Joker Invites Us to Step Outside Our System More Viscerally than Matrix

The Message Heard in The Matrix Becomes More Urgent and Gritty in The Film Joker.

JOKER (2019) left, The Matrix (1999)

It is implied that growing up we want to be Batman but then we have a false epiphany when we convince ourselves that the Joker was right once we reach adulthood.

That insight is only right if we don’t finish growing up, and don’t become whole. Batman’s viewpoint, while one based on justice is also a false dichotomy, because it relies on physical violence and fear to mete out justice, and keeps Batman inside the same system as those to whom he serves that justice. Accepting either viewpoint as true keeps us all trapped inside the psychological and emotional bonds of our current violent culture.

We Can Relate to Arthur

While we can easily relate to Arthur, an isolated and lonely man in a big city who becomes the criminal mastermind we know as The Joker, the system looks upon him as a loser because of his sensitivity, and because of the weight of the abuse he has suffered in his life — as if he has somehow failed to shed miraculously — the memory of that abuse — as if it is easy, automatic, or expected.

But neither the perspective of Arthur as The Joker or of the orphaned Bruce Wayne as Batman who is needed to vanquish The Joker is real. They are products of a narrative, they are 2D caricatures in a 4D-plus world. They are both an illusion — roles on a stage inside a larger system of performance that perpetuates violence, slavery, and then more violence in cyclical fashion. It’s a Lord of the Flies-style system that has begun to collapse around us as we become aware of its breadth and structure.

We only wish to be Batman, or Superman, or Wonder Woman — or any Superhero for that matter — because we have built a violently androcentric culture that pimps out to us a Batman mystique, a Superhero formula — to men, women, and non-binary members of our culture alike. Though admittedly, if you are nonbinary there are not many superheroes being provided that are significantly relatable.

You Must Become a Superhero — But Whose Version of a Superhero?