JOKER? NO JOKE

    Let me open by saying that Joaquin Phoenix deserves an Oscar, hands down. No question, no doubt, because whether you liked the movie or not, his acting was superb. Riveting, in fact.
     The Joker was not a movie actually to be liked or not as entertainment. It did not entertain in one sense of the word but did indeed hold one's attention and force one to think after the movie,  thoughts, questions, all ran through the mind and held the attention of the audience without doubt.
     So why are critics split on this movie? Simple. It is not your average superhero or super villain movie. Not at all. No super feats, no FX that slams you into your seat with amazement, but rather action and talk that cause one to delve into society's role in creating, ignoring, worsening the role and life of disturbed people in society. Yet even as one flinches at the casual violence The Joker engages in during his final transformation into something other than human and no, not a monster in form, but in substance, as one sees the violence and the potential for violence in the average human, especially under the influence of a mob situation, one wonders how far are we from all this? How far is our society from the one portrayed on the screen? How many lost souls are out there waiting, desperately needing help and not getting it?
     This movie does not excuse The Joker for his crimes. It holds him responsible, yet there  are other responsible parties here. The casual cruelty of people who just need to have someone lower than themselves in the scale and ranking of societal layers, of the so called wealthy and powerful who find out too late that this cruelty does have consequences, all form part and parcel of the story and of the theme, but it does not excuse.
     In fact, this movie lays the blame squarely where it belongs. It belongs to the individual in many cases and to a large perentage. One might be driven almost mad or indeed mad, particularly if one is already mentally ill and has lived a manifestly hard and miserable life, but that is no excuse for murder. So the movie tells us. But I wonder, is there a line that can be crossed in the 'rules of engagement' here? What if society has turned so bad, gone so far, too far, that anyone could and would be driven past the point of no return and break, snap!! Are the Serbs who were placed in concentration camps by their foes, are the Jews who survived the torments of hell and lost their whole lives, the Tutsi who were chased and murdered by the Hutus - do we hold a person driven mad by this, who suffered, who breaks and goes out there and takes revenge - is that person or society guilty or are both? Where and how do we draw the line? Can we even draw such a line?
     What we must never forget though is that society is responsible for these weaker links in the chain of a safe society. When the budget is balanced not on the wide and heavy shoulders of the wealthy, but rather on the neediest, well, we are asking for trouble. When we refuse to take a real look at the problems of society, at the rising anger, the smoldering injustices of the crowds, well, we are asking for it.
     As we watched the scenes of the riots, of the outpouring of people and emotions, at the mob turning into a living, breathing 'thing', well, one could not help but think and compare that mob to the ones that I fear will form and erupt if we do not start, and quickly, to assess where we have gone wrong these past few years, so wrong, so off the balance of societal needs, and finally do something, something real, something true, and not a surface layer of blistering paint and rotten wallboard.
     When the leaders of society do not care and note that we see no political figures here, only other people in the socalled upper layers, like TV personalities and the power they have to influence others, when the weak and downtrodden have a driving need to find someone lower than they are on that ladder of society, well, something for sure will out and that is not a good thing!
     Without going into details that sicken us, as we watch the truth come out day by day, as the hole in the Trumpian dike grows ever larger, as the filthy waters begin to flow through at a faster rate, well, where will we be when it does come to a head? Will the immigrant who married legally, truly married, to a citizen, with a family, is grabbed at the interview and deported or held for deportation,well, what? When a family is ripped apart, when a child dies in incarceration and those two words together in one sentence tell a story in and  of itself - what do we expect when they grow up? When a family goes hungry because yes, maybe there are jobs, but no living wages, when a working person is driven to live on the streets because the wealthy have driven up the cost of homes, have gentrified beyond all reasonable points and leave the places empty for most of the year, well, what then? What then as we see families now living on the street, driven from pillar to post, denigrated for no faultof their own. When we see people hungry, with adults not eating so the kids can, when the federal government becomes cruel and sarcastic, uncaring, what can we expect other than the certain outbreak of resentful violence and a civil war between the two sides of society and yes, one will have to take a side.
     No, The Joker is not your average movie derived from the comics but rather a simply disguised allegory of society today, of the past and of the future unless we do something. It will only get worse if we do not. The actors were awesome, but what about real life? Who is doing the acting there? Who is driving us all into a wall, a corner, treed us, forced us to the point of no return, the breaking point? Who? You tell me. Whatever the answer, the not so funny joke is on us as we all begin to turn into The Joker in one way or another, foster the growth of many Jokers through omission and commision. The ball is in our court, but already on the way out. We need to act now, right now.