decEMBER 28, 2019 vol lIV no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 62 POSTSCRIPT PROTEST | CINEMA Viewing against the Grain Joker and the Crisis of Capitalism Joker explores the manifestations of capitalism while it flips the dualities of the criminal and the just, the funny and the macabre, and the sane and the insane. Abin Chakraborty T hat the Batman film franchise is associated with expressions of popular discontent has become a widely held view, especially since Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012). The latest in this franchise, Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019) intensifies that association by placing the emergence of the figure of the Joker within the context of the social injustice and psychological breakdown experienced by Arthur Fleck, the protagonist. Despite his dream of becoming a stand-up comic, his personal crisis and social victimisation gradually unhinge him, culminating in his transformation into one of the arch-villains of the Batman universe: the Joker. Of course, it is a truism that the moral quality of a society is judged by the way in which it treats its outcasts; and the vortex of trauma, violence, impov- erishment, and ridicule that Fleck, a professional clown, suffers, almost on a daily basis, makes us aware of how rotten the society that surrounds him is. His crisis is aggravated by the accidental revelation that his mother Penny Fleck possibly had an affair with Thomas Wayne, a wealthy industri- alist and the owner of Wayne Enterprise. But, Fleck is rudely dismissed by the butler of the Wayne household when he tries to befriend Wayne’s son, whom he considers to be his step- brother, and is later humiliated by Wayne himself. Eventually, confronted with rejection and degradation from all corners, Fleck spirals into a murderous spree. Interestingly, once Fleck succumbs to his gory frenzy, he acquires immense popularity in the city of Gotham, already reeling under socio-economic crises, as his assassinations are seen by many as expressions of outrage against the establishment. In fact, towards the end of the film, the Joker not only escapes with the help of a riotous mob, but the same mob celebrates his deranged murderous- ness as something seemingly heroic. What is alarming is that the cinematic realm is not really as fictional and distant from our society as we would like it to be. The film cuts close to the bones precisely because all around us there are umpteen examples of cruelty and meaningless violence. There is also an unabated dearth of compassion and empathy, compounded by systemic impoverishment on the one hand and obscene displays of wealth on the other. This is why much of the resentment that continues to seethe within Arthur Fleck is something that we can relate to and many of us continue to feel in varying degrees. This resentment manifests in acts of mob violence, domestic abuse, addiction, jingoism, and everyday belligerence. Arthur’s resentment also becomes connected to that sense of condescension with which people who are fortunate, privileged, and successful look down upon those who are not. This is precisely why his murders on the subway, partly in self-defence, resonate with the people, and the clown–assassin almost becomes a clown–vigilante. The film makes us aware of the fact that such identification with a killer is an outcome of the deep-seated social discontent plaguing Gotham, which manifests not just in repeated scenes of urban blight, but also in references to the garbage cleaners’ strike, and growing piles of literal and metaphoric filth. Hence also the protests outside Wayne Enterprise and the outrage against a billionaire industrialist who wants to run for mayor because he wants to make things better for the unsuccessful and agitating “clowns.” What remains missing in all of this, however, is any refer- ence to why the people are angry and agitated in the first place. Why are their lives in a shambles? Why must they resort to looting? What is at the root of the anti-rich tirades? This silence, which consti- tutes the cinematic unconscious of the film, is un- surprising given that Hollywood has often shied away from owning up to its obvious faults. It can, however, be argued that the answer has already been provided in Dark Knight Rises , earlier in the franchise. In it, Catwoman (the feline superhero) warns Bruce Wayne (the playboy billionaire who fights crime as Batman) of a coming storm and highlights the absurdity of a situation where many are left with too little, while few continue with too much. This seemingly undeniable moral critique of capitalism is supplemented by a conceptualisation of a political insurrec- tion as simply the work of a criminal mastermind like Bane, who unleashes a reign of murder and mayhem in Gotham while spouting the rhetoric of a popular rebellion. Being accompanied by the criminals and the insane helps nullify the operative force of the incipient critique and leaves room for Batman, the vigilante superhero, to save the day. Here too, the film tries to contain the possibility of a direct critique of capitalism. First, it leaves unspecified the cause of Gotham’s By drawing our attention to the demons within Fleck’s mind, [the film] leaves unsaid the demonic apparatuses of greed and destruction that the forces of capital generate, leading to such widespread discontent