The Joker Explanation NO ONE Is Talking About

If none of us truly cared; if we cast aside the moral good built up from years of interacting with each other on and offline; sharing pain, stories and experiences, would that be a more "free" state than the world of order we have right now?

Joker certainly thinks so, and besides the modern incarnation, it's been the lynchpin behind his character for decades.

Todd Philips clearly chose this character to represent his comedic insurrection, and the scene where Arthur lays down the "comedy is subjective!" rant on TV is emblematic of how I'm sure the writer/director would like to address millions of people now paying attention to what he has to say.

Through Joker, the filmmakers have found a way to address this divide in our comedic tastes head on. It's something borne out of 90s ignorance, 2000s "shock comedy" and - for want of a better term - 2010s "wokeness", or our "awakening" to the plights of others. The biggest hook Joker can bury in you is addressing life as one giant joke; trying to smile and think positive no matter what's happening, and the dark realisation that you might find humour in something social media is utterly repulsed by.

Comedy's role to me is being able to address something that might otherwise have power over you - to ground and defeat it. Whenever you hear someone say you "shouldn't joke about that" in reference to any number of sensitive topics, does that then give said subject matter a sense of power?

Comedians often steer headlong into these exact topics, reducing them to words and laughter, rather than letting them stay taboo.

Arthur becomes more confident and sure of himself once he starts referring to his life as a "comedy", stops being afraid of people and begins living life as a literal clown. In many senses, Joker's costume and presence represents an injection of life and colour into an otherwise drab cityscape.

That notion of learning to not take everything seriously is once again at the heart of Philips' thoughts on "woke culture", and it's the one throughline message I feel the movie carries from front to back.

Maybe that resonates with you depending on your own predilections for dark subject matter or black comedy, or maybe - to paraphrase Arthur's final line in the movie - it's something you "didn't get".