ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Season 1, Episode 8 · 1 year ago
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Season 1, Episode 8 · 1 year ago
Joker: "Don't Forget To Smile."
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode of how have we never seen this before? This week we discussed joker. Stay tuned to hear US talk about how we know absolutely nothing about Batman, the controversy surrounding this movie and the problems that come with stereotyping mental health. This is a podcast where two best friends talk about movies they've never seen before. I'm Isabelle and I'm Lauren, and this is how have we never seen this before? This week, the first person to guess correctly and win our guests the movie of the week contest is my friend from school, Don o camp both if you want to be the winner of our guest movie contest, make sure to follow us on instagram and check out our stories each week. Hello everyone, we first wanted to start by explaining that throughout this episode we will be speaking about mental health. We're going to try to use the most appropriate language. However, we're going to be speaking so broadly that if you have a different way of explaining some of the terms we discuss, please let us know. We're always open to learn. So with that one, just going to get into the movie and these respectful as possible. Also, I just wanted to say that this might not be as we might not be joking as much in this as we would with the other movies, because this film is so controversial and polarizing and it's important to talk about but we just need to talk about it seriously. We might say some funny things, but for the most part, I don't know. It's okay. So, the beginning of the movie we hear the radio playing and the camera zooms in on a man, the joker, putting his makeup on and the radio is saying that there's a citywide state of emergency, which I mean that's what we're in pretty much everywhere right now. Are Living in a movie? Like I would love to know. Are we living in a movie right now? I mean, yeah, we've got musicians running for president, we've got quarantine, we've got a worldwide pandemic. I don't know, like it's all the movies put together. Yeah, they also make a statement and the announcement they said something about typhoid fever. Yeah, I'm like Super Rats, and I was thinking about the murder Hornets and there's also lots of garbage everywhere and my first thought, I don't know why I forgot that joker lives in Gotham city, but I was like, is this New York? And Late S, oh my God, saying. I totally forgot that this was Gotham until I started seeing signs and I was like you, New York is so gross. But like, New York was awful in the I think that's when this is set like it's supposed to be, like lates of these are ladies. Yeah, and there's lots of garbage at they where like the cities of mass and we see him looking in the mirror and he's trying to force himself to smile, like he takes his fingers and in the corners of his mouth and pushes a smile and he's also crying. you see the makeup like running down his face. And then we see him at his job. He's a he's dressed in a clown costume and he's a sign spinner. I'm so glad that neither of US have a strong fear of clowns, because I don't know how you would have gotten through this movie. I was thinking about. was that like two thousand and sixteen, when they have clowns running around? Yeah, at my school, when like the clowns situation happened. People in my like grade stormed the streets of Sarah Hughes as a mob looking for clowns. Birth Day in North Carolina, though, there were rumors that there are clowns and Syracuse. Just gotta love fear tactics. But he's so...
...he's a sign spinner and honestly, a pretty good one at that, in my opinion. And there's also in older man playing piano. They're outside a store, a music store that's closing, and then this group of kids runs up and steals the sign from him and they run across the street and he's trying to chase them and he almost gets hit by cars while he's running through the street rates and then he like corners them in an alley and then as he's like running up to them, one kid is kind of hiding behind, I guess, like a trash can or something, and then he like walked out in front of him with the sign and he gets hit with the sign and then he's on the ground, he can't move and they start to beat him up and then they just run away and leave him there. This seems super upsetting. I started watching it and it was like the like one of the first scenes, and I was like, I don't know if I can get through this. When you told me that the movie was already upsetting you, I assumed you were like forty minutes in or something, and you were probably like ten. Yeah. Also, why would anyone want to mess with a clown that looks like Arthur? Because he looks scary. I would not want to steal a clown sign. I guess like it's clout like fears of clowns. Is that kind of a new thing? I guess it's like always been at the thing, but I don't I don't know. Okay, I'm not afraid of a clown that looks like normal, but Arthur, his makeup was scary. You know, his wig wasn't the nicest. I think I'm just like afraid of clowns like the one in the American horror story twist see. Yeah, I love twisty, like that's scary in my opinion, but yeah, it's not real. It's not real. Yeah, like normal clowns are fine, but clowns that have scary makeup are not fine for me. Yeah, and then after he is beat up by these kids, we see him in a room and he's laughing or crying. You're not really sure. They're very similar. His leg laughing crying at from what you can tell. First and he's in a room you see like boxes and papers everywhere and there's a woman talking to him. You're not really sure who she is at first, but then it turns out she's she's like a city therapist. That's that's the only way I could describe it. She's like, I would just consider her a social worker because we don't really know her exact title. Yeah, it's not clear, but like he asked her if it's getting crazier out there and she's like yeah, like this is just like the world was just kind of falling apart. HMM, wonder where we've seen that before. She also asks him if he's been keeping up with his journal, and it's he's like very hesitant to give it to her so she can see it. I mean, I will find out that his name is Arthur at this point, and he tells her that he's been using this diary as as a diary but also as a joke journal because he's pursuing a career in stand up comedy and one of the like you can't really read what he writes. It's very illogical. Yeah, yeah, but the one is he writes that he wonders if his death will make more sense than his life and he tells her that he felt better when he was in a mental hospital. He just I think the world's treated him very poorly, as you can just see from the kids beating him up, and he's just not in a very good place. But then he asked the social worker if she can tell the doctor to increase his meds, but we find out that he's already on seven different medications and it's not very clear that they're working or what they're supposed to be doing. Anyway. Another issue that a lot of people have with this movie is that they don't give him a clear diagnosis. So people watching it obviously try to give him a diagnosis and but ultimately leads to perpetuating the idea that people who have different mental conditions are also violent, which is not the case at all, and it also shows it tries to say that because you have this sort of condition,...
...because you are this way, it leads to you being violent, which is not true at all, and that was a huge issue with the film. That's why I was so angry watching it, because it's ucks. When I was watching I saw that, but I was curious, like, and I told you this before, but I was just like, was there like another argument that maybe they're kind of shedding light on mental health awareness and how it's there? Really wasn't any and still isn't anything. Like keeps getting cut. But I think they, and you said this, and I think they could have done a better job and explaining that if they're trying to make a villain origin story for Batman, they really shouldn't centered around mental health. Like, if you're going to make a story like film, a movie about mental health problems and how cutting funding for them can lead to just disaster, you could do it without being violent. But I don't think you should ever try to mix a villain origin story with mental health awareness, because it perpetuates that stereotype that they're violent. You know. Yeah, so after he leaves this Social Workers Office, he's on the bus and there's a little kid that's looking at him and he does that thing where you leave, I don't know what it's called, but you like change your face as you wave your hand in front of it. I can't do it, but the kit yeah, like a Min yeah, and the kids really enjoying it and laughing, and then the his probably his mother. She turns around is like stop bothering my kid, and then when she says that he are, theur starts laughing and crying at the same time again, and he the woman's like do you think this is funny, like, why are you laughing? And he hands her it's a it's a card that explains that he has a neurological brain condition caused by trauma and it causes like uncontrollable laughing or crying or both when he's in situations that are maybe not appropriate for laughing at that time. And then we see that he's walking home, home, like he's clearly upset by everything that just happened. He's walking up the stairs towards his apartment building and it's the stairs in it's in Brooklyn. I think that like people started going to after this movie came out and everyone was like please leave our there's alone, like we need to use these actually stop taking pictures. Wow, want to do that anyway? Yeah, I don't know. And he goes to his apartment and then he opens the mailbox and it says P Fleck, and it turns out that that's his mom and she used that lady from also from American Horror Story. Yeah, I wrote that down. She's in the cabin one and she's like the crazy red hair she's also the first one too, is like the maid's alter ego. Oh yeay, okay, they all play so many roles I forget. But he makes her dinner and then she's she keeps asking about the mail. She every time you see her. She asked about the mail because she's writing to Robert Wayne. Robert, no, Thomas Wayne, Thomas Wayne. I'm not a DC comic fan, so I didn't understand until he went to the Wayne Manor that that was Batman's Dad. Really took me so long because I kept forgetting that this was the joker's origin story. Yeah, it was. It comes up later, but I it was like a very weird way to it's also like the Batman's origin story, kind of like that one scene where his parents died. But that's not what I was expecting. Will Get fun. Fact I've never seen, I don't think I've ever seen any of the Batman movies. That's why I'm so confused. I've I've seen the I've seen parts of them, I think not all of them. Maybe we should do that next. Yeah, my only Um Batman knowledge comes from watching...
...my older brother play the Arkham asylum games. I've way, I've played one of the more recent Batman ones, but I'm so bad. I don't have like the the hand eye coordination to do it. I just like press a bunch of buttons and the only game I'm good at these days is tune town. If them playing to down, it's fun. Anyway. She keeps talking about the mail and she's been writing letters to Thomas Wayne because she apparently used to work for him, probably about thirty years ago, and she keeps saying how great of a guy he is and how if he knew the the squaldor they were living in, that he would do something to change it and that he's the only person who could save the city and be a great mayor. And that's when I found out they were in Gotham and not New York. Yeah, it's also funny how rich people running for mayor positions of power. Her reminds me of someone we know. Honestly, the whole thing, though, with will get to it but like with people being protests and riots against there's just a lot that like it's just so relatable towards the state of the world right now. It's kind of scary. HMM. It's so weird how we can find that in most movies that we watch too. Are we watching really depressing movies? I don't know. Can we go back to twilight? I was trying, I couldn't find one. Someone give us a suggestion, please, for happy movies or dumb movies that don't make any sense. Okay. So after she talks about the mail they have is late night TV show comes on and it's the Murray Franklin show and it's Robert Niro. I didn't even know he was in this movie either day I was like what. But as they're watching it, it looks like Arthur's at the show and he's part of the audience. Murray's doing this his intro and Arthur calls out that he loves Murray and then Murray called him out to and puts the lights up and asks him out about him and he says that he lives alone with his mother and where. He was like no, like that's like everyone laughs but murs like no, I did the same thing before I made it. Like I commend you for taking care of your your mom. Arthur says that his mother always said to him that she would that he was put on this earth to spread joy and laughter, and he comes down to the stage and they like bow together and Murray tells Arthur that he would give up all the fame he has to have a kid like Arthur. And after he says that, it turns out we're like back to reality and it's he was imagining all of it. They he was at the the show. This also happens a lot where he imagined stuff that doesn't happen. Listaid. I'm not the biggest fan of movies with unreliable narrators, but we find out that Arthur is now an unreliable narrator. So we don't really know what's real and what's not, and that's like a big part of like what I at least what I know from like what people think about this movie, is that like maybe the entire thing was a hallucination and he's been in the mental health facility the entire time. HMM, because I also saw a thing how the clocks. If you ever see a clock in the movie it's always at eleven eleven, so that means it's a hallucination, or at least whenever those clocks show up, it's not real. But I mean, I got that information from buzzfeed. So I feel like this movie we did the most research. Yeah, but yeah, so after this hallucination of being on the Marie show, we see that he's in like a locker room and, yeah, he's very, very skinny. His you can see his ribs whenever he doesn't have his shirt on, and there's a group of people in this locker room with him, and it turns out he works for like a clown company, clown talent agency. Yeah, and...
...there's also, I'd say there's probably about four or five of them, and one of the other clowns comes up to him and gives him a gun. Wait, because to you what I wrote in my notes for this part. Yeah, I said, Um, all, another clown offers him a gift to tear him up, and then under that I wrote it's a gun. You don't want first what it is until he opens it. So, yeah, like he was talking about how he should how he should be able to protect himself and because everyone's heard about what happened and he but he just gives him a gun. And so the other clowns aren't very nice people either and they make fun of the little person who's another clown. I think a lot of the people that he works with are just people who can't find another job and this is their only their only way to earn money at this point. But it turns out that Arthur has to go to their boss because there was a complaint about him from the company that he just that he was working at when he got hit with or when he got beat up by the kids, and the complaint is about him not returning the sign. Another's like I literally got feat up, like I designs destroyed that I don't didn't you hear about what happened? and His boss is just like, I'm going to take this out of your paycheck if you don't return it. And as his boss is talking, we just see Arthur smile and the sound kind of fades away in the background and it's not he's probably that he just didn't hear. He he retreats inside his mind and the next that we see is he's outside and he's kicking the trash cans or like the the dumpster to get his frustration out, and then we see him go home and he checks the mail again and there's nothing. So after he checks the mail, he goes see elevator and as the doors closing he hears someone yell and to hold the door, and it's a girl and a child, and I don't know if you've ever seen deadpool too, but she's domino, I think. I mean it's like lucky, or it's something about like she her superpowers luck, but she looked any way familiar. Yeah, and she like thanks him for holding the door and how she like mentions how the world's like crazy out there and her, her daughter, repeats it and she does the handgun sign to her head and then he does it back, and then when they get out of the elevator, she just smiles back at him and they like go their separate ways, but they live on the same floor, which is important for later. Yes, and as he goes into his house, we see that he's giving his mom a bath and then she asks about the letters again, like if anything, he's come back. Then Arthur transistions to talking about his comedy and he's like Oh, mom, like people really like it. I think I'm ready for the big time and then his mom says, like don't you have to be funny to be a comedian? So it was so mean and also, like, I it made me think about, like how she had said that he really how we think? She said that he was put on this earth to like spread joy and laughter, and I wonder, like if he made that up or if she's always been mean about it. Also, like, your son is bathing your wrinkly body right now, you could at least say something encouraging to him. I think we find out later more about why she's so meaner than I'm lost the parental figures and every single episode have been awful. Oh, you mean our episode? Yeah, it's like episodes of what? Yeah, yeah, of this podcast. Like have we had one good parent here? Charlie, Charlie, he lets Bella do whatever she wants, a kitty, kitty getting so passionate about twilight right now. He's like, I think he's the best one that we've seen. There's no good. He kind of...
...sucks. I'm saying there's no good, but out of all of them, we don't really like see parental figures in some of the movies we've seen otherwise. Anyways, I guess the Godfather is. No, I think the Godfather's the best parent. It's a I. Okay, okay, we're not. We're not gonna argue about this. But then after his mother goes to bed, he he has the gun that the other clown gave him from before and he's pointing it at different objects around the room and then he starts dancing with it and he also at one point he puts it up to up to his head or like underneath his chin, and while he's dancing with it, he accidentally shoots the gun off. But his mother like so dealing, but he says that he's just been watching a war movie. Wouldn't someone else in the building here that also? Where did the bullet go through? It went right through the wall, but I don't know which role. Yeah, I guess they're in a bad neighborhood anyway, so it might not be something that anybody really thanks to question. So it's the next day and he's standing outside a school and it's the woman. He sees, the woman and the girl that he saw in the elevator earlier, and he's stalking them, or not sucking the little girl, but he's talking the mom pretty much. Then he goes to a comedy night at a bar and he's trying to laugh along with the jokes but doesn't necessarily understand the social cues. Like he doesn't laugh whenever in elsass he laughs slightly after or at a different part. That's like leading up to the joke or something. and He's writing in his journal as this is going on and it you can't really read it again. It's like pretty illegible, but you see that there's something about mental illness and it says it zooms into it and you can see that says people expect you to behave as if you don't have mental illness. So after this he's at the comedy show. He so the girl. I don't think we ever get her name, but this woman she comes to and knocks on his door and ask him, asks him if he was following her today. It was like a weirdly positive interaction for Chalon. When you find out that everything was a hallucination, leader like it makes sense why that interaction was so positive. But she like says she thinks he's kind of funny and he's like you should come see my stand up shows and she was like yeah, yeah, I'll go do that. And then the next day he's at a children's hospital, singing, happy and you know it. And how are those kids thought? Terrified? Yeah, that as a child, that would probably scare me a lot. Kidding me, he needs to invest in a better clown outfit. That would save him so much trouble. But while he's singing and dancing, the gun falls out of his his pocket or wherever he had a stored and it's on the floor and he like tries to grab it before anybody can see it, but it's clear that everyone's notice and he has to call his boss. He's in a pay phone or a phone booth and the bosses like you're fired, like you why would you bring a gun? He's like it's part of my act, but it's that's it. He's done throw down. That randall lie to him. Would he live? I don't. Oh, yes, so randall's the other clown, the clown who gave him the gun. But Randall told their boss that he you, that Arthur was asking to buy it from him. Yeah, yeah, so did. Honestly, depending on what's a hallucination or not, like maybe he did ask to buy it after this all happened, or maybe that whole scene was we really don't know. And while he's in the phone booth, he slams his head against the glass wall and it shatters, which is something that had happened before. In a flashback to when he was in a mental mental health facility, that's something he would do. He would like slam his head on the glass of the door. Yeah, so after he is fired, he's on the subway trying to go home and these three...
...guys are arguing and another is harassing a girl who's sitting on the same cars them and like throwing French fries at her. And then Arthur starts to laugh uncontrollably and one of the guys starts singing a song about clowns and like starts to walk closer and closer to Arthur. They start harassing him and like they take his wig and I like asking him what's so funny, and they steal his bag and then start to attack him like the kids had earlier. It's getting so hard to watch. Yeah, it's it's just like there's no like he's trying to explain to them, like I have this this condition, and he tries to give them his card and they just like just that's when they steal his bag. He can't even explain, like or try to explain what's happening. But as they're attacking him, he he reaches for the gun and he starts to shoot them, and one of the one of them escapes, but when the train stops at the next station, he peeks over the side of the door and then tries to run, but he shoots him when they get off the train while he's trying to run away, and then he runs. Then Arthur runs away from the station and into a bathroom seemingly pretty far away, and he the camera like follows his feet and then his arms as he begins to dance. And one thing is that, like his his dancing gets better as the movie progresses, and that's also I don't know, it's like it's a theme for something. Yeah, and I'm not sure what. I also, at this point would like to bring up the violence thing again with and give you a little statistic about like violence and mental health. This is from like Mental Health Dotcov and it breaks down myths and facts about mental health problems. And the myth is people with mental health problems are violent and unpredictable. The fact is that the vast majority of people with mental health problems are not violent. Only three to five percent of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. So, in fact, people with severe of your mental illnesses are over ten times more likely to be victims of a violent crime than the general population. So, yeah, just thought I would put that out there to break down some of the myths that this movie perpetuates. And we also, I we do see that Arthur does fall victim to a lot of violent crimes because people don't give him the time to explain or don't even or just attack him for no reason because they they think what he's doing is weird and that's kind of their only justification, besides their cruel people. Yeah, this movie, like you could see where the intentions are with like it shows an exaggerated version of everything, but it the the idea is that it shows how people with mental health problems are treated in society, which is like the one good thing about it, but everything else is bad. Yeah, but as he finishes dancing in the bathroom, he he has his arms outstretched and he's looking in the mirror, which I think is like I don't know if it's a thing and other Batman movies, but I think that's something he does like like his arms, like like Tedda. I don't know, I don't know. I haven't really seen them, I don't know. And then so after this he ends up going home and he knocked on that woman's store and then they just start making out. Yeah, okay, this it's another thing I'll bring up. And every movie that we watch someone is unconsensually kissed the happy yeah, I seen this movie and pretty much...
...in all the others too, there's just like, I don't know, I don't understand why. I just it's always just they go right in. How about just asking a nice hum when a smooch? Don't know how to get like that. You Butt me some sugar, maybe in another way. So it's the next day and he's cleaning out his locker at the clown agency and everyone has heard what's happened and they're all talking about it. They don't know that that Arthur did it, but like they know that these three men were shot on the subway and I know that he was fired. So as he goes to leave, he's like, Oh, I forgot to punch out, and then he punches the punch out machine off the wall. How did that not break his hand? I don't know. I don't know. And then on his way out, he crosses out the word forget on a sign that says don't forget to smile, and that's that's kind of his transition from being a happy clown to really just I'm not I don't know. It's like it's a it's a clear transition in his mindset. I think, yeah, it's a turning point. I also wanted to like backtrack for a second. I actually like looked up like the dancing in the bathroom and what that means, and people speculate that every time he dances it's like a cleansing and it signifies his transition into the joker. I think that makes sense, because it starts when he has the gun for the first time and then after he kills them. And Yeah, yeah, there's more. I just I just don't want to because we're not there yet. I'm not going to keep going. Yeah, but after he clears out his locker, he is home and we see that his pill bottles are almost empty. There's maybe one left in each of the bottles. So I think also it's does his mental health? Does he have more clarity after he's off these pills? Because, like, you also see that his dancing gets better. I didn't know, like I don't know what they were trying to do with that. I feel like they should not try to like justify in that way. Yeah, they shouldn't try to make it some sort of metaphor. They definitely were trying to, though. But while he's home, Thomas Wayne is on the TV and his mom's like come over, come over, like wings on the TV and it turns out that the three men that he killed were Wayne Employees. And he also's mentioning how like there's this is ridiculous. It's made me mad. He was like an anti rich sentiment in the city and he says that all those who haven't made something of their lies, like I, have our our clowns and that's why everyone's like dressing up on this clown makeup and everything, and it's just like it's just like the whole thing. I was like who, like, who do you think you are? I can see a lot of parallels between Thomas Wayne and Donald Trump. No, I that's that's exactly where my mind when I was just like this is. I wonder when they wrote the screenplay for this and I wonder if he's actually supposed to be like Donald Trump. I don't know, maybe. But then we see that are there's at the the social worker therapists office again and he is talking to her about how he's he wasn't sure if he ever really existed when he was younger and even into now. He's he's like always felt pretty invisible, and the lady because him up and asks him or tries to say something, but he's like you don't even listen to me, like you ask me the same questions every week, like I feel like I don't exist even when I'm here when you're supposed to be helping me, which is like again them trying to squeeze in that mental health awareness. I think also with this next part, the therapist tells him that they're funding has been cut. They also said he can't get his medicine anymore and that the office is closing down. Yeah, and they won't be meeting...
...anymore. And she says the government doesn't care about either of them, like her job or his health. But yeah, so he he's out of medication and there's no way he can get it anymore either. And he is at a comedy club in the next scene and there's a comic on stage talking about sex, and pretty nonconsensual sex. And and next it's Arthur's turn to go on stage and I was nervous for him, like I really wanted him to do well. I wrote please don't blow it. But as he goes on stage, he he really can't get any words out. He's he starts laughing right away, but then we see the girl from his apartment. She's sitting in a corner that she's at the show watching him, and it seems as though the rest of the people fade away once he sees her and he's you think he's able to do the rest of the show all he's focusing on her and people are laughing in the background, but you can't tell if that's real or not or if it's like they're laughing at the jokes. Are Just laughing at him? Yeah, I mean his humor was kind of self deprecating, so they're probably like if they were laughing, they're laughing with and at him. Yeah, but as they leave the comedy club. They there's a newspaper they're about, like on a a newspaper stand, about the killer clown and the girl says to him she's like, I think the guy who killed him as a hero, really cementing in his mind that what he did was a good thing and how everyone backs him. And you think that she the a like all of this is real and she's supporting him in it, even though she doesn't know it's him. And he also sees someone in a taxi with the clown mask on, and there's more and more people with those masks or makeup on as the rest of the film goes and as he comes home after this date, the Marie show is on and he wakes up his mom to take her to bed and they're dancing in the living room and but all she does is she keeps asking him about this letter, like has wayne written back to us? Like they must be throwing out the mail, and then she goes to bed, but he goes back to the table and there's a letter that she's written and he opens it and basically what it says is that Arthur is Thomas Wayne's son and like he should be taking care of them like at least putting them in a better home or something. Hmm, I was so confused at this point. I like miss something along the way. They're I was like, WHO's son? What? But his mother then like sprints into the bathroom after he starts to get angry. So like clearly she can move. Yeah, but after he after he reads this letter, she's like. He's like, mom, I'm not mad, I just needed to tell me the truth, and she tells him that she had signed some papers. Like he couldn't tell anyone that. That Thomas Way had like swept it all under the rug and convinced her not to like four appearances. They couldn't be together and things like that. But the next day he's on the train. You don't really know where he's going, but he's reading the newspaper and there's a picture of Wayne in there and he tears it out and puts it in his diary. Yeah, and then he we see he's walking around outside this gated house. We at this point I wrote, Oh Wayne, I finally get it. It took me this long to realize that this was Batman's Dad. This is probably an hour into the movie because, like idiot, I'm so stupid. Oh my God, yeah, he's at it's like Wayne Manner, I think, and this this kid is in this Gazebo. And why would you first of all, like why would you put that Gazeebo so close to the outdoor gate where anyone can just watch your kid playing? I don't know, there's a little weird. Yeah, not really sure about the architect's direction...
...when did but as he's walking by, he's like watching the kid and he puts his clown nose on and does that thing where you like pretend to go down the stairs. You know, imagine, like as a kid, you're just playing outside your house and you see like a man with a clown nose like trying to like get your attention. I feel a little scared. I have to like I don't know what Bruce Wayne was thinking, but yeah, I can't really get into his thoughts right now. Like, as a kid, I'd know better than to follow this man. Yeah, I'm probably run inside and never come out and like like the kid like follows him down the fence and then they meet at the gate and Arthur's like doing magic tricks for him and then he he asked him what his name is. And he says it's Bruce Wayne and Arthur introduces himself and then he makes Bruce Smile with his fingers like he like he had done at the beginning of the movie. He like reaches through the gate and then uses his own fingers to lift bruce's mouth into a smile. Bruce doesn't even react. He's not even yeah by that. He's just standing there like maybe he's that scared. But I don't know. Bruce Wayne supposed to be smart, doesn't he like design all his bat stuff? I mean he's like eight years old, you know, I don't care. But then the Butler runs up and Arthur is like, oh, I'm butler. Yeah, Dude, I'm an idiot. I had ething. What it's the same guy, like it's supposed to be the what's his name? I don't know. Oh my God, he British Guy, he butler. Batman's like bff, yeah, that's who, that's who. It is, like he's been with him like from a child till he's like eighty or whatever. My God, any backman stands listening right now probably want to kill me. I don't know either. What he's just the guy with the white hair I've what his name was. Arthur, I don't know. I like I thought the Butler's name was ore thin. Let's look it up real quick. Oh, his name's Alfred. It's I knew it started with an a personal fred. But yeah, so the Butler comes up and Arthur explains like who he is and how he knows about the relationship. Then he starts to choke a Butler and then runs away. Once again, people with mental health problems are not violent. Thank you. And as he's walking home, there's an ambulance at his apartment building and it's his mother being taken away and he gets in the back of the ambulance and they they go to the hospital and while they're at the hospital he's outside smoking and then these two detectives come up and say that they had been talking to his mother about the the murders that had happened on the subway and that she had a stroke when they had asked her about these things. And he's like you cause this, like you're the reason my mother's in the hospital. And they asked him about the gun and because they had talked to his boss, and he said that it was part of his his act, for his clown shows. And then they also asked him about his condition. They don't they don't know what it is, but they hated this. They were like, Oh, is that part of Your Act Too? Maybe what they're trying to get at here is how poorly the police deal with mental health problems and speaking to people who may have what Arthur has. I guess that's what they're getting at here. Yeah, it's just disgusting to hear like they're just like like, this is all part of an act, like this isn't real, like what are you doing? Yeah, but I guess it kind of resembles the lack of training, lack of mental health training that police have that we can see today. Yeah, but once...
...again, villain origin story should have nothing to do with mental health. Are we go? So while they're at he then goes inside and he's in the hospital room with his mother and, Oh wait, he walked into the sliding door. He also walked into the sliding through it because he was going in the exit door and it just didn't register that, which I guess is kind of like he's invisible, you know. Yeah, but while he's at the hospital, he's in the room with his mother and the girl is with him and she's like and she's like, I'm gonna go get a coffee and she leaves. And then Marie is on the TV and they are playing clips of Arthur laughing and kind of saying his jokes at the comedy show, but really they're just making fun of him and laughing at laughing at him. I didn't think this part was real, but I guess it was. I guess we don't. I think part of it, like him watching that, is real. Well, unless the whole thing is a hallucination. Yeah, the girl definitely wasn't there, but I think him watching it is more real than that. You know. I mean, yeah, but like how would they be recording the comedy show in the s? It's not like someone can just whip out their phone when they see someone like doing that stand up. Yeah, I don't know, maybe they record all the shows or something. Yeah, I'm not sure. But then he is back at home and he's laying in bed and his mother's stile at the hospital. But there's a TV on and it's showing protests and rioting and everyone is in in this clown makeup and they're protesting against Wayne and I guess I mean Auntie rich sentiments? Yeah, I've was he sleeping in his mom's bed? Is that why he like reached over to the empty side? That's what I was thinking. Okay, and the gun was awesome next to him too. But they are also these protests have been going on and they are going to continue for the next day because there's a fundraiser for Wayne enterprises or whatever it's called. And aretha goes to the protests and it shows a building that I thought eerily look like the White White House, and they, the people processing, are yelling at the police and the police officer just go ahead and punches a protester and Huh, heaven, at least brutality only. I don't know about you. HMM. Yeah, but while that's going on, Arthur like stinks around the barrier because all their attention is focused on this fight that's going on, and he puts on a I guess it's kind of like a bellboy costume or something, and everyone is inside watching a movie. It looked like Charlie Chaplin or something, dancing and he's looking around and he sees Wayne in a opera booth. Is that with her? Just like one of those booths off to the side where it's like just like a few chairs and you're by yourself. But when gets up to leave and he is going to the bathroom and Arthur follows in there and he takes off his Butler or a share outfit and finds Wayne and he's like I know about this, like I'm penny flex, that's his mother. I'm Penny's relationship with you, and wings like you're not my child, you were adopted, your mother's crazy, and then Wayne just punches him in the face. Yeah, he also explains that his mother was committed to a mental health facility where she spent time, which is important for the next scene. Yeah, I referred to things later. Yeah, so after this he goes home and...
...is is tearing apart the fridge, pulling shelving out of it and everything, and there's a voicemail playing in the background from the detectives asking questions and Arthur goes inside of the fridge and then it shuts the door and it's like a quick transition and it's like it's the next day or something, and so it's also not clear if that's real or not. But when he wakes up the next day, he's in his own bed waking up and there's a call from Murray's assistant and saying they've got a lot of clip or a lot of calls about his clips and they want him to be a guest on the show. I like did not think that this was real, but it's hard to tell. Yeah, I'm not sure. Also, it's just like awful, because I just wanted there to make fun of him. But before this show he goes to the mental hospital where his mother had been seemingly like thirty years ago, and is talking to the man in charge of getting like records. He's at Arkham asylum right? I don't know. I think he is. I wasn't sure if this was just like a separate thing. And then he goes there at the end of the movie. Yeah, but then the clerk is saying, like people come here when they have no nowhere else to go, where they become a danger. Yeah, so I'm thinking, but that's why they're connected. Okay, but yet he also asks like how people end up there, and that's what the the clerk says, and the clerk starts to read him some of the forms, like his mother's forms, but he says he can't let it go without her signature. Once he realizes that Arthur is penny son and that a lot of the information in there is actually regarding him and her treatment of him, and Arthur like grabs the folder through the barrier and like is able to pull it out of the clerk's hands and runs away and he goes into a stairwell and reads her file and there's an adoption application inside which seemingly proves that he was adopted, and there's also a flashback to her time in the mental facility and she's saying how Wayne made up these forms and that he's just doing this to fake him not being his son, and also that an old boyfriend of hers had abused both Arthur and her and kind of caused him to be neglected and that's a lot of why he's the way he is. That they're that's what they're saying. Like this, this trauma may be what caused his his condition. It also explains that his mom has narcissistic personality disorder, HMM, and that she was found guilty of endangering the welfare of her own child, which is kind of confusing to me, because how we're not going to go into detail with like the exact like specifics, because I don't think that would be good. But if she and her boyfriend's, her previous boyfriends, did all of that stuff to Arthur, how would social services not take him away completely? I also don't if she's not in a good living situation, I don't know how she would have that adoption approved in the first place. Yeah, because unless the adoption process, well, I guess this is all fictional, but the adapting process is actually pretty hard. Yeah, I mean, maybe they have like a corrupt system and they're just trying to get kids out, but I'm not I don't know. But after he reads this file, he returns home and is hallucinating the girl being the elevator and the first like finger gun to her head thing, and he opens a door to this girl's apartment and he sits on her couch and she...
...comes out after putting her daughter to sleep, and she's she screams, well, she gasps loudly and it's like, your name's Arthur right, you live down the hall, I think you're in the wrong apartment. And we find out that everything we've seen isn't real. Yeah, this is the woman from the beginning. Yeah, I and she asked us she can call someone and asks if his mother is home. So she doesn't. She was never at the hospital. She never knew this happened. You never kissed. Yeah, none of it. Everything passed. Definitely pass the first elevator scene isn't real, and he then returns to his apartment and is clearly struggling with everything and he's like starting to realize that it wasn't real. Then he returns to the hospital where his mother is at and is explaining his anger and frustration and then takes her pillow and suffocates her with it. I wrote at this point. Can this movie just be over? I have a twitch in my eye. I didn't understand how no one it sounded like a door open and someone came in while this was happening, and like doctors would notice that her heart rate monitors freaking out. I don't. Yeah, and also, wouldn't they be able to tell that the cause of death is suffification? Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe there were, like assuming that they don't have the resources or it's just like poorly run or something, but as right after he does this, he's back at home and he's watching reruns of the Marie show, practicing what he would do if he were on the show. It looks like it's the same comedian from before that he was abs irving, which made me think that this whole situation of him like being on the Murray show was not true and like fake, because it seems like, I don't know, this is just my speculation, that the clips that he was watching in the hospital, like of Murray reacting to his comedy, might have been that guy. Okay, but once again not quite sure. But while he's practicing that, at the end he pretends to shoot himself with a gun and he's like this is part of my act, and then he starts to dye his hair bright green and he's dancing around the bathroom and then the doorbell rings. Before he goes to get door, he picks up a pair of scissors and sticks him in his pocket and when he opens the door it's two of the men who worked with him at the clown agency. It's the man who gave him the gun and then the the small clown, and they're talking about how there's a rally down at City Hall. So it's these these protests that have been going on he's like, Oh, are you going down there? Is that why you look like this? And then I guess is his name is a Randall, the guy who gave him the gun. But he wants to know what the detectives have or what he arthur has been saying to the detectives, because they're starting to look into him. And then Arthur just stabs him with the scissors and kills him. And the other clown is in the corner like sobbing because this man just got stabbed in front of him, and Arthur tells him not to look at at Randall and leave, and then he kisses him on the forehead before he leaves the the the apartment. Yeah, he also sends that the guy who's always been nice to him, so he doesn't have an issue with them. Yeah, so that's kind of his justification for not killing him as well. And then he arthur leaves to go down to the to the Marie show, and we see him dancing as he goes down those Brooklyn stairs and he's in full makeup and a red suit and the green hair and...
...there are two men standing above him as he's going down the stairs and it turns out it's the two detectives and as soon as he sees them he starts to run away and eventually runs into the street and gets hit by a taxi, but he just keeps going and then he runs onto the subway and everyone in the subway has the clown makeup on as well, so they all look really, really similar, and the detectives are following him through the train, but he has a gun out and a fight begins and then the detective like the gun gets shot and someone is hit and once the train stops, everyone like attacks the detectives while they're and they're on the ground. And then you see he joker leaving the clown mask that he's wearing in the trash can. I think this is supposed to symbolize him taking off his metaphorical mask and grace the joker within him. I don't know, I think you're right, because then he's at the Murray show and he's meeting Murray and he asks him to call him joker because that's what he first called him when he first played the clips of him. HMM, and he also explains that the clown makeup that he's wearing his part of his act. He says it's not a political statement. Yeah, yeah, and then Marie leaves and he takes the gun and holds it, or Arthur takes the gun and holds it to his own head. And right before Arthur supposed to come out, Murray is is pretty much making fun of him before he comes and there is a doctor there as well. I don't know why she's there, like she was the guest before him or something. And then he comes out on state. Arthur comes out on stage and he kisses the woman. He just like goes up and kisses the woman who was out there before him. Ah, yes, some more unconsensual kissing lay. And one of the things that Marie asks him is he asks him to tell him a joke and he opens his diary, Joke Journal, and he's like making fun of him for having that journey knal out with him and then says knock knock, a knock knock joke, which is actually the joke he was practicing earlier where he had taken the gun and pretended to shoot himself. But then he admits two marine and everyone there that he is the person who killed the three Wall Street guys and that he killed them because they were bad people and explains to Marie that Marie's a bad person because he he's aware that he played this video and invited him on the show just to make fun of him. So he meets as like how about another joke, and he it's basically about how society has failed Arthur, and then he pulls out his gun and shoots Marie. Yeah, and the tea. Yeah, a few moments for them to finally get this moment off the air, he like are three like dances off of the stage and then like ghost talk into right into the camera, and then it cuts off and all the all the TV stations are playing which has happened and talking about how Marie was just shot and killed on live TV. And then he's in the back of a police car. So he's gotten he got caught right away and people are all around rioting and but also cheering him on as he's passing, it seems, and as he's in the police car, and ambulance like runs into the police car and he's unconscious, but several guys in clown masks they come, they pull him out of the car and they place him on the hood of the of the police car and then we see these these men in the masks. They go down this alleyway where Bruce and Thomas Wayne and his wife are just like walking down this alley and then they shoot the parents, which, like I knew...
...that's how like that's Bruce's origin story. But why would they be out walking down a dark alley when all of this is going on? Also, if he's so rich and he's running for mayor, plus like the state of the city right now, he'd think that he'd be walking around with security or he'd be in a car. Yeah, like, I don't. I just didn't understand that. I seem I felt like that was just weird, like there's no way they'd have that opportunity to shoot him or whatever, like it just wouldn't happen. But yeah, and then we go back to Arthur and he's waking up and people are cheering him on and he's then stands up on the roof of the car and starts to dance and he takes his hands and forces his face into a smile like he had done at the beginning, and then the screen faceto black and we see him laughing again and he's in an all white room wearing hospital clothes. So I were assuming that's Arkham asylum, I guess, and there's an actual therapist, I hope, this time, and she's taking notes at and asks him what's so funny and he's like, Oh, I just I just thought of a joke. And we see Bruce Standing over his dead parents and the woman asks him if he wants to tell it and he says that she just wouldn't get it and he starts singing that's life. I'm pretty sure that's the name of the song. But as he's singing it, we see him leave this room with this woman and he's walking down the hallway and they are are red footprints left behind where he walked and then he dances at the end of the hall. It's hard to see him. There's like a very bright light, but he's kind of dancing at the end of the hall and then he walks off and that's the end of the movie. My question for you do you know anyone that actually like this movie? I do. What is the justification for liking this movie? I cannot comprehend it. I don't know. I feel like for a lot of people, if you're not thinking about it in the way we were thinking about it, I don't know if you're not thinking about it as a poorly poor giving, poor mental health awareness, if you're not thinking about it in that aspect, it's just like a very like you got to be thinking about is this real, is this not? And if you're a Batman Fan, I think that adds to it. Yeah, I don't get it. I mean the one case I could make for this is that Joaquin Phoenis Phoenix, Hockey Phoenix is acting is pretty good. Yeah, I think a lot of people that. At least from the critic reviews that I can see, it's definitely like he did a really good job, but I don't know, someone said in a vox article. And excellent Joaquin Phoenix performance does not make up for the poor taste. I think it was like definitely an interesting movie and I think watching it now is much more poignant and like shit, I don't know it it makes you think about the world right now and maybe it is just a commentary on the world right now. But the mental health aspect was kind of lacking. Will Not lack, but you know what I mean. I'm like trying to find someone making a case for this movie. Okay, official discussion. Joker okay, the thing that people are saying that they liked about the movie was that it shows how people with mental health problems are treated in society. But like, while that may be true, it doesn't make up for all of the bad things and how far back this movie pushes all the progress that we've made towards mental health awareness. Yeah, I think. I think if if you're looking at it in the lens of just a villain origin story,...
I don't know, it's it's good, but it there's no justification behind the way they I guess it's hard because that's what kind of what who the joker is, you know, like everything anyone's really known about the jokers that he's probably unstable. So I guess they kind of took it in ran, you know. Yeah, one thing that Joaquin Phoenix says is that you shouldn't try to diagnose Arthur with like say, for example, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, because then it attributes his violent acts and all of these things to those conditions. And how can you possibly say that when you have this movie about mental health and then create this villain who's violent and commits horrible acts? Like you can't just say Oh, don't diagnose him and then then the problems solved. That's not that's not possible. That's not how that works. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I just have such a problem with this movie. Sorry, I don't mean to get so angry now. I think I think it's I think it's justified. I think there's there's lots of criticisms like yours out there for this one. It definitely wasn't easy to watch, HMM, but I think it's something that was good to see. I don't know that I'm glad to have watched it or I think it's good that I've seen it. HMM. And I think it's good that we're discussing it, even if no one listens. I. Yeah, I think the dialog that it's created is important. MMM, because everyone's arguing about this movie, or at least say we're in two thousand and nineteen. There's lots of other things that are you about now? Yeah, you know that a movie is bad. When I say, can we go back to twilight please? I could use a lighthearted film for next week. Yeah, can we well find one? All right, well, before we end, just to remind you to go ahead and follow us on Instagram at how we never podcast, so that you can participate in our guests the movie of the week game and get a shout out the beginning of the episode. Also, follow us on facebook at how we never seen this before, and we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye, mostly heart. Goodbye. Could do. Hey, congratulations, you've made it to the end of our podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening. How have we never seen this before? Is produced by is B barone. The music is by Scott Holmes. The podcast art is by Michael Beaumont over at monitor comics, and our social media is run by Lauren Cola. Thanks for listening.
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