Is It Just Me or Is It Getting Crazier Out There?

Is It Just Me or Is It Getting Crazier Out There?

On April 20, 1999, two high school seniors walked into Columbine High School armed with 9mm firearms and 12 gauge shotguns and multiple explosive devices to murder 12 students and a teacher. The two wrote their intentions explicitly on a public blog and in creative writing assignments. They also both wrote of planning an attack privately in journals. “You don’t really listen, do you.”

After the Columbine Shooting where two outcasts shot up the people who made fun of them, there was a mood shift in the country. The conversation focused on bullying and its ill affects on our society. There was a palpable fear that copycat shootings might take place and people wanted to understand the cause of the tragedy.

For a while, everyone wanted to act nice, if only superficially, to everyone. Even the weird loner kids that made you nervous. You know, the ones that gave off a hinky vibe. But time moved on. And like most moods and phases, we forgot about our fears and went back to our natural state. And for some, that meant bullying the freaks.

High school never ends. It’s not just the wimpy kid getting shoved into a locker after exposing the insecurities of the jocks when he gets all the answers correct in Algebra class. This could be a man with a mental illness laughing hysterically on the subway train while three Wall Street brokers harass a woman simply trying to get home… Or was his laughing uncontrollable?

This moment struck me as too deliberate to be waved off as mental illness. Was this Flek’s attempt to white knight and protect this woman from the Chads of Wall Street? Its forgettable due to the shock of seeing such a graphic representation of violence, but before that outburst of laughter these men were harassing this woman and who knows where this was heading.

William Hung earned his fifteen minutes of fame when he performed a laughably bad rendition of the Ricky Martin hit, “She Bangs” on American Idol. In 2004, Simon Cowell was a much more negative person and lambasted Hung, who simply brushed it off by saying he did his best. Despite a lackluster performance, he gained flash in the pan popularity and even received a (meager) record deal.

It is painfully obvious that Hung’s fame arose out of mockery and seeing Murray bring Arthur on stage is reminiscent of this mockery for ratings exchange that is become a common quid pro quo.

*****JOKER SPOILERS AHEAD*****

Making an InCel

The worst Part of Having a Mental Illness is people expect you to behave as if you DON’T.

As someone who doesn’t suffer from mental illness, this line hit me particularly hard. It wasn’t even said aloud but was only visible in Arthur’s journal. It goes to show just how unrelatable mental conditions can be to those who have not experienced them.

Even before the movie hit theatres, soft chinned journalists and weary police departments warned of incels storming the theatre in a copycat performance of the Aurora shooting that took place during The Dark Knight. The tone-deaf fearmongering shows how little these people understand the suffering of individuals driven to the edge.

To think that all it takes to predict a mass shooting is to see which movie sequel comes out next is childish at best. This blatant alarmism harkens back to the comical days of having a color-coded terrorism alert system. As if we were supposed to live differently based on a fucking color scheme. Here I go to work! I better check the weather and the terror alert color system. What a joke!

I take issue with the term “Incel.” The idea that these people are INVOLUNTARY celibate is false, and it allows them to let their current condition become their identity, when in reality it is merely a state of their current problems.

To those who are awkward with women, a little practice talking to people would go a long way. To those who are unattractive to women, some time in the gym would alleviate this issue. To those who are unsuccessful, gaining new skills may help lead to a better job and more money. To those who are lacking confidence, all the above would help. If you would like to here more, check out this post on how to turn your life around.

Todd Phillips did a great job in showing how some men can take a forgettable moment of a woman being nice in a casual setting and let their imaginations run wild. Joaquin Phoenix took a one-off conversation with a pretty girl and began to obsess over the one pretty face who acknowledged his existence.

This is also a good example of why some women are so wary of men being nice to them. There’s a reason why women are so quick to shout, “I have a boyfriend!” It’s a defense mechanism to ward off the advances of unwanted attention of socially awkward men who can’t tell the difference between flirting and casual conversation.

If you’re not used to getting female attention, simple social niceties can be misinterpreted as general interest. Even a simple smile can set this off for so called “incels.” This delusion is showcased to the extreme as Arthur felt he was in a relationship with his neighbor, but she barely even knew his name.

I’m Wondering if Another Women is Really the Answer We Need

Arthur Fleck is raised by a single mother after being abandoned by his father, whomever that may be, and being abused by his stepfather. He clearly has an unhealthy relationship with his mother and spends too much time with her. This overabundance of female influence has left him out of balance. And he doesn’t realize how he is excessively vulnerable with his emotions and thoughts.

With no father figure, his delusional Mother seeks Thomas Wayne to be their savior, claiming he is a ‘good man.” Growing up in a single parent home, Arthur finds two father figures in Thomas Wayne and in Murray Franklin. He pedestalizes both of these men into impossible idols that no man could live up to. He seeks validation from two strangers, yet when he meets them in person, neither live up to Arthur’s delusions.

Wayne shatters the illusion of Arthur having a father who loves him in a literal and metaphorical punch to the face. And as Arther becomes a joke on the Murray show, he sees his prospects as a successful comedian shattered by his other father figure. It is here where Arthur adopts murray’s identification of him as a Joker and fully descends into madness. This portrayal is evident as we see Joker dancing flamboyantly down the very same steps he meekly drudged up earlier as Arthur Flek.

If Joker had a better father figure, he likely would have balanced his mothers emotional support with some tough love. By encouraging more accountability, Arthur might have stopped blaming everyone else for his own problems and bettered his life through actions. This disconnect between expectations and reality is where we often see young men give into anger, dark thoughts and even these acts of violence. Instead of creating opportunity, he waits for the right opportunity to be given to him.

It is here that we find the crux of Joker’s anger and frustration with society where his expectations are subverted by reality. And in the one instance where Arthur puts himself out there at the comedy club, he fails miserably and becomes the laughing stock of Gotham. The thought of his hero, Murray, laughing at him is enough to push him over the edge.

The combination of his inability to bounce back from failure, and his pedestalization of a TV character lead him to see a false reality of his world. His delusions of grandeur further exacerbate this issue when rather than fame and love, he’s met, yet again, with a cold and calloused world that only sees him as a joke. Murray, himself quips “get a load of this joker.” A line that is as forgettable for Murray as it is defining for Arthur.

You Get What You Fucking Deserve!

"What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?"

This life is full of examples of men pushed to the brink and their reactions are all tragic, yet they are always forgotten just as quickly as their violent outbursts.

Pearl Jam sang of Jeremy Delle, the 15-year-old who shot himself in front of his classmates.

Rich Russell, a baggage handler at SeaTac stole a plane, did a barrel roll and riffed on how he’s “just a white guy,” in a society that made him feel as if his life is a joke.

After losing a battle with the zoning commission and facing adversity from a corrupt city, Marvin Heemeyer welded steel plates around a Komatsu D355A bulldozer to destroy 13 buildings (and zero people) causing $7 million worth of damage in the infamous “Killdozer.” An Apache helicopter was nearly authorized to destroy the Killdozer, for it was so formidable. Yet it ended when the vehicle got stuck, and what followed was a solitary gunshot from inside the cabin.

In 2014, an armed couple murdered two cops and an intervening citizen in Las Vegas. The Indiana couple would shout loudly that this was “The start of a revolution. The shooter dressed up as the Joker in YouTube videos where he would rave about conspiracy theories and anti-government rhetoric.

This is not solely a male issue either. In 1974, Christine Chubbuck, a newscaster in Florida shot herself on live TV. Her mother spoke of her being terribly depressed and having “No close friends, no romantic attachments or prospects of any… she couldn’t register with people… she felt if you’ve tried as hard as you can, you’ve prepared yourself, you work hard, you reach your hand out to people and nobody takes it, then there’s something wrong with your drumbeat.”

What do all these people have in common? They’re men who were pushed around to the point of giving up all hope and falling victim to nihilism.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

-        Joker, The Killing Joke

You Don’t Listen Do You?

Most people want, more than anything else, to feel that they belong. To feel a sense of community and closeness to other people. We are a tribal species and if you can’t find people to relate to, you may find yourself in a hell of loneliness and ostracism. This is a life that no one deserves.

Yet today, even those who aren’t incels, aren’t socially awkward, and aren’t ostracized can feel a sense of loneliness. Not because people won’t spend time with them, but because few people actually listen. It’s been reiterated in numerous movies. Most memorably in Fight Club when Marla Singer and the Narrator explain how when you’re dying, people really listen, instead of simply waiting for their turn to talk.

Most of us are so distracted by constant notifications, so inundated by the weight of our own lives that we seldom really listen. Even if we hear the words, do we hear what’s being said? So often after a suicide or a mass murderer loses it, you’ll hear people say there were signs or red flags. But either people don’t listen, or they don’t think it’s their place to get involved. The bystander effect hangs heavy here.

And even when we do hear people’s cries for help, it feels awkward. It makes us uncomfortable. We don’t really want to talk about something of meaning, of substance. It’s too hard. It’s too awkward. It’s a heavy subject. So, we default back to sports, pop politics and funny memes we saw online. In a world with so much talking, so little is being said. This is a world that systematically alienates people who seek for more than mindless drivel about pop culture and sports scores.

We need better treatment of the mentally ill, people will cry out. This has been going on for years with little to no results. Maybe the problem with society is that we spend so much time treating illness, that we forget to look at the root cause.

Is the problem the treatment of the mentally ill? Sure, but what is it that makes people go unhinged? It sure is easy to see a complicated problem like the SeaTac hijacking and claim that the guy was “just mentally unhinged,” but that conclusion never sits well with me. Rich Russell seamed like a man that was frustrated with the direction his life was going, not a man who lost touch with reality. This was a man that felt as if no one noticed him. This was a man that felt as if he didn’t make a difference in the world. A familiar story. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

When men feel that no one notices them and that they aren’t making a difference in the world, they feel lost, alienated and unimportant. Those who feel lost, alienated and unimportant feel that their life is expendable.

Is the Joker dangerous?

Unlike most pieces of commercial bullshit that gets hawked at theatres with a number at the end of the title, Joker is art. And art is dangerous. But life without art, is a life without soul. Dangerous? Maybe, but more than that, Joker is significant. It leaves a cultural impact. It makes us uncomfortable. In a world that seeks to tiptoe around any triggering problems, its refreshing to see something of substance that makes people feel, that makes people think, that makes people uncomfortable.

Modern life is unnatural to a species that spent thousands of years running outdoors. Our food is poisoned with sugar. We spend more time indoors, depriving us of vitamin D affecting our moods. We are a species born to run and we build a soft and sedentary lifestyle.

In a world that peddles fear through a 24-hour news cycle and with cries of climate change wrecking our future, is it any wonder that anxiety is so rampant? To be as calm as hindu cows is only possible with a plethora of distractions or mind-numbing drugs or alcohol. And both are wildly prevalent in modern life. I fell victim to this negativity and nihilism for a couple years myself. Ultimately, I gave up on worrying about the future because I realized I was wasting the present.

Having kids of my own has been a great perspective changer. Before them I was becoming jaded and nihilistic. But the goofiness and excitement in young people is refreshing. Spending time volunteering with kids not only makes me feel like my life has meaning, but also makes me happy. Couple this with eating a better diet and finding time to exercise, outdoors when possible, has given me a new lease on life.

If you’re unhappy with your life that’s ok, but you don’t have to be unhappy with your life forever. Make these changes. Start with your diet and watch your energy and mood change dramatically. Spend more time in the sun. Be active and challenge yourself. You can make yourself better. You can make your life better. You can make your life meaningful.