“For my whole life, I didn't know if I even
really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice.”
-
Arthur Fleck (Joker), from the movie Joker, 2019
Arthur Fleck (who will eventually become Joker) is a
clown and wannabe stand-up comedian who lives in Gotham City suburbs with his
mother Penny.
He suffers from a chronical disease that causes him to
laugh in inappropriate times.
His disease is being treated through therapy sessions
and with medication.
Arthur, after he was attacked and beaten up by a group
of boys, is handed a gun by one of his coworkers.
One night, after a horrible day at work, he shoots
three Gotham businessmen in self- defense in the city's underground.
Thanks to his clown makeup his identity remains unknown
but the "Clown killer" who seems to hate rich businessmen is now on
every newspaper.
In his extremely isolated life this is the first time
he is being noticed by the society.
When the government cuts the funds for social services
Arthur finds himself unheard and struggles to get his medication.
This leads him to abandon any kind of hope or optimism
he was trying to look for and embrace the violence and the darkness he was
offered by the society he lived in.
The way Arthur develops into the ruthless assassin
Joker is really similar to what happens to another character we find in the
1816 gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Like Joker, the creature created by the scientist
Victor Frankenstein through the use of electricity and by assembling body parts
from different corpses is born essentially good.
The creature only longs to learn, to have someone who
listens to him, to have a role model or a responsible "parent", to be
integrated, to be part of the environment he lives in.
But alienation, abandonment and lack of responsibility
of his own creator proceed to turn him into a murderer.
The creature was born no monster but the rejection he
experiences from society and from Frankenstein due to its physical appearance
leads him to become a monster.
We see how mental illness in “Joker” and deformed
looks in “Frankenstein” are similarly used by the society as instruments of
alienation and isolation is the main element that turns a good individual into
a monster.
Something that can also be seen as similar is the role
of the parent.
As we know in Frankenstein the creature is completely
neglected by its creator instead in Joker, at first, Arthur's mother seems to
be the only one that appreciates him the way he is and see his goodness.
However, as the story goes on, we discover that Penny
is the ultimate reason of Arthur's transition into Joker.
What completely differs in the two stories
is the outcome.
In the end of Mary Shelley's novel, the creature, that
has chased Victor Frankenstein as far as the North Pole after the death of its
creator, consumed by loneliness and alienation throws himself in the cold
waters of the sea and dies.
In Joker we have a completely different outcome.
In the final segment of the movie, the scene where he
is standing on a car full of blood and is claimed by the riotous crowd is the
synthesis of what Joker represents.
The murders he committed slowly made him become the
model of those who own nothing and are alienated by the society.
This was none of Arthur's plan but in Joker he finds
the identity that make people hear his always ignored and abandoned voice.
He was and is an outcast who becomes the hero of all
the outcasts who were left alone by the society.
KENDRA
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