Monthly Archives: October 2020

Arthur Fleck’s Acting on Wishful Impulse Creates the Joker

When “Joker” was released in 2019, it was a success and crave for psychology nerds, but not so much for actual DC fans. This annotation though, will dive into the psychology side of things from a Psycho-analytical lens. 

The image to the left is from the climax of the movie, when Arthur murders talk show host “Murray” on live television. In the build-up to this moment, Murray uses Arthur’s attempt at stand-up comedy as a punchline on his show. However, Murray also invites Arthur unto the show, which Arthur agrees to. While on the show, Arthur goes off track and confesses to a crime and goes on one of those villain speeches that makes the audience go “he has a point though.”

Though there were various indications throughout the film that Arthur was mentally unstable, he calls it out himself when he confesses to murdering two businessmen, though he blames being crazy on his environment. Murray decides to challenge Arthur’s ideas, which eventually leads to his murder. Here, Freudian concepts can be explored. Freud argues that when an individual does not act on their wishful impulses, those urges continue to press the individual until fulfilled. 

Perhaps Arthur’s wishful impulse is to inflict harm, as was done to him throughout the movie.  Murray made himself a target for this by publicly humiliating Arthur. It’s important to consider the deep betrayal Arthur felt since it was his idol that betrayed him. 

Upon killing Murray, Arthur, disturbingly enough, appears liberated from his grievances, as he laughs off his actions, and seems to no longer be distraught by his condition  In one of the movie’s ending scenes, Arthur goes through some sort of rebirth, he recognizes the rebellions taking place because of his actions, and cements his new persona as the Joker by performing his symbolic dance, drawing a crimson smile on his face, and flaunting at the protestors.

Referring back to the idea of a wishful impulse, it does make sense for Arthur to have been battling some form of destructive urge. The film starts off with Arthur’s lousy boss. As the movie progresses, we come to find out that Arthur was sexually assaulted by his adopted mother’s boyfriend. His mother also tells him his father is Thomas Wayne, who abandoned them, poor and helpless, which was a lie. While it’s damaging enough to grow up with the perception that your father had left you, it’s even worse to find out that the man who had actually left you was not who you were told it was. These factors cause him to entertain suicide at least twice; once when he shuts himself in his fridge, and another when he cocks a gun at his throat in the dressing room at Murray’s. However, when Murray plays Arthur’s comedy skit on his show, Arthur’s destructive impulse becomes targeted at Murray. Though, his suicidal tendency may also have acted as a resistance up to a certain point, which would make sense of his dressing room act. However, Murray’s challenging demeanor triggered Arthur into acting on that destructive impulse and kill Murray. In alignment with Freud’s ideas, Arthur’s self-destructive tendency and his pain fades after acting on his wishful impulse, which the end of the movie so symbolically depicts.

 

 

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