"Joker" subverts the narrative myth of superheroes, and at the same time provides a new way for us to think about violence.
Author | Edited by Luo Guangyan | Huang Yue
With Iron Man's self-sacrifice in "Avengers: Endgame", the "Infinite Legend" series that Marvel Pictures built for 11 years and set off a worldwide movie-watching frenzy came to an end. The audience wiped away their tears and walked out of the theater, and immediately began to look forward to the next superhero to be put on the screen. Marvel Pictures also quickly announced the next stage of the shooting plan. Undoubtedly, more bloody action scenes and more dazzling visuals Special effects are waiting for us to continue the dominance of superhero movies on a global scale.
Until DC let the clown into the field (Send in the clowns).
From winning the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival (the first comic-based film in history to win this award) to the current global release, "Joker" has always been at the center of the storm of public opinion. No matter the box office or word of mouth, it has become a phenomenon-level movie-the global box office reached 543 million U.S. dollars for ten days after the release, and "Joker" also broke into the top ten of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) movie rankings. On the other hand, this film has also been criticized by public opinion. In addition to judging the quality of the film, the focus of more critics is the moral standpoint of the film and the possible social consequences.
However, instead of caring about the riots or moral crises that "Joker" will cause-so far, apart from the rising box office numbers, it has not caused any other impact-it is better to care about what kind of society this film shows us. Realistic picture. Obviously, "Joker" is not a movie that attempts to resolve social differences. On the contrary, it dissects the symptoms of social tearing in an uncomfortable way for the audience to examine, trying to subvert the notions that we are accustomed to, and provide us with more. The divergent answer seems to be exactly what Joker is good at: taunting superheroes, creating chaos and revealing the darkest side of reality.
The Subversion of Superheroes: The Hero's Joker and the Villain's Batman
Even though the Joker can be regarded as one of the most famous villains in the history of pop culture, since the announcement of the shooting plan, "Joker" has been labeled as a "superhero comic film". The audience expects DC to start a brand new superhero series with this movie. In other words, the Joker is just an introduction and a supporting role. What people expect is the appearance of the real protagonist, the superhero Batman-it seems that no matter what the villains have planned. Or what an evil plan was implemented to try to destroy world peace and social tranquility. As the protagonist, the superhero can overcome many difficulties to defeat it, restore the social order, and usher in a happy ending.
In fact, this kind of narrative is a kind of myth. It has a very conservative connotation, that is, evil is the destruction of the existing ideal order, and maintaining and restoring order is always justice, and it is also the eternal duty of superheroes. Whether it is Nolan's Batman series or the superhero movies of the Marvel Universe, they all tell the story of superheroes with this narrative logic. Even though they may be dissatisfied with the system or act outside the system like Batman, their ultimate goal is to eliminate the factors that hinder the good operation of order and maintain the continuity and stability of social order.
To a certain extent, the movie "Joker" completely subverted this super-English myth. Arthur, who has not yet transformed into a clown, laughed wildly with his unbearable pain and repeatedly asked the audience: When social order itself is the source of oppression , Is the order disruptor still the villain? Is the order-maintainer still a hero? In the movie, from when Arthur was teased and beaten by three Wall Street elites on the subway, he rose up to kill the three men, and finally shot the show host publicly in the studio as a "Joker". His crazy killing is undoubtedly It was a villain that destroyed the existing social order. But he was regarded as a hero by the masses, and people set off riots in response to his killing. The villain who disrupts order becomes a hero instead. This is not uncommon in superhero movies, but the logic is nothing more than that the villain uses deception to gain public trust, while the superhero restores order and succeeds in salvation by revealing the truth. In "Joker", the truth is in the hands of the clown-Arthur became a hero when he was a villain because he showed the public the real but cruel social picture of Gotham.
On the one hand, the film uses a cold picture and a heavy rhythm to calmly outline the dark and oppressive social background of Gotham: the depressed economy, rampant violence, the alarming gap between the rich and the poor, the shrinking social welfare, and the elite make no secret of the poor. His arrogance, the long-standing anger of the people at the bottom...At the same time, Arthur's personal experience of sinking and eventually becoming a mad and chaotic clown is not just a dramatic "crazy bad day" that happened to him. It is precisely in the form of fables that the painful collection of every low-level individual in Gotham’s daily life, whether it is the arrogance of the elite towards the low-level, the mutual tumbling between people after alienation, or the gradual disappearance of the social protection network, it is just The daily life of the Gotham people is displayed and enlarged with exaggeration. Therefore, after Arthur dressed as a clown was forced to fight back and shoot three Wall Street elites, the mayoral candidate, billionaire, and Batman's father Thomas Wayne will be killed by the elites who are also employees of Wayne Investments. —— Become people who create a better life and disdainfully call the murderer a clown who has nothing and jealous of others, but the people quickly stand on the side of the murderer and take to the streets with the slogan "We are all clowns." This rapid antagonism between the elite and the masses reflects the long-term repression and alienation of the social structure on the bottom people. However, despite the secret accumulation of dissatisfaction, people still strive to maintain the peace of daily life.
And Arthur's actions shattered the daily operation of the social order and threw inequality issues to the public in the most intense and direct way, revealing the true Gotham, which also detonated the real resentment of ordinary people. In the studio, Arthur asked the host Murray angrily why people care so much about the deaths of the elites, while the deaths of marginalized people like him are ignored; even so, the elites still expect the bottom people to be able to Be obedient and don't make trouble-observe social order. In the subsequent live broadcast, Arthur shot Murray.
It is worth mentioning that Arthur has been working hard and dreams of becoming a talk show actor one day. Murray is his idol. He believes that one day he can become Murray, or a member of the elite group. . The act of shooting Murray declared the complete disillusionment of Arthur's desire to ascend in a way allowed by social order, and also declared to the public that the existing social order in Gotham is oppressive and impossible to last. The public's response was to launch a full-scale attack on the social order, making Gotham completely fall into the disordered state of anarchism. The clown was finally born from this riot, and the crowd gathered around him and cheered, as if welcoming the birth of a hero. In this scene, it is not so much that Arthur has transformed into a "clown" as a criminal prince and villain, rather he has become the incarnation of the "clown" of Gotham, revealing to everyone the absurdity of the existing order and using violence Ways to mock and challenge it.
What about the "real" protagonist Batman? At the end of the film, the classic Batman birth scene reappears, and the future Batman-Bruce Wayne who looks like a little angel-witnessed his parents dying under the guns of riot participants dressed as clowns. Although the director claims that there will not be a sequel, we can also foresee an ironic scene: when the grown-up Bruce Wayne inherits the family business and finally becomes the dark knight defending Gotham justice, does he want to Defeat the clowns and mobs and restore the once unequal order in Gotham? Will he become the best eagle dog to defend tyranny? Isn't this vacant but easy-to-imagine future a challenge to all superheroes who claim to be the guardians of order?
If we continue to boldly speculate, assuming this future comes true, Batman will soon realize that not only the order he is about to restore is the source of oppression, but he himself may be the creator of oppression. Thomas Wayne is the representative of the arrogant Gotham elite. His elitist attitude is an important reason for the riots. His wealth obviously comes from and depends on the operation of the existing order. What Batman wants to inherit is his father’s wealth and The elite status, the foundation of all his heroes and justice is also the billions of property his father left him-remember the lines in "Justice League"? "What is your superpower?" "I have money."-The maintenance and reproduction of his "superpower" can only be realized through the profits of Wayne Group.
Bruce Wayne himself profited from the unequal order and became a superhero. His arrogant attitude towards Gotham as Batman also reflects the elitism consistent with his father: "I own this city." This may be why in the comics, even though Batman has sufficient power and ability, he can Both within the system and outside the system affected Gotham, but failed to make any changes to Gotham. He patrols at night every night, beating the poor and criminals, but turns a blind eye to the system that produces criminals.
Of course, out of commercial considerations for comics and film and television works, the story of superheroes needs to continue endlessly, and superheroes also need to restore the social order that has been destroyed by chaos again and again. And this is the key to the movie "Joker" subverting the myth of superheroes: when social order itself is the source of production chaos and oppression, superheroes who restore order like Sisyphus are really better than shouting and resisting. Are unfair clowns more legitimate?
Empowering the Powerless: Violent Emancipation and Emancipating Violence
The sharpest criticism of "Joker" by many critics is that the film portrays the clown as a civilian hero who set off a revolution, but in fact he is just a mental patient who abuses violence. The question here is, is there too much violence in the film? As "Joker" director Todd Phillips said, it is also a virtual character in the virtual world. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) in "John Wick: Chapter 3-Parabellum" ) More than 300 people were killed, but the audience cheered and screamed for him. Why should the clown be questioned like this?
Admittedly, there are not many violent scenes in "Joker", but the director's answer by comparing "Joker" with "Quick Preparation" is too clever: audiences who have seen the movie may know that "Quick Preparation" is just one An illusory show, where the violence of gunfights and fights is just for entertainment. The reason why the violence in "Joker" scares film critics and even thinks it is inflammatory is precisely because the film has an extremely ambiguous attitude towards violence, which also raises another difficult question for us: we Should we condemn violence unconditionally? Can violence only appear in a negative image?
The film critics are indeed right. The whole film is saturated with violence from beginning to end, but the violence here does not refer to physical violence such as shootings, assassinations and riots, but Zizek’s "Violence: Reflections on Six Aspects" The "systemic violence" proposed. Different from "subjective violence" which directly disturbs the normal state, "systemic violence" refers to the relationship of oppression and exploitation hidden in the daily operation of social life. It cannot be attributed to the evil intentions of any one person or group of people, but it is systematic and continuous. To operate.
Gotham's depression, indifference, and alienation in the movie seem to be ravaged by life for everyone except the elite. For example, the employees of the Arkham Mental Hospital told Arthur that not all people in the hospital were mentally ill, and some people just had nowhere to go; the government cut welfare funds, so Arthur could not get medical help; the elites Turn a blind eye to the homeless people everywhere. These are not direct physical violence, nor disturb the normal operation of daily life. Rather, this is the mechanism of the normal operation of society, and this invisible violence has been eroding Arthur, bringing him - and the marginalized like him. His life-treated as some kind of consumable garbage, until it drives him into madness.
Arthur’s response to this systematic violence was to gradually liberate subjective violence from his originally weak and meek body. From the beginning, he was snatched from the billboard by a few teenagers and beaten arbitrarily, unable to resist, to revolt on the subway. Killed three Wall Street elites, and finally he took the initiative to shoot the host in the studio. His violence has become more and more energetic and active, countering the suppression of him by system violence in the most violent way. At the same time, his liberation of violence as an individual ignited people’s long-standing resentment, radiating the expectation of violence to the entire city, and the violence of the people at the bottom became more and more intense. From the beginning, they only raised placards to protest. In the end, the riot in the city reached its climax.
If we leave the systematic violence in the air of Gotham, "Joker" will be reduced to a tragedy of how a poor man was forced into an anti-socialist by various dramatic life events, but if we take a little bit of the liberation process of the clown's subjective violence If you pay more attention, you will find that this is the desperate response of the people at the bottom to the systemic violence: when security and hard work cannot prevent the sinking, then people can only hope to stop the society from stopping the system's violence against individuals. To a certain extent, film critics who simply criticize clown violence are like the elites in the film. They only pay attention to how terrible the desperate counterattack at the bottom is, but they forget that the truly cruel form of violence operates in the most concealed and harmless form. .
The most frightening part of film critics is the liberation intention of violence in the film: after every use of violence, Arthur dances more and more skillful clown dances, which symbolizes his continuous sinking and depravity. He is weak and incompetent. But his body has become more and more powerful and confident, allowing him to get everything he can't get when following social morals. At the climax of the film, the clown was even able to issue a clear and complete statement in the studio against the elite and the entire social system, winning the resonance and response of the public. This is in stark contrast to Arthur's broken and clumsy expression ability before—— Arthur, who was originally a marginal man, has experienced the baptism of violence one after another, and finally became a hero of the people. And as Arthur's level of change, the lower-level people have become more violent, which also allowed them to gradually get rid of the neglected situation. From being laughed at by Thomas Wayne as a group of clowns at the beginning, to the end they used violence to frighten the powerful and powerful and even shot Thomas Wayne himself. This undoubtedly means the most radical rebellion against the elite by the people at the bottom. Violence here takes the form of liberation. It empowers the powerless, makes marginalized people the focus of society, and allows the insulted and injured to regain their dignity.
This portrayal of violence looks a bit deviant and even evil. After all, in modern society, as Max Weber said, only nation-states can monopolize the right to use violence, which means that all forms of violence are considered except the state. To be despicable. But historically, the liberation and transformation of violence has always exerted a huge practical influence. From Sorell, Benjamin to Fanon, these thinkers deeply influenced by Marxism have realized that violent revolution is not just a means to change society—"violence is the result of every old society that breeds a new society. Midwives," said Marx-at the same time, it can empower the people, free them from powerlessness and inferior positions, and become a group with real social connections and strength, thus further completing the task of social change. When Fanon discussed the importance of the violent resistance of the colonized in "The Sufferers on the Land", he pointed out that "the colonized human beings liberate themselves in violence and through violence... Violence is the removal of toxins, and it frees the colonized from it. An inferiority complex, a wait-and-see attitude, or a frustrating attitude. It makes the colonized person fearless and allows him to see himself regaining respect."
This radical argument can easily be distorted into a blind worship of violence. Therefore, when discussing the liberating nature of violence, the above-mentioned thinkers clearly pointed out that there is a set of political blueprints behind violence, otherwise it would be nothing more than bloodthirsty brutality. But in the film, when Murray asked the clown if he had a political stand, the clown repeatedly emphasized that he was not a political figure, that is to say, he had no imagination about the society after violence.
This is not surprising. The whole film does not explore the roots of social tearing and systemic violence. It merely describes the arrogance of the elite and the gap between the rich and the poor. The director may not be able to give any answers. Therefore, The ending can only stay at the extremely chaotic anarchist riots, which also means that the liberating nature of violence is likely to turn to its most reactionary side-becoming a weak and crippling background or an opportunity to consolidate systemic violence.
Just a lunatic: Heath Ledger’s Joker and Phoenix’s Joker
Unlike Heath Ledger's version of the clown, the clown played by Jacques Phoenix is not as crazy and unpredictable as Bacchus. The former's narrative of madness is more poetic-"crazy is like gravity, all it takes is a push", but we can still make a judgment: "Batman: The Dark Knight" is just a fictional world. In movies, it is impossible for such a clown to appear in reality, and even if it appears, it is unlikely to have much impact: who would be willing to follow such an unpredictable and dangerous character? So even if Heath Ledger’s clown hits some dark part of our psyche, most people are still far from his madness.
In contrast, the madness of the Phoenix version of the Joker is much more realistic. He may appear in any modern city, so it is even more frightening. Just as he asked at the beginning of the film: "Is it my problem? Or is the whole world getting crazy?" Even though Arthur tried to maintain a stable life and a positive attitude, he was still drawn into the abyss by invisible power. . Uncontrollable laughter didn't make him crazy, and reality kept urging him to keep up with the crazy pace of society. He could only constantly discard his remaining sanity, and kept falling, until he finally became a clown. His madness was not the result of "a little push", nor was it a bad day. It was the epitome of the madness and long oppression inherent in the operating mechanism of Gotham society. Gotham is really crazy. The clown is just the embodiment of collective resentment and compensation for those unable to resist.
Off the screen, is the reality we face more normal, fairer, and less violent than Gotham? This may be the deepest fear of critics who criticized this film: Gotham is so real, the real world is even crazier than Gotham... Then, is it possible for normal people to use "madness" as a weapon to resist? Is it possible for the clown to emerge from the screen and ignite the fire in Burning City in reality?
Part of the views in this article come from discussions between the author and Lilke, and I would like to thank you.
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