He just wants to be loved!
Is that so wrong?
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Actually, his mother wanted him to want to be happy and make people laugh.
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MovieChat Forums > Joker (2019) Discussion > He just wants to be loved!
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I don't think we're meant to sympathize with Joker or cast judgment on him. His character in this movie isn't about that. He's just a result. We're meant to ask; a result of what?
A result of circumstances.
share...and foolish CHOICES.
Everyone born into this world -- "high" and "low" -- have to face fudged up situations and problems, which come in different shapes & sizes. We CHOOSE how we respond -- wise or foolish.
Yeah, as a kid he unwisely chose to be tied on a radiator beaten up, brain damage and all. Weird choices, but well... kids can be foolish like that.
shareHe was a product of his environment more so I believe. This movie does a great job of giving him a credible backstory. His mother was crazy. He was abused as a kid. Lived in poverty. Had mental issues. He was getting beat up. Things all changed when he got the gun, it was the beginning of him turning into the Joker. He was able to use it in self defense against those guys on the train. I don't think he liked killing those guys, but it became easy to him when he killed his mother after about learning about his and her past. He openly enjoyed killing when he killed that guy in his apartment and blew DeNiro's brains out. I'm not really sure he had a choice, he was crazy. He lost the ability to get his meds and talk to a shrink. That idiot shouldn't have given him the gun.
shareThanks for the insights. It's a complicated thing.
Killing people when your life is threatened is justifiable (obviously). It's self-defense. When you save the lives of other innocents, it's heroic.
But when a person starts murdering people on a whim or because of some crazy drive, they have to be removed from society to protect citizens. This is regardless of what led them to this criminal course of life, like the reasons you cite. If they really have valid excuses for their sick actions, as you describe, hopefully they can be healed/rehabilitated. If not, they'll have to be locked away for life.
If the person isn't insane and has the power of volition -- in other words, the individual murders because he chooses to, wants to, and likes it -- he should be imprisoned or, better yet, executed to protect the populace.
Was the Joker too far gone to make a moral choice anymore or did he still have the power of volition and murdered people because he was just a sick phukk who enjoyed killing? It's a good question.
Regardless, royally screwed-up people like this have to be removed from society ASAP.
Of course by the end of the movie he need to be locked up, but you could argue when he was on his meds and seeing the shrink he was harmless, he was just a (really) odd guy who just wanted to be liked. I don't think he liked killing those guys in on the train, but he was still Arthur. When he become Joker, he was was full blown mental, and liked killing.
"What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I'll tell you what you get! You get what you fuckin' deserve!"
Like I said, it's a complicated thing and its to the film's credit that it provokes these questions and dialogues.
IMHO Arthur/Joker comes across a whiny loser in that particular line, blaming everything bad on everyone else and refusing to grow up and take responsibility for his thoughts/desires/actions. He then uses that reasoning to commit open murder.
All of us have bad, unfair things happen to us; trouble just comes in different packages depending on one's station/environment/situation. It's a fudged up world. But we all have the freedom to choose how we respond to the crap.
Did Arthur still have the power of will in that scene where he murdered Murray Franklin? Let's say he didn't and he was a total psycho unable to control his actions by this point. Still, somewhere along the line previously he could have chosen a more healthy path for his life. He could've left the city and lived as a hermit; he could've hooked up with a commune or mission and offer his services to help others in his type of situation; he could've joined a traveling circus and spent his life making people laugh; he could've done something better than what he ended up doing.
I don't have anything more to say on the subject; you're welcome to the last word.
Circumstances, and at the end of the day a broken society.
shareI actually saw the movie Judy on Saturday and then Joker on Sunday. They both wanted to be loved. Judy broke my heart. The movie was wonderful but I spent the whole moving just depressed for her. She seemed so lonely. A scene with her outside a stage door and talking to two fans had me near tears. I don't cry easily at all. I actually felt awful for Joker too early on. But, he made poor choices in life too. Many clearly grow up without a dad and many grow up abused too, but they don't turn into killers.
shareAgreed.
shareAgreed.
shareYes it is I sympathize with Villains who struggle to find the light in themselves or villians who want to have order in this world but goe about the wrong Joker fits neither of those he's an Insane person who needs to be put down
share"The hardest part of having a mental illness is, people expect you to act as if you don't" - Arthur Fleck
He was already barely holding on to sanity with his 7 different meds. Once those were gone, Fleck was mostly gone.
Don't try to apply rational reasons for anything he did once he went full Joker.
He was operating on a different kind of mind once that happened.
He killed his quasi-friend (horrific and brutally) because he kind of annoyed him.
He likely killed his neighbor and probably her daughter.
And the very end suggested he killed that counselor (bloody footprints) because he found it a funny joke that she (obviously) wouldn't get.
Life (anyone's including his own) were meaningless to him.
"Does it matter if you take me back to the asylum, if it doesn't matter to me?" - Joker (Killing Joke)