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Joker (2019)
Joker: Societal Decay and Entropy
It appears that Joker is a polarizing film, with those disliking it stating it bears no resemblance to its source material, and those who welcome it viewing it as a commentary on society at large. I believe that Joker's widespread success may be a testament to the current widespread decay, which is becoming more and more evident.
The film portrays Arthur Fleck, beginning as he roams the squalid city in the midst of martial law, as those tasked with collecting garbage are on strike. The state of the city is symbolic of the state in our heads. We see that everyone in the film is solipsistic, working only to the degree that is commensurate with their salary, no more and no less. Instead of banding together as a society to clean the city, they continue to justify their narcissism and ask for others to clean the city (if others won't do their job, why should I?).
Arthur's job is to make people laugh and to entertain. This is symbolic of the clown world we live in, where attention is becoming a commodity. In order to achieve a certain threshold of success, you need to be able to entertain, thus being able to provide this commodity. At work, we entertain in order to get ahead. At home, we give ourselves an IV of narcissistic supply in the form of social media, where we receive the attention.
The sign that Arthur carries with him has a subtext, which implies that society, at large, must be eradicated. The squalid nature of the city, a function of the inhabitants within it, are the source of this darkness. Arthur's attempts at bringing attention to himself represents the pathological narcissism that permeates the world today. "I hope my death has more meaning than my life," implying that he is unable to get the attention he believes he desires while he's alive, so perhaps people will finally notice him when he dies. His fantasies about being applauded and welcomed further reinforce this idea. This narcissism breeds from a lack of attention in childhood, which is unsurprising given Arthur's dysfunctional upbringing. The reason Arthur said he felt more comfortable in a mental asylum is because the environment confers the maternal warmth that he lacks. There, he has no need to associate with anyone, compromise, or come to any agreements, he receives maternal warmth from the social workers, and is given sustenance.
The stairs throughout the film are symbolic of the difficulty to elevate one's social and spiritual status. It is always harder to climb up (strive towards virtue) than it is to come down (succumb to dissolution). Arthur is consistently shown as having a hard time climbing the stairs; yet when he becomes Joker, he climbs down effortlessly, symbolizing the ease of succumbing to temptation-the path of least resistance.
Living with his mother provides Arthur with comfort and safety. The mother figure represents the individual. The need to leave one's mother represents the need to elevate ones biological and emotional needs in favor of the self. In other words, leaving the comforts of home forces one to grow, something that Arthur does not wish to do. With that, the audience sees that taking care of his mother symbolizes the importance that society places on the material, disregarding spiritual growth (moving out). The need to take care of his mother is symbolic of that need to nurture consumerism. When his mother tells Arthur that he should smile more, this reinforces this idea, because those who are able to entertain are able to achieve success, and therefore obtain material prosperity.
Murray Franklin is Arthur's father-figure. Arthur's fantasies have him receiving attention from the audience, and warmth and acceptance from Franklin. This represents the non-existent father presence that many children experience today, as they are products of divorced or dysfunctional families. When Randal gives Arthur a gun so he can defend himself, he calls him "my little boy." This accentuates Arthur's infantile nature, and represents manhood. It's noticeable how Arthur does not go out and purchase a gun (dormant or non-existent masculinity), but receives it from someone else. This represents how men in society are lacking the father role in their lives, instead receiving it from morally questionable outside influence (media). As Arthur receives the gun, a symbol of masculinity, from someone who wasn't his father (didn't teach Arthur how to be a man), he is unable to harness his masculinity for good, and instead uses it for destruction.
Once again, the audience sees Arthur laboriously climb up the stairs. At home, Arthur begins playing with his gun, and suddenly feels an awakened sense of strength in the form of the warrior and lover. He is confidant he can strike a conversation with his neighbor, and even seduce her so that she will love him. It is noticeable how Sophia is single. Arthur feels he will be able to relate to her because he has been caring for his mother, who is also single. After Arthur is fired, he is seen on a train. The train is symbolic of a lack of agency, as it has a predetermined path. This tells us that Arthur's transformation into Joker is not his fault, occurring without his influence. He has not chosen the path of Joker, it has been decided for him. Furthermore, the train is shown underground, symbolizing the dark pit of his soul. This is reinforced by killing the men who taunted him on the train. As Arthur dances in front of the mirror, we see he is no longer Arthur, but is now Joker. Each time Arthur contorts his body is also the transitional point from Arthur to Joker. He feels an awakened masculinity, fantasizing about having sex with his neighbor. After he retrieves his things from work, we see the ease in which he descends down the stairs, symbolizing his chosen path towards moral depravity.
As Arthur finds out about Wayne, he goes to visit him. As he tells him how he really feels, what the audience is seeing is the confession of a soul, the product of contemporary civilization. Wayne represents this society, and instead of comforting Arthur, punches him in the face. This symbolizes society's disregard towards those like Arthur, believing that it is their weakness and ineptitude that made them who they are. They extol the virtues of agency and dismiss the element of luck that is highly correlated with their success. The audience then sees that Wayne, the symbol of Capitalism, and Penny, the symbol of consumerism, are the two forces that breed those like Joker, who exist without an identity and purpose. When Arthur returns home, he goes inside his refrigerator. This symbolizes that Arthur is now dead, and in his wake, is Joker.
Joker takes on his newfound identity of moral corruption, and chaos ensues outside, indicating that a world without a virtuous codex of beliefs, is a world destined to disarray. He is the post non-classical hero, who exists for his subjective self-expression, disregarding rules and causing chaos.
The large acclaim the film received is a testament to the fact that many in society see themselves as Joker, disenfranchised and without a purpose. Joker is a symptom of the disease.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Confronting Irrationality
The film confronts the viewer, existing in a rational world, with the what happens when one meets an irrational force. A force that disenfranchises an individual, as they confront the stronger opponent. The irrational and unexplainable, as it invades a comfortable and familiar environment, revealing a helplessness in the individual. This can be referred to as fate.
The title draws parallels to the Ancient Greek Myth about King Agamemnon in Sophocles' Electra, whose army incurred the wrath of Artemis for killing her sacred deer. Martin, then, is our Artemis. This is further alluded to when Martin asks, "how do you know I'm not God?". This references, of course, not The God, but one of the lesser Gods known in Greek Mythology. In Greek Mytholoy, Gods were seen as the perfect distillation of a set of ideas or principles. If in Christianity Christ is the embodiment of morality and virtue, then in Greek Mythology, Artemis was the God of hunting. Hunting is seen as a confrontation with nature, a form of sustenance, as well as man's subsequent triumph over it. When viewing Martin as a God-like figure, we are able to explain the preternatural events that are shown. As the world of the film exists under the umbrella of Martin's rules (God-like figure), then all of the events shown are consequences of disobeying his rules. Martin, in the context of the film, is the God of surgery.
Steven, existing under the umbrella of this paradigm, and going against this law, has condemned himself to God's wrath (Martin). Steven's sin isn't that of killing Martin's father, which is something that may occur during surgery and is always understood as a possibility, but of going against the codex of surgery. As he was under the influence of alcohol during surgery, Steven broke Martin's law (God of Surgery). He has gone against the objective law of God, and throughout the film justifies his own rules as the accepted norm, "it's acceptable to drink a little before an operation to calm the nerves."
We see that Martin is not seeking vengeance, as evidenced by him stating that he holds no anger towards Steven. Martin is God, and he is enforcing the law of God by punishing Steven for his impropriety. When Steven meets with Martin at the cafe, this is the deciding moment of his fate. This is indicated by Martin stating, "this is the critical moment that needed to come to fruition, and here it is." When Martin explains what Steven must do, Steven realizes what justice means within the confines of his own rules. It is important to note that Martin does not tell Steven that he should repent. This is because Martin is only the law, the prevailing force dictating that for every action must accompany an equal action. His mechanical and emotionless demeanor is further indicative of the notion that Martin is merely the law. He is objective and cerebral.
Fate is typically seen as deterministic. It is accepted as the product of the external, as something unable to be changed. Fate is not seen as the manifestation of a given internal state, which is able to be influenced. We are able to shape how we act or how we think, but we do not see these as arbiters of outcome. During antiquity, philosophers, seeing themselves as under the influence of something greater than them, understood that changing their inner state could inevitably change their fate.
Around the 4th century, as antiquity came to an end, the rise of Christianity replaced Greek Mythology, with the former's understanding of God as Love. This paradigm shift now placed fate as the product of God's will, which the believer saw as a part of His Love. Now love is seen as greater than law, and the belief that God awaits mercy as opposed to sacrifice. Blind fate is seen as the will of God, leading one to His grace.
Despite the West being a product of Christianity, Steven does not adhere to its principles. He does not acknowledge his fault, instead battling his fate internally. Steven, existing within the confines of the temporal, is unwilling and unable to acknowledge that change must come from within. He battles the external by trying to explain Bob's symptoms as physical, dismissing the possibility of psychosomatic disorder, which is an attempt at confronting the external by searching from within (the mind).
In the end, there is no conventional catharsis, which is expected from Greek Mythology, where what occurs is the result of governed laws. The idea of outcome being the product of an internal state is similar to the teachings of C.N. Lazarev, where he writes that change happens on the energetic level before eventually manifesting in the temporal. The frequency and type of thought or action determines the density of this energy and its subsequent composition.
And so Steven conforms to the law of Martin, existing externally, but does not change himself internally. The family leaves the diner spiritually unchanged, still existing within the confines of the corporeal as absolute.
Fight Club (1999)
Breaking Away From the Maternal and Material
Jack's plight throughout the film is the journey of a boy who has grown up without a father. Throughout Fight Club, Jack searches for an authority figure to show him the path towards manhood, what's worth striving for, and how to get there. We hear him repeat, "what's next?", implying that the main character has not yet found what it means to be a man. While Jack may have had a father in the conventional sense, his father was absent, likely also a product of feminine upbringing.
Jack's life is filled with the traditions passed on to him, where the path to drown out who you are and forget about your existential problems lies in the structure of schooling, work, and marriage. This is the goal that Jack has been taught to strive towards, and his journey is a spiritual journey, as he discovers that it is the path to nowhere. Jack, despite being 30, is still seen symbolically as living under the maternal influence. The way he sleeps is symbolic of a boy sucking on his thumb. His surroundings are a symbolic gesture of maternal comfort; his symbolic father is his boss; the firm he works for is the family that feeds him; and his house, which he furnishes with feminine accoutrements, is the womb. Jack is lonely, as he realizes that the material objects which he has been taught to place the most value on, are unable to replace the void of relationships and his own masculine inadequacy.
His discontentment with life manifests in the form of suicidal ideation and insomnia. As a product of society whose ultimate goal is to maximize happiness and minimize pain, Jack seeks a prescription to stop feeling the way he does, hoping to stunt any potential for growth which requires pain. Bob's breasts are further symbolic of Jack's inability to break away from the maternal tether holding him back. The film makes allusions to castration, with the basketballs around Jack during his meeting attendance, the scene where Tyler threatens to castrate the man, as well as Jack's own encounter with the detectives. This indicates to the audience that Jack does not see himself as a man, but as a boy ("I am six years old again," and "I can never get married.").
Upon Tyler's arrival, Jack goes through a ritual, transitioning from a state of boyhood entering manhood. This is symbolized as his apartment blows up, removing him from the comfort of the material and maternal. His plight now is to become a man without a father, which he attempts to due through Tyler, his alternate ego. Jack begins to hate his father, as Tyler tells Jack that he saw his father as a God, but that his God rejected him, and he likely never loved him. He then begins to attribute the pain he feels as being caused by those around him, eventually believing the world is the cause of this pain (terrorist organization).
Marla, also a product of Jack's imagination, is the mother figure, with Tyler serving as the father figure. The relationship between the three presents the audience with a family dynamic, where the child hates one sex and admires the other. Marla (mother) has chosen Tyler (father), and as a result, discards Jack (son). This is why in the second half of the film, Jack turns against Tyler, his father, and ends up killing him.
Jack's path in the film may be seen as one of the many paths boys take in order to discover what it means to be men. As the traditional values of yesterday are dead, boys don't know how to be men. Their fathers, products of this same dissolution, are unable to teach their boys how to be men, as they themselves aren't.
The Graduate (1967)
Cultural Climax and Peak Materialism
Cultural Climax and Peak Materialism
posted 2 days ago by Fandango (303)
The Graduate is an interesting analysis into the end of the American zenith, the final decade before its gradual dissolution. The 50s and 60s are ubiquitously regarded as the civilizational peak of the country, yet this film paints a very different picture. Despite lauded freedom, the film is presented in a claustrophobic, suffocating manner, with the bureaucratic undertones making the audience feel as though Benjamin is not as free as one may think. He is being limited by the success-driven mindset that permeated American culture, carrying the remnants of the Protestant work ethic as he leaves behind the decade of conservatism and enters the period of liberal sensibilities.
Benjamin, being presented as one of the early baby boomers (born likely around 1945), is the first to experience the transition from post-war America (peak materialism), into a more socialist entity (idealism). The contrast here is seen throughout the film where Benjamin's composure, neat appearance, and clean car throughout the course of the film become sullied and dirty. This is the shedding of materialism that was seen in hippie culture. Benjamin and Elaine are the counter-culture. They are programmed by traditional shibboleths, and experience a constant cognitive dissonance when the old world is at an impasse with the new world (e.g., Mrs. Robinson, a symbol of the Silent Generation, and her infidelity). Benjamin's sweat throughout the film reaffirms the idea that he is uncomfortable with the world around him.
The black and white of the families is indicative of the post-war American idealism. They exist within the confines of this structure, while Benjamin is at odds, because that period is over. Despite his entry into this new world of liberal beliefs, the visual aesthetic presented with the vastness of the landscapes serve as a reflection of the emptiness in Benjamin's soul. His options are opening, but they lead to nowhere, much like the old world. This is again reaffirmed in the end, when after Benjamin and Elaine sit down on the bus, their smiles turn to emotionless expressions, as they realize that despite doing what they "felt", they're still vacuous.
The conclusion is simple; as Benjamin and Elaine leave the old world of traditional institutions, built up standards, conformity, and appearance (materialism), and enter the world of feelings, ideals, liberalism (idealism), they're still existing in a spiritually vacuous world. They have no purpose beyond the fulfillment of their base pleasures. Where the Silent Generation found those pleasures in material excess (50s and 60s and its elevation of materialism as the highest goals in life), the Baby-Boomers sought to seek contentment through beliefs and ideals. In the end they were both wrong, because any mode of thinking revolving around personal contentment stiffens spirituality and, as a result, dilutes moral imperatives.
America, here, is presented as spiritually empty, focused only on success and the rat-race as a means of hedonistic supply. Benjamin and Elaine dislike this ideology, and inevitably decide to embrace a more laissez-faire attitude, which is ultimately just as morally bankrupt.
Private Life (2018)
......The Instinct for Self-Destruction; A Look at the Prototypical Atheist Cult
This film, among many coming out today, is an expose on contemporary civilization and its programmed instinct for self-destruction. The main protagonists in the film are the prototypical and modern-day atheist cult. They have no values, no virtues, and no future. Their inability to create a child, a symbol of the future, is more than just the result of biological processes, but a commentary on the modern-day cultural imperatives which are ultimately leading to systematic apoptosis.
Here, scientific materialism as an objective truth, with the faith conferred onto feeling, serves as a fine juxtaposition to the theist, who places their objectivity into the understanding of cultural propagation based around the faith of God, who serves as an attempt at a comprehensive moral codex. In the context of the film, the nihilistic materialist believes in feelings, which manifests itself in scenes where Richard and Rachel argue and curse in public because of what they're feeling at that moment, disregarding whether or not it is culturally appropriate or virtuous.
Ultimately, Richard and Rachel are self-serving narcissists. Their inability to bring life into this world is a testament to their deformed karmic structure and energy, which has devolved to the point of self-destruction. They are genetic dead ends because they stand for nothing and live for nothing but their "endlessly deranging narcissism."
Mad Men (2007)
Don Draper & The Commercial of Capitalism
Capitalism, with its marketing, is able to sell you on an idea. It sells you on the belief that you, as an individual, have value and agency, and that your efforts determine your trajectory and ultimate outcome. It acknowledges the existence of the ego while feeding into the urges of the id. It tells you that your failures are the fault of you as an individual, not the system, and in doing so, attempts to facilitate self-improvement (e.g., self-actualization & self-improvement culture).
Capitalism is the commercial of equal potentiality-the idea that everyone starts out as a "tabula rasa," and that with enough work, any and all outcomes are possible.
While capitalism sells you on the idea that hard work and agency are the sole arbiters of outcomes, Don Draper's success is, in large part, a function of chance and circumstance. It was chance and circumstance that gave him an opportunity to exit the war, and it was the same condition that provided him an opportunity to become a Mad man.
Don Draper is the paradigm of capitalism, and while he is the embodiment of its successes, he is not the product of its commercial.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Opposing Forces of Life: Morality vs. Amorality and Action vs. Inaction
The barren landscapes and use of light depicted throughout the film serve as a stark metaphor for the death of virtue, mirroring the emptiness or waning of the characters' morality. The scenes that happen at night contrasted with those that happen in the day act as a juxtaposition between morality as moribund (e.g., decision to give man in the truck water at night) and amorality as a prevailing force in its stead (e.g., death scenes in the light or with its presence). The light acts as an intensifier for the moral dissolution and decay.
In the beginning we see Anton (amoral force) is arrested by the officer (moral force). The officer, embodying the passive nature of man, turns away from Anton, thinking the foe is conquered, and soon thereafter falls victim to its omnipresent force.
The scenes with death that occur at night are interesting, because they showcase that amorality (light on the men as Anton executes them) is ubiquitous, and will always stand in direct competition with moral behavior (Anton asking the man kindly to hold his flash light at night-note how the flashlight is pointed downward, with no light at all present in scene of etiquette).
Additionally, the coin serves as an interesting token of agency. It acts a competing force against the internal locus of control (calling heads or tails) contrasted with the external locus of control (ultimate outcome of where the coin lands). The coin asks whether the prevalence of morality or amorality is a function of agency (doing good-Llewelyn acting to return and give the man water), or passivity (accepting bad-Llewelyn ignoring the man asking for water).
As the viewer, we are presented with 1980 America. This is an important date, because it marked the beginning of credit deregulation started by Jimmy Carter and later continued by Reagan, enabling ease of access to credit cards. The hidden and perhaps unintended message here is that greed, or the desire for abundance, is what has taken root. The vastness of the landscape is a reflection of insatiable greed, as shown by Llewelyn stealing the money with the infinite luminous backdrop.
When Ed visits Ellis, he says, "I always figured when I got older, God would sort of come into my life somehow. He didn't." This phrase reaffirms and reifies the tendency for passivity (lack of agency) to be in direct competition with action (agency). Action (agency-triumph over amorality) is what elevated the America that Ed speaks about, and inaction (passivity-triumph over morality) is what led to its decline.
The film's denouement reflects Ed's conversation regarding God, because Anton, the symbol for amorality, despite his wounds, has escaped. We see then, that amorality cannot be beaten, it can only be curbed and diminished by means of virtuous behavior.
And so, God never coming to Ed, is displaying morality as the product of the spiritual-the hard-to-reach and requiring action. Anton Chigurh, on the other hand, personifies amorality-the temporal, the here and now, the passive.