By Chilimovie - 27 July 2021
At the end of the movie Joker, the citizens of Gotan put on clown masks and took to the streets to riot.
In my opinion, the real world is not much better. It's just that the American people haven't taken to the streets to kill for the time being. They just elected a President Trump.
Why is the world like this? The clown said very clearly on Franklin's show. Because the rich never look at problems from the perspective of the poor, they don't want to know how a failure like a clown lives, feels, or thinks in his head. Wayne only regards the Joker as a murderer, a loser, a mental illness, and a pervert; he said that all failures who have done nothing are clowns and jokes; as for himself, from the Batman series, we know that he is a great philanthropist. He (and his son, Batman) must feel that he is brilliant and impeccable.
But Waynes don’t understand the sentence in "The Great Gatsby": "Whenever you want to criticize others, remember that not everyone in this world has the advantages you have."
The clown also wants to live less like a joke, if not a hero of the drama, at least be a tragic role. But he doesn't have that capital, he can't do it.
It's not that the clown has worked hard. He used to be so docile: take medicine on time, report to the doctor on time, keep smiling, and carry the card "I'm sick, I'm sorry to disturb you." He believes in Wayne's logic and his dream is to bring laughter to the world.
Unemployed blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt of the United States may also have similar mental journeys as clowns. Because of technological innovation and global trade, they have no jobs, and their economic and social status have been declining. But the elite will only say: You lost your job because you have low academic qualifications and poor abilities. Why don't you get more education and re-employment? I guess those unemployed workers were just like the clowns at the beginning, and they carried the label "It's my fault, I'm sorry to cause trouble to his family" every day. However, if they can't wait for help to get them out of trouble, they can't be sorry forever.
The clown saw that all the hopes in life were shattered: losing his job and becoming the most ridiculous talk show artist. He is not the illegitimate child of a rich man, and the neighbor girl is not as he thought. Then he saw how ruthless Wayne was and didn’t care about his life and death: the social assistance program was cut off, and he tried his best to see that Wayne got only one old punch, but Wayne kept promoting his on TV. Charity dinner and campaign plan. What the unemployed workers see is also the disillusionment of hope: fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs, and the decline of entire local communities. Some people suggest that they return to school to improve their education, but for a person who has graduated from high school and left campus for decades, it is difficult to climb the sky; besides, the tuition is very expensive and they simply cannot afford it. Then they saw that the big banks that caused the financial crisis received a large amount of government bailouts, they saw that no one on Wall Street went to jail, and they saw executives continue to receive astronomical salaries in just a few years. As time passed, they began to think: Is it really "our" fault, isn't it "your" fault?
The clown said: "You" decide right or wrong, and whether it is funny is also decided by "you". Why should "we" live within the standards set by "you"? Why do "you" think that "we" will always be like good children, quietly letting "you" be at their mercy?
Perhaps no one can endure humiliation and trampling forever, even if those insults "have a reason" (the clown is indeed a murderer, and blue-collar workers do lack the production skills needed in today's market); perhaps no one can endure injustice forever, even if it is just what they think Of injustice.
The Waynes think the world of Gotham is very fair. He has done so much charity himself, but the clowns only know how to claim and destroy. In the real world, the newly emerging elite class in the United States is not even the rich second generation like Wayne. They are the group of people in Silicon Valley. Many of them were born in the middle class, highly educated and skilled, hardworking, and created with their own hands. A lot of wealth. They naturally feel that they are rich and justified, but the poor who know nothing and ask for nothing are unreasonable.
Everyone lives in their own logic, accumulating anger and disagreement.
A friend once quoted me a lot of data from The Economist, which explained that trade protectionism and de-globalization are actually more harmful to the poor than the rich.
I thought he was right at the time, why the poor are so stupid that they can't see such simple facts! ?
Now I want to ask him a question: Do you know that the average degree of unemployed blue-collar workers is high school? Did you understand The Economist when you were in high school? Maybe you should remind yourself before criticizing others: not everyone has a doctorate like you.
I believe "The Economist" is right. De-globalization is indeed more harmful to the poor; just like Franklin's rebuke of the clown is also right: How can you kill? Killing is wrong!
But Franklin's words will not help the clown, and the Economist will not help unemployed workers.
No matter how right Wayne or Franklin or the readers of The Economist think they are, the populist camp has its own power: clowns find that they can kill, and blue-collar workers find that they can vote.
So the streets of Gotham City were blazing, and Trump became the President of the United States.
But I always think the reality can be darker than the movie: the clown supported by the citizens of Gotan is indeed one of them; the president elected by the populists in the United States is a billionaire, and he is clearly a member of the Waynes.
In the end, the clown killed the mother who had been writing to Wayne and had always had illusions about the elite. Perhaps this signified that he had completely cut off his illusions about Waynes and stood on the opposite side of all social orders. He became a completely different person from the beginning of the movie. He said: Maybe this is the real me, maybe I am the way I am. But I always feel that he thinks this way just to rationalize his behavior. I have seen the first half of the movie and knew that he was not born to be a monster. He used to be a person like us, a lonely, helpless, and kind-hearted person.
