more of your content, thanks a lot!!!!
Stumbled upon your channel due to an Animorphs video, which referenced this video, that references the Animorphs. Really gratifying full circle! Thanks, mate. I've subscribed.
I enjoyed the movie but coming from a family with a history of mental illness its a very negative depiction that relies on cliches and stereotypes.