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The Joker: A Broken Mirror

Writer's picture: Helen MooresHelen Moores

Updated: Jan 16



 

The 2019 film Joker, directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, is more than a gritty character study or a mere origin story for one of Gotham’s most notorious villains.


It’s a profound, deeply unsettling exploration of pain, alienation, and the consequences of a world that refuses to see its most vulnerable.


 

Thanks to my brother, I had been raised on Batman lore, and though Batman wasn’t directly part of this film, I had long held a fascination with the Joker.


He was always my favorite villain, not because of his chaos but because of the humanity in his pain - the haunting contrast of the self-inflicted smile with those sad, mad eyes.


To me, he has always felt less like a caricature of evil and more like a tragic embodiment of the human condition, a broken mirror reflecting the cost of being unseen.


 

Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Arthur Fleck, the man who becomes the Joker, is phenomenal and haunting.


Arthur’s descent into madness doesn’t feel like madness at all but rather an explosion of raw, primal emotions - rage, grief, loneliness, rejection - all long suppressed and now refusing to remain small or silent.


His laughter a defense mechanism - an uncontrollable outburst masking unbearable sorrow.


This is not a character seeking chaos for its own sake but a man pushed to the brink by relentless cruelty and neglect.


The effects of experiencing a repeated lack of humanity from others, that would inevitably implode.


 

What makes Joker so profound is how uncomfortably relatable it feels.


Arthur’s pain isn’t alien; it’s all too familiar.


The loneliness, the constant feeling of being out of sync with the world, the desperate longing for connection, the projections and refusal to really see Arthur, just as he was: these are universal wounds, even if most of us don’t express them through violence.


His suffering is amplified by a society that mocks vulnerability and punishes difference.


 

There’s a primal honesty in Arthur’s refusal to stay silent, a refusal to keep his pain neatly tucked away for the comfort of others.


Of course, his choices become destructive, even horrifying - but the emotional truth underneath them resonates.


How often do we, as a culture, demand that people suppress their pain, mask their struggles, and 'keep it together'?


Arthur’s breaking point feels like a rupture of everything polite society works so hard to contain.


 

As Arthur fully transforms into the Joker, there’s a chilling liberation in his madness - he is no longer hiding, no longer begging for approval or recognition.


The violence is tragic and unjustifiable, yet it feels symbolic of the need to be seen - a final, explosive rejection of being dismissed - where, only in death, do people finally not look away.


And, as he's rescued and revered by the crowds, who pull him from the back of a burning police car...


he is finally seen and loved, just as he is.


The fact that he is revered for what he represents is both irrelevant and totally relevant: it was a sense of belonging and understanding that Arthur so despertaely longed for.


He found this.


He morphed into his own symbolic representation.


It became him.


 

It holds up a mirror to the parts of ourselves we often try to deny: the pain, the anger, the yearning to be understood and seen.


And, the experience of being Othered.


But it also makes us question our role in that dysfunctional system of doing the Othering.


How we live alongside and respect difference.


How we make value judgements about things and people that we don't understand.


 

The Joker asks us uncomfortable questions about empathy and accountability.


About how easily we dehumanise those who struggle.


It reminds us, in its dark and poetic way, that what we call 'madness' is often just unexpressed pain demanding to be witnessed.


Proof that sometimes the most unsettling stories are the ones we need to hear the most.

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