Villain Therapy: JOKER

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

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[@probablyalive.2665]

Amazing episode! I do hope you base an episode of the "Villain Therapy" series on the 2014 movie "Gone Girl". The character of Amy Dunne, as well as the ultimate goal of the movie was highly debated, mostly because we start rooting for her character, and even if we don't, we do not feel particular sympathy towards her victim(s) either. It's a great movie, and it'd be awesome to watch your take on it.

[@teresaellis7062]

I would love to see your take on Newt Scamander's version of healthy masculinity in Fantastic Beasts. I watched your video on Aragorn and I think Newt is a quieter version of healthy masculinity.

[@jacqslabz]

@@teresaellis7062 Any sort of video about Newt! Sry, love the character because I relate to him so much. I'm the social awkward person who will greet your dog instead of you because I'm more comfortable with animals than people.

[@teresaellis7062]

@@jacqslabz Oh my goodness! I am the same! I am much more likely to interact with someone's dog than the person holding the leash. I am trying to get better at it, but it takes time and effort. My son, who is a total extrovert has helped with that. When he was two he would go up to complete strangers and hug them around their knees. I would have to go up to the person and explain that he really just loved hugging people. It took me a while to help him understand about personal boundaries. At 18, he doesn't hug complete strangers any more, but he loves to chat with EVERYONE.

[@mesia2453]

can you do an episode on "you were never really here"??

[@sarahsmith6168]

Alan, I love how you said “it didn’t glorify it, it exposed it.” This is the essence of the film.

[@mjssankeerthana1255]

oh my god, yes i kept on seeing reviews saying that they were trying to justify the violence, no they were showing the reality.

[@luciasoosova2182]

I kept switching from triumphant to sad/horrified. On the one hand I deeply empathised with Arthur and thought that I´d probably do similar things, if something really horrible happened (ADHD paired with depression and anxiety does that to ya). On the other hand I just felt sad for him and for those not as fortunate as me. One thing might change the course of things.

[@thomaskositzki9424]

Yeah, they who wrote about glorification really need to change their job (maybe housekeeping) as they are clearly incapable of reading a story.

[@Lovarez]

The movie don't do that, but people do glorify joker, the villain, the thing that the mentally ill man has become. And that's disturbing. Joker isn't cool. He's not an icon for the mentally ill. He's a violent criminal.

[@skylarsims6718]

I never once felt any glorification within the violent scenes of the film. In fact as the film became more and more violent I felt horror and sadness at all the destruction and lives lost.

[@sofie3221]

I love how you are clearly showing the difference between mental illness and violence, it’s something that needs to be destigmatized!

[@trinaq]

Precisely, only between 3% to 5% of violent acts are committed by people with mental health issues.

[@Victoria-_]

Exactly!

[@Xehanort10]

@@trinaq A film that acknowledges that is weirdly enough the 2018 Halloween film where all the other Smith's Grove patients are harmless and the sheriff mentions later they found them in various places like at a library checking emails and chasing butterflies on the road. It's only Michael Myers who's dangerous and that's because he's a perfectly sane but evil man the doctors just think is insane.

[@Xehanort10]

@Hi My Name Is Some are some aren't. It depends.

[@heartdragon2386]

@Hi My Name Is most murderers are not. They kill for personal gain, or some kind of gratification. There is no mental illness, just a lack of empathy or moral compass.

[@Klaital1]

The stairs in the movie are clear metaphor to his sanity. Early on in the movie you see him slowly and with difficulties climbing up the stairs to sanity, and then later on happily dancing down the stairs to madness. Showing how it's so much easier to just let go.

[@chinmayeekulkarni2679]

omg i didn't realise

[@Commenter339]

Wow, good catch! I didn't think of that at all, but you're right!

[@alexkim3794]

The stairs also is symbolic of poverty, aka Bronx

[@helenl3193]

I prefer to think of it as chaos/evil rather than madness, because most people who are 'mad' are not necessarily evil or violent. He has the same mental health problems throughout the film, but he gives up trying to cope and be a part of the city/society's norms and embraces his darkest impulses instead. He chooses that path, and revels in the chaos and destruction.

[@sketchs_art_corner]

That is so so Smart and I love it. Bro these film makers are so good

[@earlgrey2130]

The joker really nailed how it feels to live with mental illness.. there is this sentence in his notebook:"The worst thing about living with a mental illness is that others expect you to act like you don't" THAT hits sooo hard..

[@toolatetothestory]

It's so true. Not just any pretentious quote but actually truth.

[@MrSierra116]

that is not a mental illness, that's a medical condition, he doesnt laugh because he want to

[@NSGrendel]

@@MrSierra116 His laugh is hardly his only issue. He has fictional friends he believes in to survive. He cannot keep his emotions down far enough. Eventually he snaps and kills. He's pretty good example of someone with advanced mental health issues. My psychiatric appointment is next week - I'm not talking from the perspective of a bystander here.

[@luisaschroder470]

As a musician I love the fact that the score was made before the filming, and the film was built on the music.

[@It_is_Okay_to_be_Sad]

Wow!

[@WRamos1775]

Same thing with Interstellar, I believe

[@armstrong.r]

@@WRamos1775 Yup

[@luisaschroder470]

@@WRamos1775 Both unbelievably good soundtracks!

[@shannoncurry2037]

It works beautifully with the character of the Joker.

[@phantomthedragoness]

Joker is the film embodiment of the quote "art is to comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable."

[@klaudinegarcia8932]

Holy shit! You're right! 😲

[@squamish4244]

That's a great quote.

[@voldemortthenoselessfreak2126]

A quote by Cesar A Cruz (not Bansky)

[@thephoenix2038]

I must say, ever since i saw it on the theater, i felt comforted

[@noodlelynoodle2083]

Gotta say, it was really hard to watch; very well done. As an artist, a piece of art to me is measured by the level of emotion it can make you feel. Whether that's awe at beauty, sadness, anger, or even feeling greatly disturbed. Wonderful movie.

[@mindfulsexualityflorida5037]

I am a social worker who has worked in community mental health as a case manager as well as a therapist, both inpatient and outpatient, for low income communities relying predominantly on Medicaid and sliding fee scale services. The scene where the social worker says, "They don't give a (expletive) about people like you, Arthur" hit so hard because I have crossed paths with so many populations that are fighting to scrape by and all they want is the medication that barely helps them feel stable. I ended up getting a tattoo of Phoenix's Joker on my forearm and it opens so many conversations about this feeling of abandonment and discrimination. Now I also just love the Joker in general so the fact that they used Arthur Fleck to have this conversation about mental health was genius and I may be one of the few who thinks it doesn't take away from the overall Joker character at all. We can be fairly certain at the end of this movie that this story is one of MANY of Joker's origin stories, by his own admission. Then again, I think social workers have a dark sense of humor that helps them appreciate movies like this. Or maybe its just me.

[@erikkennedy8725]

Thank you so much for everything you do.

[@aenjgeal]

I heard someone criticizing this film because of the exact scene you mentioned, and they said something along the lines of "It broke my suspension of disbelief for him to just have such bad luck and for there to be no net for him" I wish that person were right

[@mindfulsexualityflorida5037]

@@aenjgeal I also wish that person were right because that it is the unfortunate reality. I love what I do but in community mental health, if a social worker and/or therapist are not careful, the burnout is 100% real. Caregiver fatigue, secondary trauma, and lack of support/funding are all part of this reality.

[@kiera2867]

I don’t know you or who you are, but I love you and appreciate you.

[@Alicia.Marie.13]

I dont think so. I think you guys see and hear what other refuse to see let alone open their ears and heart too. People are suffering. Mental health issues are on the rise and help is unaffordable. "Take this medication and shut up" is basically how I have been treated and counseling is so far out of my budget it hurts.

[@bartholomewthundercatiii3484]

One of my favorite visual metaphors is how he slowly struggles to climb _up_ the stairs every day, but going down is effortless, just as how much easier it was for him to give in to his violent urges instead of trying to be better.

[@Leispada]

Good catch

[@수잔08]

wow! This is such a clever comment. Thanks. Your comment just helped me understand the movie much more😀

[@ne-o-tvbv666]

He *became* better when he started the killing

[@violathepoodle-roo7492]

The fact they are so gentle with mental illness really does make me feel so welcomed. If that's the right way to put it. But this is cinema therapy it is already very welcoming but as someone who deals with adhd it really makes me feel ok about having it rather than being something wrong or dangerous.

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

We're all just trying to get along, ya know?

[@DecemberSfy]

I highly agree. Though I have ADD (among other things) I found this video very relatable and very relieving.

[@AgentK200]

I have ADHD too. And we’re definitely not broken or dangerous. Just keep trying to figure out what works for you in life.

[@erikkennedy8725]

I deal with ADHD as well. I’ve learned to accept that it’s part of who I am, and embraced the unique aspects it brings to me- a kind of sideways creativity that lets me leap to connecting two different concepts, being able to notice the details others don’t. Even being able to leap into roles and write or act characters- I’ve got a degree in theatre and English. We all learn our coping mechanisms. I’ve got my to-do lists, make myself tackle big projects like cleaning up a room by doing a bit of it every day, and, yeah, my routines so I don’t forget stuff. Almost OCD at times, which can annoy people around me, but I’m me. Was on Ritalin as a kid- it stifled my creativity. I did my best creative work when I didn’t take it. On Dextroamphetamine now, which smooths out the mood swings without impacting my creativity. Anyway, kind of forgot my point 😅😂 but just wanted you to know you’re not alone.

[@anyathepanther7977]

Was ADHD the reading disorder? Or the one where one isn't able to pay attention for long? (Becouse none of the above scream "dangerous" to me)

[@savannahzoellin2983]

This movie makes me think of the saying “ it takes a village to raise a child” but the other half of it that people don’t remember is “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”

[@notmemolina149]

This is so well phrased for this film

[@locustproachin6052]

This fits too well for this film

[@miinxxx]

Im just now finding out that there’s more to this quote.

[@BroJo676]

I think this other half of the quote accurately depicts Killmonger's feelings for Wakanda, a nation of his forefathers who's never embraced him.

[@yahyeet2518]

i was coming onto the comments to put that myself

[@GotionHardestLevelGaming]

I love the analogy you have about that desperate need for a male connection. That explains his obsession with Batman so well. It really shines on how well this movie was done

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

Like he says in The Dark Knight: "You complete me."

[@GearShotgun]

This just reminds me of that Batman TAS episode where Bats seems to have died. Joker was literally just standing around in the middle of a jewelry store waiting for him to show up and foil the robbery. He got real sad when he finally realized he wasn’t coming and didn’t even take anything. It was about seeing his best buddy instead of the money

[@amandamoore7512]

The fact that Joaquin himself has experienced so much trauma and hurt in his life helps you know WHY his performance is so perfect

[@ChristopherJames1993]

Losing his brother and the trauma of that will have helped cause that causes dissociative personality disorder.

[@idontknow-48]

​@@ChristopherJames1993Well it depends if he did experienced that. The trauma for sure but it's hard to tell if he developed a dissociative personality disorder unless he said it himself that it happened. Still just understanding the trauma part is definetely enough to portray a good mentally ill character like Joker because he understand what trauma feels like.

[@moonmannd7501]

Every time I see him talk about stepping over someone on the street in the interview I just see the word River written all over his face harder than if someone had literally sharpie'd it on his forehead

[@Gato_Surfer]

@@ChristopherJames1993 Is not a dissociative personality disorder tho, is not even the right term nor the right symptoms.

[@hannahbananabobana]

“A person not embraced by their tribe will burn it down to feel its warmth.” This quote came into my mind when Mr. Decker talked about Arthur not having a tribe.

[@oops.its.raquan4599]

Ah the full saying is something like, "It takes a village to raise a child, a child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth"

[@ambriaashley3383]

@@oops.its.raquan4599 both are African proverbs, yes 😊

[@dezh6345]

@@ambriaashley3383 The proverbs are so wise. They are so short, but they cut to the core of human nature.

[@AmyBlackRoseCena]

Just like Killmonger from Black Panther

[@helloworld2784]

Does anyone know who really said that or it's too old?

[@roselover411]

"I actually never recommend that in therapy, that you off your parents" and Alan's response "I learned something new!" had me cackling with laughter

[@aiiiia9971]

S A M E

[@milkntomatoes9418]

Yeah, I rarely actually laugh audibly watching videos on youtube but that part got me

[@TheGoldenDunsparce]

If I'm not mistaken, he ended up cutting his parents off, didn't he?

[@Blessed_V0id]

No matter how much damage they caused, if you think they deserve to suffer, don't give them mercy, and an escape from pain. Cunningly give them truth. Slowly. Let it devour like rot consumes

[@rubyriches]

​@@Blessed_V0id Unfortunately that precludes them having empathy. Else I agree entirely.

[@felixhenson9926]

I have not seen Joker but I did just noticed that one guy who's nice to him is a character played by an actor with dwarfism who isn't the butt of a joke and isn't a fantasy creature, is just a regular character. Can we just appreciate how rare that is? (I haven't seen the film, granted, so i can't say if his height does go on to be the butt of a joke)

[@NatTalks01]

He kind of his the butt of the joke a couple of times but just to show that the people who worked with Arthur are kind of jerks. But the movie actually kinda mocks his height in the scene where Joker kills the other man in front of him, and once he allows him to leave he is too short to open the lock himself so he has to ask Arthur for help even tho he's terrified 😳

[@TheHopperUK]

@@NatTalks01 I don't think you're supposed to find that funny, though. It makes him more vulnerable and it makes the scene more frightening. Not funny.

[@angelicamorales3842]

@@TheHopperUK I agree.

[@akasakikawasaki1890]

@@TheHopperUK I get that, but the way you feel disturbed in that scene and then the jumping to reach the door, kinda unavoidable to laugh, I can recognize it's completely messed up and I wouldn't normally laugh at that, but the film does present it as disturbing comedy

[@respectthejibooty9542]

@@TheHopperUK It was pretty funny though

[@FizzleIsGaming]

its such a shame that people have so many stigmas against people with mental illness. As someone who went in for severe depression to some help places, meeting people with bipolar and schizo really made me realize how messed up that stigma is. So many of them were awesome and wonderful people who were so attentive to others and really wanted to connect with people. They were the most genuine people i’ve met. I didnt live in the area most of them were from, so after a week and after being released, I haven’t seen them or talked to them since, but I can genuinely say I miss them so much. So much talent, so many funny and great personalities, so many faces I’ll never forget who probably helped me through that time of my life more than the therapists ever could.

[@Kim-zi7tt]

some of the most famous painting artists had these mental health illnesses & are now in our history books & art museums, & societal culture never talks about the good sides of mental health because society is programmed into the negative connotations of the behavioral stigmas & stereotypes

[@PandaMonium92827]

Part of it is every criminal trying to use it as a defense in court despite the fact that it is so cut and dry. Legal insanity is you don't know what you're doing is wrong....if you can make excuses, that shows how you in fact DO know it's wrong and you just fucked yourself. But it does show leeway in terms of short sentences where they can just re offend. These people take advantage of a broken system and we all pay for it

[@Sentanette]

agreed

[@Valineris_The_Phoenix]

That's so nice to hear. An actually positive thing to take out of those effd up situations, is people connecting.

[@starlette7820]

The stigma is there because of the ones who are not so nice and whose symptoms are super severe. One of my aunts was very VERY bipolar she was diagnosed and had medication, but occasionally she would go off her meds because she claimed they made her feel numb, then she would literally just leave without saying a thing to either of her children and leave them completely alone in the midst of one of her episodes, and no one would be able to contact her. She would eventually come back and just act like nothing happened at first, and get angry if confronted with her disappearance. Then she also would be physically violent with her children seemingly out of nowhere for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. Like come into their room in the middle of the night while they were dead asleep and just start wailing on them in a rage when they hadnt done anything wrong. It is very important to realize that not all mentally ill people are like this, but the ones that scare people, and fear can create associations in a persons mind that are meant for self preservation. Having a negative experience that traumatizes you with someone who has the disorder that makes you afraid of anyone else who has it, even if they arent the same. Or people hearing about these particular people and feeling like they need to protect and defend against them without knowing that it isnt as common as they believe that people with those disorders are dangerous or scary. It's a whole mess honestly.

[@kenaa3aurom]

As someone with mental illness, eventhough I live by kindness and avoid all harm, I'm glad it makes people uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to be us. It's uncomfortable to have these issues but also how ostracized it makes us, how people will harm us in various ways, how the system completely lets us down again and again. It's the joker so of course he had to end in violence but in reality, for most of us... It ends with suicide. I'm glad people got to experience that feeling and now may be a little more empathic

[@-Manda_SKnight_BeastMoD]

Right up there with you on most points. This movie did not glorify violence, it did not make (hopefully) anyone feel sad for those of us who have mental illness(es), it was deeply disturbing as to how quickly one can fall down the rabbit hole when treatment is not available - and so many other things. I remember by the end of the movie my mouth was hanging open. I was absolutely horrified. I am not sure if that word is strong enough. Terrified? Not sure. When movies are plausible like this, it makes them much scarier to me. And when I see aspects of MYSELF in them (the mania, the depression, the fear of running out of medication, the hopelessness & feeling as though no one 'gets' you, the constant paranoia, irrational thinking, over reacting...I actually wanted to list every one of them that I felt so that way if anyone reads this (as late as this comment is to the video), mayhap they can find a piece of themselves in there. Mayhap they can relate to us, Morgan - and SO many others - and respond. Your comment is so great! I wasn't going to say anything bc I am so late. I actually paused this 5 mins and 29 secs into it bc I saw your words. I am a happy hippie. My 'saying' since 2005 has been "Hate makes you ugly, and nobody likes ugly people". Physical looks fade, plus one can't read a book by its cover. Nor can they simply flip through the Cliff Notes. If others who are not afflicted would join the millions of others who have given the time, than maybe those that slip through the cracks will be caught by supportive and caring arms. I'm getting carried away bc I am so passionate about Mental Health Awareness. Your post is beautiful, and you sure do seem very beautiful yourself💜

[@Someguywithalotoftism]

AAAAAAAMEN!

[@batmanbeatingupfurbies4865]

I'm glad I don't have to be ashamed or afraid to say that I related to Arthur a lot. I kinda feel like the people I've told in my life wont take that seriously. im optimistic tho. eh

[@Someguywithalotoftism]

@@batmanbeatingupfurbies4865 don't let people control your life. They say some insane shit to exercise some form of control. But life ain't about control. Don't let them make it about that for you

[@kittikats]

It's also a reflection on society and how it values people and mental health treatment. Like everyone is shocked, SHOCKED, that 3 rich, white guys were killed (never mind they were about to assault a woman and were assaulting a man). But the fact poor people are dying every day? Wgaf. If Arthur had died on the train by those guys? Not even on the news, maybe a tiny newspaper article mention. The mental health funding? Not important. Only poor people use it and they can't contribute to our political fund raisers. It all shows a picture of how important these services are, how many people need it and how quickly a mental illness can spiral

[@peachdoesart7175]

Arthur needing a male figure who never relents and is unconditionally there reminds me of his dynamic with Batman

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

And in most stories Batman created him in a way.

[@elfsieben1450]

@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive Bad father son relationship.

[@Jim87_36]

Opposite sides of the same coin so when joker says “we’re the same you and I..” he’s not wrong…and Batman knows it.

[@vond5829]

So the Joker's obsession with Batman may stems from his daddy issues. I've never thought if it that way

[@Jim87_36]

@@vond5829 not so much that as seeing a kindred spirit and see how much it takes to break Bruce into being like him so he’s not alone anymore.

[@hiddenechoes]

When I rewatched this film with my boyfriend, during the scene where the mom is questioned about Arthur's abuse my boyfriend turned to me wide eyed and said, "Why are they blaming her? She is super banged up, clearly she has been beaten badly and likely has been disociating. They're blaming her for allowing him and herself to be beaten up and harmed and they aren't treating her at all like a victim in a rough place." I was shocked because I typically don't have enough compassion for people responsible for children who don't protect them, but listening to him for awhile changed how I viewed parts of the film and how I perceive older siblings and parents in abusive households. Edit: Clarifying note as some mentioned that the film blames her because Arthur blames her, when my bf questioned why "they're" blaming her he referred to the people questioning her when she's battered. And the newspaper clipping about her allowing it.

[@sierralovat5498]

You have a point. Were quick to blame her because " you are supposed to protect your child" but she's the victem too, she was beaten down too. And yeah sure, she should have done something but the way abusers manipulate the situation it makes victems unable to process the situation or even think properly to the point where they are truly helpless. The fault and the monster is the boyfriend and yet, she gets the blame. We blame the victem. And that really sucks.

[@_gremlinboy]

It's easy to wish that victims of abuse were able to shield their children/siblings from it, but it's a lot harder to do. Hell, growing up I know that my older brother threw me under the bus all the time, but I don't hold it against him. He knew I wouldn't get hit as hard and he was just trying to get through. (And my dad was married to my mom for nine years, knew she was abusive, but he was justifying it to himself. And when he had a chance to send her to prison he chose not to. Abuse does wild things to a person.)

[@sarahhughes1302]

My father was extremely abusive when he was home- he was a long distance truck driver, so luckily that was a few days every couple of weeks. My mother was usually a kind, compassionate woman- but a switch flipped in her when she knew he'd be home. Everything had to be perfect, and if it wasn't she would flip. Looking back, I understand that it was her fear and stress that caused it- she was terrified he'd kill her if she did something 'wrong', and even more terrified of what could happen if she took us and left. I have two siblings, both close to a decade younger than I am, and by the time I was twelve I was just trying to live long enough to give them a fighting chance to get out of there. It's been a long, long road to recovery for all of us. And I'm afraid that some parts of me will always be broken, that I'll never be able to love someone or get married or have a family because all of that requires a level of vulnerability and trust that I don't think I'll ever be capable of. But I can't let any of it make me bitter- we live in a harsh world, that can often be casually cruel, but I don't have to be. Choose kindness and compassion, every day. And remember that there's always more than one side to a story, and so much more beneath the surface than what you might be able to see.

[@nyxoberholz5496]

@@sarahhughes1302 thank you for sharing your story

[@notyourtherapist21]

@@sarahhughes1302 I am so sorry that happened to you, I genuinely hope that you're in a better place now, and that you find the kind of peace you're looking for. :) More power to you and yours.

[@vampmoon]

As someone on Medicaid, thank you so much for mentioning how hard it is to get mental health help on it! It's almost impossible to find help and no one ever mentions that

[@MsJMHS]

I was able to receive ongoing psychiatric/mental health care whole on Medicaid, but only due to a county run program. I'm incredibly lucky, and the resource center has been overloaded for a long time and Covid made it worse with therapists and doctors moving into other fields/practices of medicine. They have less than half of the staff previous to Covid, I lost my therapist the first week of lock down and had to switch unexpectedly (it was hard, to build trust with a new therapist. Luckily, the therapist I have now is even better, but it could have ended up bad... If you can't trust your therapist, it's time to get a new therapist, just FYI/PSA). If I move approx 30 miles in any direction, I lose my mental health care, I HAVE to reside in this county. I researched which counties have for mental health resources, and many of my neighboring counties don't even HAVE mental health resources. I fear constantly that I will lose access to my psychiatrist and my therapist. I'm on medication that if I stop unexpectedly, I could die from withdrawal. Without my regular therapy sessions, I begin to feel uncentered and really not well/like myself. I have attended some support groups in my area, and the amount of people who CAN'T access ongoing mental health treatment even though they are on Medicaid is mind blowing for people. Also, dental care. Only one place in a tricounty area will even take Medicaid patients, it's booked over a year out for appointments, and one of mine got canceled... The system is not designed for mentally ill people to survive, let alone thrive.

[@neimafogel139]

Same!!!!

[@ambriaashley3383]

thanks for the clarification of how mentally ill folks are more likely to be victims of crime rather than perpetrators! there's a lot of confusion about this, unfortunately 😕

[@factoidnerdist199]

YES OMG YES. As someone who suffers from severe mental illness, I can vouch for this. Those of us who suffer from severe mental illness need compassion, we really do. We're not trying to hurt others, we're not well and we need help, and I just want others to know that.

[@constancemiller3753]

The mentally ill are shunned. They are excluded from happy occasions. No one listens to thier painful anger or complaints of violence, theft or rape.

[@elderxemo92]

Dealing with bipolar, I can admit that in what I call my "anger episodes". I literally have to have something to break, otherwise I literally start punching myself just out of the fact that I hate that side of my brain. I pretty much blame myself for having all this.

[@elfsieben1450]

@@elderxemo92 There's no guilt in having a mental condition. The hardest part of the responsibility it comes with is finding a way of dealing with it that is neither harmful to yourself nor to others. When it comes to absolutely existential situations, it is okay to prioritize the first, save yourself. It's sometimes especially hard for a mentally ill person, often even for a sane person, to recognize whether a situation is existentially dangerous to them. I guess one of the reasons that mentally ill people fall more often victim to and perpetrate less violent crimes is that they often feel there is "something wrong" with themselves, so they tend to give others the benefit of the doubt; whereas so-called "sane" people rather tend to assume they are in the right by default.

[@damienasmodeus928]

@@factoidnerdist199 can I hug you?

[@verdean11]

I think there was something about Arthur not succumbing to violence right away that really made this movie special. Like the first few times he was beat up he just accepted, he wasn't angry and didn't have a violent outburst, but then on the train, when the hecklers weren't being violent towards him, that's when he popped off. I thought that was great.

[@kirstyfairly4371]

verdean613-The hecklers on the train were being violent to Arthur though. Don't you remember they at first start off bullying him when they notice him there after the woman they were sexually harassing leaves, & then they start beating the crap out of Arthur just like those teenagers were at the start, but instead of doing nothing about it & just letting it happen like he did with those kids, he takes out the gun his work colleague gave him and uses it for the first time.

[@laterreurrouge1917]

@@kirstyfairly4371 ...also Arthur had an outburst in the back alley after he had trouble at work (the scene where he kicks into the trash bags and throws himself onto them). Or when Arthus punches the clock off the wall.

[@Monk-E]

@@laterreurrouge1917 but that type of outburst is normal for humans we all get angry sometimes and have outbursts, but we don't kill people

[@laterreurrouge1917]

@@Monk-E I was pointing out that Arthur DID have outburst before the big hits later in the movie. It's not like he sat through everything like an emotionless rock. You know what I mean ? And to be fair: It's not exactly normal to punch the clock off the wall at work. That's a spontaneous loss of impulse control. (Yes, I experienced similar impulses in the past...so I get how Arthur might have felt etc. But I can admit, that is an improper response to emotions)

[@d3l3tes00n]

His first bit of violence is self defense, dude.

[@TheSantaCruzJokerShow]

Always love that Murray makes fun of Arthur for having a book of jokes when he himself probably has a team of writers and a guy jotting things down on cue cards

[@victoriapalferez-siri5952]

Seems scary having people like that without therapy and proper medication and nutrition. He seems so traumatized was pushed to the edge by traumas, hereditary condition and bullies. Is a ambivalence of pity and outrage towards this character famous as the Batman is. All plays in his head like American Psycho so did he committed those killings or was a fantasy to cope with his condition?

[@adde9506]

Talk show hosts do actually have to spontaneously field their guests, especially when their guests go off script. And often the host has rehearsed, but the guest didn't, so the guest answers a planned question in a totally unexpected way. It's pretty much Graham Norton's whole show.

[@BeekersSqueakers]

If you've battled bipolar, you know exactly what the laugh-crying feeling is like. All intense emotions all at once. You want to scream, laugh, and cry hysterically all at the same time.

[@SasukeUchiha-xy4vj]

I've done it

[@elenamendoza7396]

Me coming off a hypomanic to a depressive bender quicker than usual, 😂😢😂

[@darkstarmoonshadow]

Yep, that's the truth. (I'm bipolar and I've done it on occasion) 🤣😭😤

[@Evoker23-lx8mb]

The cry laughing (for this character) isn’t because of bipolar. It’s something called pseudo bulbar affect. Phoenix actually watched videos of people with this condition to perfect the laugh.

[@pringals420]

Ive done it from time to time even though I'm not bipolar. Sometimes life just gets intense enough to make you do it.

[@pukanger]

Also, in comic canon, Batman is the only one who Joker feels really "gets" him, and this is probably the closest thing to a real relationship Joker has ever had. Which is why in most modern Joker stories Joker never really wants to kill Batman. Batman "completes" him.

[@iriszpataki9877]

Lego Batman

[@Xehanort10]

In Arkham City he even says at one point "It's selfish really but we need each other. Life would be so boring without you. Who would I talk to? Who would really understand me?"

[@meghanmonroe]

I'm totally ignorant about the comics, so when I was watching the movie I got pretty excited at the idea of Joker and Batman being half-brothers! I see how they definitely had an interesting connection.

[@trinityredford1415]

There's a video essay on this concept. It's called Queercoding and I recommend watching the video essay about Lego Batman for a full breakdown. :)

[@siqxyre8473]

@@trinityredford1415 its definitely toxic queercoding

[@CrystalBrightz]

As someone with Tourettes, I relate with Arthur's outbursts and the stigma it brings, especially in public settings. That little "I HAVE A CONDITION" card he carries hits home because I used to have a stack of those for church, the grocery store, etc. The thing that stands out to me- with Arthur's cards and mine- is how we each asked folks to pardon or forgive our behavior. Yes, as a courtesy, but I used to wonder why I was made to feel like I had to apologize for having a tic disorder, something I still find myself doing, out of habit.

[@thebluerobinett2436]

Don’t ever feel bad that you have a “condition”. Yes you have it, but don’t feel like you have to apologize for it. It’s not your fault. Yes it may be surprising to some some but life is full of surprises. Deal with it, other people who don’t understand or sympathize with people who have mental illness.

[@GoddoDoggo]

I don't think you should ever _apologize_ for such a disorder, but just explain it matter of factly, if you feel like it. A simple, "It's just tourettes," is perfectly sufficient to explain any oddities.

[@jacqslabz]

@@GoddoDoggo There's a difference between over-apologizing for having a disorder (which can cause problematic feelings of shame leading to a negative self-image), and being considerate of others around you (and their feelings). Though at the same time, I think society as a whole could stand to be a lot less judgmental to everyone (those with all mental issues, with different skin colors, physical disabilities, gender, etc etc etc). Forgive my soapbox, but I agree with stoicism in that something only bothers you if decide it is annoying. I think even the "mental healthy" could use some lessons from therapy.

[@qj0n]

Instead of apologizing for inconveniences, just thank them for their indulgence. A little bit of gratitude can be beneficial for everyone in such situations

[@zeynepyalm2295]

I have Tourettes too and watching the movie really did sting a bit. The fact is, this is who we are no matter how severe or mild our condition is, we can't change or control this and it doesn't and will never make us less human or worthy of respect than any other person. We don't have anything to apologize for. Please remember that you're not alone in this and the fact that we're different from others in a way that we can't change doesn't mean that we have to bend our lives around others in the name of courtesy. 💙

[@screamingbennett882]

My husband is a psychotic schizophrenic and, after five years of knowing my family, finally "came out " as such to them at Thanksgiving. My uncle, our host, did the same thing I did when he told me, and became interested and asked follow-up questions about what he sees and hears to understand his world better. My husband now feels comfortable with my family because they know how his mind works and don't see him as a monster.

[@shellshockedbros4458]

Awesome!

[@vanessainman2921]

I hope more people learn this and follow your example.

[@zobbycar2728]

God Bless And Protect you and your husband with Unfailing Love Peace and Joy Forever in Jesus, and have Eternal Life, Amen 🙏💙👍

[@arthenmes396]

If it doesn't bother you to answer, how do you handle his illness in today life?

[@screamingbennett882]

@@arthenmes396 Sorry I'm seven months late. My husband happens to be a fairly high-functioning schizophrenic and has his own situation, but I can definitely tell you about our day-to-day. I guess the best way to start is that he doesn't "sleep" the way we sleep. He lies down and basically dozes all night for most of the week, this is due to his psychosis. Another symptom is that he forgets things a lot. If it's not his daily go to work, go home routine, he forgets events. He will ask me if I took my medication, even if I just took it in front of him ten minutes ago. Today, he couldn't find the hand lotion despite having used it last night. It was in its usual spot, just on our counter, but he couldn't remember what it looked like, so he couldn't find it. He also has voices and hallucinations, naturally. Some days, his voices are like a live studio audience in his head, other days they are cruel and disturbing. Hallucinations are an entirely different beast. Sometimes he'll stiffen up and get a look in his eye and doesn't look away. I usually ask him whether he's seeing something, and when he answers "Yes", I ask whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. When I ask him to describe, he can't because his eyes aren't physically seeing it, it's just neurons misfiring in his brain conjuring up an image. He calls the bad ones monsters, and usually needs some kind of blade on him so that he can stay calm when he sees them. They eventually fade away or blip out of his reality. Hope this helps if you eventually read this!

[@Sumguyinavan_]

The most terrifying aspect of every single Joker we've ever gotten is that there may or may not be some diagnosable disorder in each of them, but that disorder is not the cause of their actions. The Joker is never depicted as his crimes being against his own will, acting in a delusional state. He is choosing them every single time. He is calculating, manipulative, and remorseless at all times and while it is possible some disorder makes it somehow easier to do what he does in his various iterations, it is always a willing and enthusiastic ongoing choice to commit the actions. So what is really scary is that if he ever gave perfectly honest answers to psychological evaluation, he could possibly come out with a clean bill of mental health other than some notes of trauma in his past (again, there are many different men who were the Joker. For Fleck in particular, it is possible that his mental illness wasn't the cause of his crimes, how people treated him was the cause. He was violently attacked, his coworker gave him a gun to protect himself. The men on the train were cruel to both him and a woman passenger who was visibly afraid of them- a man with a lifetime of being tormented and no one coming to help him, he took matters into his own hands and made sure those men would never torment another person. He more or less started targeting people who he felt hurt him personally, arguably crimes of passion even with a certain degree of premeditation. Even at the end killing Murray, it was because he felt personally betrayed and he was obviously being made fun of on a regional scale of broadcast television. He was aware of what he was doing at all times, and he willingly pursued the people and carried out the murders. And had those people never hurt him, he may have just been a person with a nervous disorder and some vivid fantasies. The only time he seems to have a serious delusion (iirc, please point out other moments where what he thought was happening was not actually happening) was in the woman's apartment, which could have been the result of the lacking medication more than any of the obvious crimes. And by the end, he did not intentionally start the political movement, the movement was practically inevitable- but when the crowds of Gotham started seeing him as some kind of leader, he just accepted their praise because it is the most loved and supported he may have ever felt. He was no Clown Prince of Crime, no Anarchist, and no Gangster. He was something totally new, a 4th Joker- the revenge killer. And even with therapy and proper medication, several if not most of the events of the movie may still have happened. He was a very unhappy and externally tormented man who just wanted the same peace and happiness everyone wants, and then someone gave him a gun. And what SHOULD terrify your average person the most is his punchline with Murray: "What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society who abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you *** deserve." Every person who watched this scene play out should think about every person they ever hurt, intentionally or through inaction. Because we are never the only person who hurts any given person. Everyone is hurt by countless people through life with varying frequency and severity. And they just might remember what you did to them, or didn't help them with. Treat people with kindness, compassion, and empathy, because madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push- One bad day.

[@Riprake]

Well, there are *lots* of moments in the movie various fans have argued were just hallucinations and/or false self-serving memories. Some even go so far as to claim the whole thing is just a story he was making up to tell to the therapist at the end (although I dismiss that theory as a cynically overused and extremely hasty leap to conclusions; a story's having some plot holes or a few bizarre inconsistencies doesn't justify dismissing the WHOLE FRIGGIN' THING as the protagonist's dream or hallucination). It's also worth mentioning that the movie itself reveals that several of the moments are fake: Murray being the father figure Arthur never had, and his neighbor Sophie being totally into Arthur and everything he does, even though he's a creepy stalker and a comedian. (As a lot of women will tell you, nobody likes a creepy stalker unless he's extremely good-looking like Edward Cullen from the Twilight franchise; and as the popular comedian Jeff Foxworthy once pointed out in his autobiography, "You don't see women throwing their panties on stage for comedians.") Apart from that whole imaginary relationship with Sophie you mentioned, however, I would point to two other parts that were probably imaginary: the scene where he hunts down and finishes off the third guy who attacked him in the subway (whom supplementary materials inform me is named Ryan) and the scene in which Arthur lets the little clown Gary leave his apartment after killing the big clown Randall. In the subway scene, the reason I think Arthur's hunting down and finishing off Ryan is imaginary is because the gun he was using was a special model of revolver which can only hold five bullets at a time, and there's no obvious part of the scene in which he could have reloaded it; and yet if you count the shots, he somehow fired it eight times in all. Since that's impossible, I figure that while he did in fact manage to kill all three of his attackers, those last three shots he shouldn't have been able to fire (all of which he supposedly used to finish the guy off) were some of his wishful thinking that later got incorporated into his self-serving memories of the event ("I should've put a few more holes in that guy!") and Ryan actually managed to get away from Arthur long enough to give his own self-serving account of what happened to somebody before he succumbed to his wounds. (Otherwise, how else did the police know and report to the news that the killer was some guy dressed as a clown?) As for Arthur letting his little clown friend go after stabbing Randall to death, as this Cinema Therapy video (and the How It Should Have Ended video) for this movie points out, it's a bit of a plot hole that Gary didn't immediately go to the police with his information; he was clearly upset over the murder, and knew where his murderous former co-worker was going to be that evening. So why didn't he do that? My theory is that Gary-like Sophie-was an actual person who'd been nice to the protagonist on occasion, but-again like Sophie-most of his relationship with him (especially after Arthur got fired from the clown agency) was imaginary; in other words, that little guy *was never there* when he killed Randall, and his letting him go afterward as a reward for being nice to him was just more wishful thinking ("Yeah, I always do right by people who do right by me!") Joker later incorporated into his self-serving memories. Gary's presence being entirely imaginary also serves as something of a symbolic counterpart to one of the clues to his relationship with Sophie being imaginary: she's a single mother and has a little daughter, and yet once he starts imagining his whole romantic relationship with his neighbor, the kid just vanishes from the story and never intrudes on them at all; something that anyone who's ever dated a single mother can tell you is extremely unrealistic, as kids generally do tend to be needy and demanding of their mothers' attention. So the little girl's convenient disappearance during a whole relationship that never happened sets up an inverse counterpoint to the little clown's inconvenient appearance during the murder which *did* happen; and also foreshadows the canonical-according to the director-plot point that yeah, Arthur did in fact leave Sophie alive because-like Gary-she was (for all five minutes or so that she was aware of his existence) always nice to him.

[@Short-mistress]

​@@RiprakeI think the relationship was fake but everything else was real maybe he only shot one and his other two were his anger because if it was that he escaped a lot more cops would have been after him first not just the little pair.

[@shizw1919]

It's a sad state of affairs when it takes threats to encourage people to be "nice"

[@Lyrielonwind]

I love your comment and I thought about some mass shootings in schools when some students were not shot at because they were nice in some moments to the shooters. It makes me think that if no one was bullied and alienated at school there wouldn't be so many tragedies (also having firearms so handy and easy to get would decrease these terrible shootings). We need to be kind to others because we don't know what they have been carrying in their backs and there's no need to add offense to the injured.

[@Sumguyinavan_]

I hope we get to revisit this after the sequel. Trailers have shown that he will be in what is likely Arkham Asylum where he will meet Harleen Quinzel as a fellow patient rather than his therapist, and that they may build an actual connection and romance- still likely unhealthy- rather than it just being him manipulating her. The story seems like it will be him in a place of healing where the influences around him will encourage further violent behavior. A Joker who MIGHT have been rehabilitated if he weren't put around people who liked what he did and wanted him to do more. And a direction this Joker could go with the precedents set up- is something closer to Two Face and his supporters- taking the law into his own hands and killing or committing crimes against people he feels are 'horrible'. Basically a MUCH darker version of Batman- not necessarily targetting 'criminals', but the kinds of people who actually make life worse for people who are just trying to live their lives in peace. This is such a new Joker that there are very interesting directions to take his mental health, his external influences, and his choices.

[@hillefoozy]

I think the Deadpool movies would make an interesting video, because under all the humor and gore is a story about a guilt-stricken man who tries to hide his pain by cracking jokes and peoples' heads

[@professionalpainthuffer]

I would love to have a deadpool video. Wade is a guy with severe trauma issues and a penchant for coping through violence, but he also loves deeply, and maintains his ability to be vulnerable, and refuses to crumble under the weight of how awful his life objectively is, and that dichotomy is fascinating for me. Truly an icon, except for all the murder. I adore Deadpool.

[@gracecowden9819]

Yes, please! Deadpool!

[@ariellak4867]

I see less of it in the movies, but if they looked at the Deadpool of the comics now THAT would be interesting. Cause he is truly mentally damaged there and I'd find what they had to say on that really interesting

[@ashanein]

100%

[@captainteeko4579]

He feels so insecure and so much guilt he broke the fourth wall so escape the pain 😭🤧

[@SB-gt7nt]

Im diagnosed with depression and severe mood swings- this movie had me f’ed up for days

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

I can imagine. It's... not an easy watch.

[@riverofjoystudios7693]

Same with me. I have bipolar and was really scared by how much the movie was sticking with me. Not that I wanted to go out and hurt others-that’s one of my greatest fears in life and I try so hard not to get caught up in that. I thought the movie was great and Phoenix is one fo the best actors around, but I haven’t been able to watch the movie since.

[@hanri6367]

SAME

[@SB-gt7nt]

@@riverofjoystudios7693 I think anyone who doesn’t understand mental illnesses should sit down with a person who does and watch this together it’s the most accurate display I’ve ever seen from Hollywood

[@kristelane8390]

Same! I have schizo effective bipolar disorder and when I realized he "imagined" his entire relationship with that woman, I wanted to throw up.

[@imstillw8ing]

"Why should I apologize for the monster I've become? No one ever apologized for making me this way." - Joker

[@praveenvijeyakumar741]

Just out of curiosity, where is this quote from?

[@vivianelaisdefarias]

@@praveenvijeyakumar741 I believe is when Arthur talk to Murray

[@justarandomveryintelligent8934]

@@vivianelaisdefarias its actually from the killing joke o believe

[@elfsieben1450]

Sounds like an epigraph to "Frankenstein, Or: The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley.

[@Evoker23-lx8mb]

I’ll take fake quotes for 300

[@lilithleviathan7644]

I never felt like showing mental illness in villains implied that mental illness leads to villainy. I always interpreted it the other way around - it promotes compassion for the villain because of their mental illness.

[@Catthepunk]

Yh

[@jotage3446]

I don’t wanna be empathized because of my mental health after shit happen, this everybody can do if the story is told right like the movie did. I wanna a society that can compassionate and act as the signs are showing out

[@phantomflower6749]

This film broke my heart more than anything. He needed help, he asked for help, but unfortunately the system failed him.

[@matthewmcdonald1812]

@@MilanElan society too unless those guys beating him up in the alleyway were his cousins and the social worker was his aunt

[@matthewmcdonald1812]

@@MilanElan society isnt a neutral thing its literally doing something to make it harder for people with mental illness to survive its not a neutral party like you think it is

[@Knightgil]

@@MilanElan An every-man-for-himself kind of society is no society at all. You can call it whatever you want, but that is no society. For something to even be called a society, there must be a level of responsability towards each other. If you don't want to live in a society, if the notion of social responsability is too much for you, you should go to a desert island. If you want to live in a society, and intend to reap the benefits that come with living in a society, you have to give something in return.

[@machinaowl910]

@@MilanElan Well you've completely missed the point of the film

[@Piecesoftheshadow]

MilanElan What a pathetic sociopathic world view you have. I can't stand this empty and selfish world view. If society owes no one anything than that means we never hold people accountable and find no compassion for those struggling the most in our societies. It leads to no growth, no change, no exploration. Cruelty destroys people even when it comes from outside their supposed tribe. Society in and of itself is a huge tribe. We all rely on one another with the jobs and roles we play and we all give and take from one another in the system we built, so yes, society does owe us basic respect and kindness. Humans with your mindset are part of the issue and feed these toxic behaviors and mindets into the society. It doesn't have to be that way, but we choose to fail one another everyday.

[@tchaika222]

About the mom, I thought it was brilliant that they lead the audience to think that she is bedridden and unable to bathe herself, and then you see her dancing with Arthur. To me, this is more than co-dependency, it's abuse. This helplessness and forced intimacy is really messed up. I think it contributes to Arthur's rage when he learns that she didn't protect him as a child. She wasn't a mom to him but she expects him to sacrifice his own life to take care of her. One thing you could have talked about: The note behind the picture of the mom when she was young suggests that it is actually true that Thomas Wayne is the Joker's father. This adds another layer to the themes of class struggles and disenfranchisement of mentally ill people. Minor but annoying plot hole: People living in poverty wouldn't have been able to afford a VCR in 1980. :)

[@teejay5432]

I got that same feeling from the original Willy Wonka movie. Poor grandpa Jo couldn't move an inch... Until he heard his grandson won a literal fortune and of course was able to tour a giant factory on foot

[@elfsieben1450]

Joker's mum is the bird, "parentification" is the word, and Arthur's the one who got hurt.

[@painoftheheart12]

Covert inc*st can take on a lot of forms and it is clear that's what's going on here. It breeds the most painful hateful mutually destructive codependency. That was my relationship with my mother, but who would then turn around and demonize and gaslight me. I would be her caretaker at the age of 13 to then be told I never was there for her and I was unreliable. Like I was my father.

[@milkak6823]

Yeah i watched the movie with my dad and he thought that the mother was like paralyzed or something and that's why Arthur had to bath her and all and was very disturbed to find out that this was not the case.

[@vampire_money99]

penny fleck is arthur's adoptive mother, meaning that arthur isnt a wayne or even a biological fleck

[@newperve]

I think it's more a call for kindness and compassion for people who have serious problems. A lot of those are mentally ill, but not all of them. This is a story about a man who is driven to despair which is correlated with but doesn't require mental illness. Everyone should have helped Arthur. Including Arthur.

[@oliviav4865]

Thanks so much for this video! I am diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and at an acting class once I wrote and performed a silent scene about a character waiting for a bus after a tough breakup. I had the character be sad and then when she heard "sweet dreams" by eurythmics she started dancing. Some smart a** in the class told me that "normal people don't experience emotions like that" and that my character was too "manic" which ngl hurt like hell because I already to fight to justify my existence in mainstream society but to not be "real" enough for costars is what took the cake. mind you I didn't tell anyone in that class about my diagnosis so it just goes to show how much stigma there is surrounding mood disorders even in the entertainment industry, and I've had acting coaches tell me repeatedly that I can only play villains because my portrayal of characters and my emotional range was not "realistic" for "normal" people. i really wish that there was more understanding of people with mental illness as well as neurodivergence in the acting indistry. Watching this vid made my day and made me feel less alone.

[@YELLERHEAD]

ugh that's so annoying. so many more people experience intense emotions than they let on. most of us are trained to hide it. these experiences need to be normalized more. being able to feel so intensely and deeply can really be a beautiful thing. see: every single soul-touching movie. (by the way, i dont mean to say let's normalize toxic behavior from strong emotions. i'm saying let's increase awareness that humans can experience the world in more ways than many realize.)

[@oliviav4865]

Amen!!! Lol yeah I don’t mean to say normalize toxic behavior by any means but to highlight the nuance and emotional spectrum of the human experience and the reinvent “normal.” Thanks for the comment! :)

[@YELLERHEAD]

@@oliviav4865 no problem! thank you for yours :)

[@ConstellationEternalLucidDream]

Well that’s stupid- I don’t have any kind of mental illness that would cause that action, but I’ve danced when sad!

[@elmerandrewcrowley2822]

ayy I see Neurodivergence, I like.

[@niyaak28]

The whole drawing a smile with his blood, to me it meant that at that point he realized all his life was full of hurt, and in pain he managed to find (forced) happiness. I remember crying after seeing the film because I was so disturbed that I empathized with him.

[@lanagustafson1700]

I was so upset after this movie. Like disturbed and sad

[@richierich2229]

As soon as he started killing people I didn’t empathize with him whatsoever ever

[@cantthinkofaname5046]

@@richierich2229 you can say that, but the message of the film will stay the same

[@nicotin9887]

@@richierich2229 then you didn't hit rock bottom by now and let's hope you never will.

[@na3rial]

Trademark of being an adult is being able to empathize with other points of view without feeling the need to fully or even partially adopt it. It's ok to feel that way.

[@graysonrogers-barnes6302]

As someone who has struggled my whole life with mental illness, seeing Joker was something that resonated with me deeply. I think those who make so many jokes about it are really missing what it was all about, and are lucky to not have experienced what it feels like to be hurt by everyone in your life.

[@somelass231]

trans person yes

[@painoftheheart12]

Bpd here, and yes. One of the hardest things I still deal with in regards to my BPD is this severe isolation that comes with such intense emotions. The need for a connection that was never given as a child through emotion. I need people around me to know how I feel. They need to validate it and reflect it back to me and help guide me through it even at the age of 30. And so few people know how to do that. And it hurts. People are the most hurtful things on the planet.

[@sanecatlady]

@@painoftheheart12 that's exactly what I'm going through right now. BPD is horrible because I do want to be around the people I love but I have these horrible feelings nobody can understand. I get frustrated and irritable and I take it out on them. then i feel guilty and I don't want to be around anyone because I don't want to hurt them. It's this horrible, helpless cycle and I feel like I'm terribly sick, mentally, and there's no cure for it

[@epbicfortnitegamer]

i can tell

[@avacadotoast5571]

@Suebian It's not *every* abuse victim, no.

[@littlegiantj8761]

I loved how this movie made me feel sympathy for it's main character; only for it to completely destroy that sympathy.

[@tSp289]

At times, it's kind of like seeing a deadly spider with broken legs: your instinct says 'danger, get away from it', but also you feel really bad for it because it's so hurt.

[@Xehanort10]

That's a tragic villain done right. Where what happened to them explains what they're doing but doesn't justify it. Unfortunately that type of villain is done badly a lot where bad writers portray as if their backstory made them do it and justified them doing it when it didn't.

[@thereseberg1980]

I don't have sympathy with the villain, but with the human being that became the villain. Health care, especially mental health care is so important. For all of us.

[@ElisaSarah]

I felt sympathy for him all the way, yes what he ended up doing was wrong, but I understand why he did it.

[@tSp289]

@@ElisaSarah That's empathy. Empathy is when you can understand someone's frame of reference and how they might feel. Sympathy is when you feel it with them, and it kind of implies approval or justification. I empathise with him all the way through, but he loses my sympathy the moment his self-defence turns into vengeance, and when he starts crossing major red lines like bringing a gun into a kid's hospital or walking into that woman's apartment.

[@bellab8639]

I remember seeing this movie in theaters with my abusive bf (now ex). I was sobbing so hard in the theater because I’ve always struggled with mental health and related to Arthur. I was trying to explain to my ex why the movie struck me so hard. He kept telling me that I was crazy and overreacting. He told me to stop bringing the mood down by spilling my “trauma”. I left him later that year 👏

[@Short-mistress]

Girl put him on blast! make a public announcement because if he did that to you imagine what he could do to someone pregnant. Check his history because he might have hurt his exes before you too.

[@shellshockedbros4458]

@Ashley Wtf, no? When you break up with someone you don't stalk them and prevent them from moving on to other people. Abusive or not, that's weird.

[@Short-mistress]

@@shellshockedbros4458 I said put him on blast it's not stalking it's warning girls that the guy is toxic and don't have a kid with him because it could be dangerous. We know that they never have just one victim they are a bunch of them.

[@june-cz1cw]

Well that's better then leaving him for the Barbie movie 100 times better

[@The1Dragonprincess]

I'm happy to hear you left him and I hope you are doing better now. It'll get better over time.

[@philipwarmanen]

Fun fact: The neighbor did live, there was a scene that was cut from the final movie where she sees Arthur's interview with Murray from her living room

[@niahoad]

Thats a great relief for me. If he killed her, that would have destroyed me

[@arona6692]

Well, the scene wasn't used for the movie, the intent was to leave the doubt so still don't know, but everyone can interpret is as they wish and I find it cool. I personnaly think he killed her but we will never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@arona6692]

@evakatrina a I can't believe the director said that, the fact the scene was intentionally ambiguous is brillant and he just ruins it wft ? I am sorry but now the movie is made and gave to the public his words are as legitimate as any random guy on the internet.

[@arona6692]

@evakatrina a I see your point but Arthur Fleck is supposed to become the Joker, who dosn't give a sh*it about who he is killing or not (except Batman). So for me killing her would be the turning point : he gives up to his dream of being love and a normal life, gives up to his humanity, and become the Joker. Plus she didn't bully her but she did rejected him. In his mind she is quite similar to Murray : puts him/her on a pedestral, fantazise about a relationship, gets rejected, and...

[@elizabethbrill311]

And when asked the director was horrified that people thought he may have killed her. So was I, really... it honestly never entered my head.

[@TheHealerIzAwesome]

I think my favorite thing about Joker is that it doesn't need to be a Batman movie. It doesn't rely too heavily on DC or the Batman franchise. It is a story on it's own and that is absolutely beautiful

[@Xehanort10]

That's why Joker succeeds where Venom fails. Because you can have a Joker film without Batman since even though in most continuities we don't know what it is Joker had a life before he met Batman and fell into the chemical vat. Whereas Venom's origin depends on the symbiote trying to bond to Spider-Man, him getting rid of it and it bonding to Eddie Brock with both of them wanting revenge on Peter. That's why the Venom film not having Spider-Man in it and Eddie getting the symbiote without him doomed it and will doom its upcoming sequel to failure.

[@sharpaycutie2]

This guy isn't the joker. At all. He has a doff name. A foff backstory. Diff motives. He not th joker. No fan would consider him the joker

[@laterreurrouge1917]

@@sharpaycutie2 I am a fan and I absolutely consider him the Joker. But since DC does a beautiful job playing around with ideas in all those "elseworld stories", THIS can be just an idea, A way how this character could have loved and happened. It is A (!) story. And a really good one.

[@yeah1326]

@@sharpaycutie2 He is the Joker

[@maryhales4595]

Take it out of the DC universe and it's a chilling cautionary tale about what happens when society abandons its most vulnerable population.

[@klcpesan]

As someone who lives in Scotland, and has the NHS, I am reminded how grateful I am to have free healthcare. Okay, I pay higher taxes but we help each other out. I suffer from a chronic illness and there is no way I could afford all the investigations and medicines on my own. More is needed to fund mental health facilities, we do have it free on the NHS but the waiting list is so long.

[@catherinelindsay7437]

Not only are waiting lists really long, they limit the number of therapy sessions you can have. Usually it's 6 - 8 or 10 if you're lucky which is just not enough. I've struggled with mental health issues for more than 20 years and it's only now that I have access to private health insurance through my work that I'm finally getting to the bottom of my issues. And it's definitely taken more than 10 sessions!! I love the NHS and the thought of it being privatised is terrifying but the mental health provisions need to change.

[@ayushipatil4504]

@@catherinelindsay7437 As a future doctor I agree who would likely work in the NHS I agree.

[@klcpesan]

Totally agree with the comments on here, NHS needs vast more funding and the UK government constantly talks about doing more but I see little being physically done. We also need more staff to meet demand.

[@Cotif11]

I'm so glad the NHS's severe underfunding has been brought up as well. It's because of government austerity in Britain that their healthcare is suffering at all, that being said, it's still leagues ahead of America's 'market-driven' healthcare industry.

[@Chuleta_9]

I live in an island colonized by the U.S., we have the highest tax rates, and many of us (including me) don’t even have healthcare. I wouldn’t mind paying all these taxes if it would actually go somewhere that matters, like free healthcare, free education, food, water, etc instead of corrupt politicians’ pockets. U.S. is one of the worst places to live, and I can’t wait to get our Island’s independence back.

[@360shadowmoon]

I read a tweet that, paraphrased, said something along the lines of 'humanizing villains isn't about glorifying them; it's about illustrating that under the same circumstances, you could become a villain, too'. I agree so much with this statement. I think sometimes we are inclined to view the world in very black and white terms, where people are either essentially good or bad. But sometimes we don't see how much luck and privilege play into this. Everyone wants to think that they're a hero who got to where they are through good choices and hard work, but a lot of the time, it's because all they had were good choices. The Joker could have turned out vastly differently if he was born into the Waynes's money and had access to proper healthcare and other support systems.

[@alissey]

I completely agree... I also thought that if he grew up in Wayne's family, there would've been no Joker

[@carrionmelody]

The last time i was this early, Arthur was still sane

[@leonmayne797]

The last time I was this early, I was still sane.

[@mikad3336]

@@leonmayne797 When I tell you I turned into a literal witch and started cackling at this comment-

[@petrifiedviewer]

Ok. This has me wheezing and laughing like Arthur

[@Verrisin]

No, I don't think Jokers loves _violence_ - He loves feeling powerful. and significant. - And he loves when people cheer for him for once.

[@AWlpsSHOW36]

I think he loves justice and revenge. The people he murdered where those who hurt him and wronged him.

[@sev.3.163]

I think you're right but once he realizes violence brings those things he goes all in for it. So ye. He loves violence because it works as an escapism and he feels fully powerful, he goes all maniac

[@kristin122]

I also think it's being in control for once.

[@leechtlazuli5891]

"is it just me? or is it getting crazier out there?" "have you seen what it's like out there...?" "nobody's civil anymore!" Arthur just learned to speak their language.

[@Blessed_V0id]

Ge loves justicr

[@nyapayton7087]

The reason Phoenix was able to act out Pseudobulbar so well is because he actually watched KZbin videos of real people who had the condition and analyzed and studied them and basically simulated that in his acting

[@harshalgawai746]

What was admirable was that he I such a artist that he learned it fast and accurately. And depicted in his acting. Superb actor. As soon as out of theater I called he will win an oscar. Which he did.

[@bulbouskiwicat9608]

I heard that he locked himself in a hotel room and wrote out the jokers journal just to get into character

[@simonpetrikov3992]

@@bulbouskiwicat9608 that's heath ledger

[@VictoriaTraducciones]

@@bulbouskiwicat9608 he did write some of the pages on Arthur's book but Heath Ledger was the one that locked himself in a hotel room to get into character

[@Short-mistress]

​@@VictoriaTraduccionesand never really came out

[@mayesjoyessha527]

It's really not stigmatizing because he was pushed to that point. There were so many things that added up to that point. Anyone could be pushed to that point regardless of mental illness. They made Arthur so human and so relatable.

[@loraharrison1172]

As someone with Bipolar II, thank you so much for clarifying the difference! It can be so hard to confide in people that I have bipolar as they automatically assume that I am psychotic

[@thejengineer7285]

Same here; with additional diagnoses that do cause me psychosis on top of hypomania, thank you guys for asking for everyone to have empathy towards people with a hard time perceiving reality and to understand how it feels to not trust your own mind and senses, constantly/desperately hoping it won’t cause others pain (emotional or worse) accidentally. Life is tough when your own brain gaslights you away from trusting what you see/hear/feel.

[@LadyCoyKoi]

It is even funnier when you try to convince people the difference between ASD and BPD. Bipolar and Autism have similar symptoms that they are a blur. Would be nice if Cinema Therapy makes a video on the differences.

[@thebluerobinett2436]

Agreed. I knew there was a difference but didn’t know what it was. Thanks for the distinction.

[@thebluerobinett2436]

@@thejengineer7285 Even someone who struggles with relatively minor mental illness (ADD) it’s eye opening to hear what it’s like to have someone describe what their life is like to live with their own mental illness different from my own.

[@gaildahlas]

Same here! As someone who works with kids I'm really reluctant to disclose anything because I've been hit with the assumptions a lot. I usually have to sit down and have the full conversation about my mental health by prefacing it with the explanation that there's more than one kind of bipolar disorder, or just talking about the depression parts and leaving it at that.

[@Larindarr]

Fun fact: Joaquin acted while the score was being played through speakers on his scenes.

[@arthur1596]

Wait what?

[@conservativestrawman9837]

It definitely looks like it, the performance is just fantastic

[@archivesofarda986]

Makes sense as the score was written for the screenplay instead of the pictures

[@danurkresnamurti3598]

which scene?

[@clawhammr666]

@@danurkresnamurti3598 At least when he's dancing in the bathroom I heard

[@asleepyb0i400]

How I interpret the bloody smile Arthur drew on his face in the end, was that even though he found happiness for once in his life, how he got there was by inciting riots and murdering people who stressed him out, regardless of if it was intentional or not. That happiness was forged in blood.

[@hadley_mcdonald]

That's an awesome observation!

[@boop99]

I interpreted it the same way. His path to happiness is through violence

[@corahonken164]

That's a really cool theory

[@the_expidition427]

@@corahonken164 It is bloody murder not a theory

[@TsunayoshiSawada469]

Ooo good one 💕

[@jamera8223]

Living with Bipolar, what made this film even more genius to me is having it set in the late 70s early 80s. A time period, to my memory, that was particularly callus and apathetic to anyone divergent. I found this the most relatable portrait of the time I've seen on a post 90s film.

[@Hajde_budalla]

He saw his brother die, seizing on the ground outside the club they attended, and then his frantic phone call for help was played 24/7 in the media, when he was 19 or 20?. I would say that, tragically, this helped him tap into the madness, mania and grief of the character. He also had a rough, hardscrabble life before they became actors, as the parents has them all in a cult, growing up.

[@elsakristina2689]

I think that that trauma also had an influence in Joaquin doing the voice of Kenai in “Brother Bear”. Kenai happens to see his own oldest brother fall to his death right in front of him. There’s no way Joaquin wasn’t thinking of River when recording his lines for that scene. And that cult their family was in has ruined so many lives. When the Phoenix family were members the cult was called the Children of God, they’re still around today and they’re now called The Family International. A guy named Ricky Rodriguez was born into the cult (his birth name was David Moses Zerby and as an adult he changed it to Richard Peter Rodriguez) and he was raised as their heir and his childhood was horrific. He was hailed as the perfect child, their future leader, their prince, the perfect example of sexuality. As a literal CHILD. They even made a book about his infancy and spread 2,000 copies of it to members. Said book was later ordered to be destroyed because of how incriminating the content was. He hated it all and he never wanted to be their leader, he started questioning everything he’d been taught and he felt a need to avenge and protect his sisters and friends who had suffered the same abuse he did. Ricky left the cult when he grew up and he got married and tried to live a normal life but he couldn’t. He was so profoundly broken by what he went through that in 2005 he killed a former abuser of his and then himself. About over 30 people who were born and/or raised in the cult have died since the 1990s, mostly from suicides and drug overdoses. That really says a lot about what’s it’s like to be a child in this cult, let alone an adult member. They claim that in the 1980s they abandoned most of their sexual practices (meaning the illegal ones) but in 1993 the then-second-in-command leader, Karen Zerby, said it was just a ruse that they stopped. The following year she became the new leader after the founder David Berg’s death. Karen was Ricky’s mother and she still leads the cult to this day.

[@egg_bun_]

@@elsakristina2689 omg I had no idea. I got chills when reading your comment ;-;

[@elsakristina2689]

@@egg_bun_ It’s really crazy and in the saddest way. Because Karen is the leader of the cult, her location is kept a secret even from her own followers and most of them didn’t know what she looks like until 2005. The cult was originally called Teens for Christ and was founded by David Berg in Huntington Beach in 1968, most members came out of the hippie counterculture and the Jesus People movement that itself derived from the counterculture. In 1972 they became known as the Children of God and in 1978 they faked a disbanding and changed their name to The Family of Love, and over time their name was shortened to The Family. At their peak in the 1970s they had 30,000 members in 100 countries and became infamous for their doctrine of free love, the brainwashing and abuse of members, emphasis on communal living in what they called “colonies” or “homes”, and the practice of what they called “Flirty Fishing” - prostitution done in the name of God based on Jesus’ saying that he would make his disciples “fishers of men”. They ended the practice in the 1980s out of fear of the AIDS epidemic, but by that time thousands of people had been “flirty fished” and thousands of “Jesus Babies” had been born from these encounters. Ricky himself was conceived after Karen “flirty fished” a hotel waiter during a stay in Tenerife in the Canary Islands where Ricky was later born on January 25, 1975. David Berg claimed that he was Ricky’s spiritual father although no official adoption ever took place. David Berg went by many names. To his followers he was variously known as Moses David, Mo, King David, Dad, Daddy, and Grandpa. He communicated with them primarily through “Mo Letters”, rambling letters on a multitude of spiritual and practical subjects. David wrote in total about 3,000 of these letters from 1970 until his death in 1994. The majority of the cult’s publications were in comic book format because all the members were young adults, teenagers and children. Karen joined the cult in 1969 and worked as David’s secretary. Even though he was 50 and she was 23 at the time, she became his mistress. In 1972 he introduced her to the general membership in a letter written in archaic Biblical language in which he presents Karen as the “new wine” and his wife Jane as the “old wine”. In the accompanying illustration Karen is depicted as young and beautiful while Jane is drawn as an old hag. Karen is variously known among her followers as Maria, Mama Maria, Queen Maria, Mama, Maria Berg, Maria David, and Maria Fontaine. In 1995 a British justice (Alan Ward) authored a lengthy report on the Family’s history, abuse and practices when he was put in charge of a custody case involving a British woman who was in the cult and had had a baby. He acknowledged that The Family had committed sexual and physical abuse and sequestration of children, but at the last minute he concluded that since they abandoned those practices in the 1980s the Family was now a safe environment for children. In 2010 the Family reorganised themselves as an exclusively online community and the majority of their activity is supposedly humanitarian and missionary work in poor countries and they have A LOT of front organisations connected with the cult. A lot of the people in leadership and other abusers have never been caught or charged because since they were young adults in the 70s and 80s they’re elderly or approaching elderly now, the abuse they committed happened decades ago in foreign countries (households would regularly move to a new country every six months) and a lot of these abusers have their locations kept secret and/or they’ve changed their names and countries of residence often MULTIPLE TIMES.

[@AnotherMADCreation]

Bingo.

[@lilhonni]

Wait what are you guys talking about? Is the original comment talking about the actor? Say that in the beginning of your paragraph

[@PhantomSavage]

The question is, now that Arthur has stepped out of and cast away his former identity and has fully embraced his "Joker" persona, will he become the calculating psychopath you see in The Dark Knight? I find a very interesting and stark difference between the "Jokers" we see between the two films is the fact that Arthur Fleck's crimes were all crimes of opportunity, while Heath Ledger's Joker's crimes were all premediated. Arthur never once actually *planned* on hurting anyone, he just found himself in different stressful situations of which he used violence as a solution. For example: - Arthur never planned on murdering anyone in the train. He was, however, in possession of a firearm, and once the three men began assaulting him, he chose to stop it by shooting them all. - The coworker that gave him the gun and got him fired showed up to Arthur's apartment unannounced, Arthur never went looking for him personally. He only killed him once the coworker insisted to get the gun back, the same gun Arthur had already planned to kill himself with. - Even Murray's murder was a decision that was made in the moment, not prior to his appearance on stage. Arthur had planned to kill *himself* on camera, not Murray, but it was key notes in his joke book like "I hope my death makes more sense than my life" and Murray's prosecutorial agitation that triggered Arthur to kill Murray instead. - The tail ending scene of the movie is Arthur walking down a hospital hallway with bloody footprints just after a short therapy scene, implying Arthur murdered his therapist, another murder of opportunity, not premediated. The only murder Arthur arguably pre-planned was his Mother's, but even this could be considered more of a crime of passion, as the truth of his mother's lies were exposed to him mere hours before he had decided to take her life. In complete contrast, the Joker in The Dark Knight seems to calculate and pre-plan his every move. Even if you argue that he's not actually following a grand plan, the actions and plans he *does* take are designed methodically and with preparation. - Joker orchestrates a series of Bank Robberies against mob owned banks, even taking into considering the gradual elimination of each of the heist's participants except for himself. - He systemically murders Judges, politicians, the police commissioner, and in an attempt to call out Batman - When Dent lies and says he's the real Batman, Joker is able to cut off the prisoner transport's main route and and ambush it with high-grade firepower. - He manages to manipulate Batman long enough to get Harvey Dent disfigured and murder his fiance, Rachel. - He orchestrates his own escape from the holding cells planting a human bomb there beforehand - He manages to wire and blow up Gotham's central hospital. - After inciting city wide panic and evacuations, he wires ferry transports with explosives and gives each of the boats a key to the other's bomb in a sick social experiment to see who will blow up the other, with a backup key he has himself to destroy both of them if they decide to leave it be. So now that Arthur has found his happiness in the violent chaos of being the Joker, would Arthur's need to relive that glory and sense of belonging lead him to the same extremes of premediated plans of Dark Knight's Joker? or are they truly entirely different characters with different psychosis'?

[@yaspeniche7444]

This is an amazing comment

[@pixywings]

You're talking about two completely different characters. Arthur Fleck and Jack Napier. Jack Napier was inspired by Arthur Fleck and became the next generation's Joker.

[@na3rial]

I would argue they are two different people, and that's also why this movie felt a bit off to me. Granted I'm not a DC expert. I'm only going off of what I know from the movies and some animated bits. The Dark Knight joker gives the feeling that he does not not truly care about anything. He doesn't care what happens to him, to the world, or anyone else. He's here to poke people and see what makes them jump. He is truly sadistic. In the Joker, it's the exact opposite. Everything is personal to this guy. He kills when he takes something personally, when he feels he isn't respected. He feels like a mafia don, rather than the cackling, scheming Joker we usually see with Batman. In trying to make the Joker somewhat relatable, they made him a martyr, and that doesn't ring right towards his chara profile to me.

[@yoberg75]

Assuming that we are seeing the same Joker in both movies at different stages - I agree with you, but I don't think that it is a feeling of glory and sense of belonging that ultimately drives him to become the DK Joker. At least, not in the sense that I infer from your comment. Looking at how he was abused and bullied throughout the movie (and his life), being accepted is step one to unlocking and opening the door. After that has been achieved, it's no longer a driving factor because it doesn't taste as sweet, doesn't have the same kind of hit as it used to. From that point it's about revenge; not on any individual, but the system. Find the biggest guy in the room and take him out. Each step in DK can, I believe, be connected to events in Joker: - Attack the mob (the guys on the train) - Take out the judges, politicians, commissioner (the system that failed him) - The whole feud with Batman (his abusive stepfather) - Making Batman choose between Dent and Rachel (Fleck having to choose between personas) - The hospital (key piece in hiding the abuse and allowing his mother to get away with it) - The Ferries (the audiences who laughed at him and never took him seriously). I'm no expert, but I've seen over time how a damaged mind can hang on to events and can even misremember them for better or for worse. In a way, the mind can start to self-therapy itself (albeit in an unhealthy way) in order to cope with damages and abuse. Justifications and that dopamine rush, and the like. But that's just a theory...A FILM TH...wait, wrong video series xD

[@FreakyBo0o]

Great comment. I see them as two different characters (which is what upset a lot of people). Is Arthur Fleck from 'Joker' really THE Joker (as people got to see an interpretation of in 'Dark Knight'?) Or was 'Joker' appropriating the character of the Joker? I loved both The Dark Knight and Joker. I see them as different characters though, and I'm not upset by that. I think the Joker is the type of character that is by design ambiguous so he can be given multiple origin stories. It's unlikely that Arthur Fleck from Joker will not turn into the Joker of The Dark Knight (it wouldn't really make sense). Nevertheless, the character of Arthur Fleck / the Joker in 'Joker' allowed for all the representation and messages discussed in this Cinema Therapy video to really shine. I really appreciated this movie. The Dark Knight was a whole different vibe, even if equally fascinating.

[@amberlyveil8856]

There's a theory that Arthur isn't actually talking during the majority of the therapy sessions... because her non reaction is very similar to the non reaction of crowds in hallucination scenes

[@spellhaus]

The whole movie, especially the ending, feels like an attribution of "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."

[@sir_stride]

I would love to see you guys do a episode on maladaptive daydreaming. Its a under researched mental condition that desperately needs more attention brought to it.

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

We actually have one that deals with that topic coming soon!

[@sir_stride]

@@CinemaTherapyShow AHHHHHHH THANK YOU. As someone who has it, it makes me so glad to see you guys doing this. Again, thank you!

[@angelita98gaby]

YES I was just about to comment this! Another under researched one is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Pretty sure I have both RSD and Maladaptive Daydreaming, seeing how my everyday life plays out with ADD. Just wish there was enough to be able to officially diagnose people with it so that many can gain some closure. I remember during the premiere of the Elf video you guys responded to me in the chat saying you’re planning something to cover RSD, can’t wait for it! But I’m being patient~ 😁

[@bookbook9495]

Oh gosh darnit, well I guess there is a thing I’ve got that isn’t schizophrenia. Thank you for bringing this term to my attention.

[@sir_stride]

@@bookbook9495 not a problem. And trust me. I was just like you in not knowing what it was called. Blew my mind afterwards.

[@Julia-lg7dt]

You know who needs therapy? Batman.

[@quintinfoutz]

Why? BECAUSE HE'S BATMAN!

[@MerijnH]

@@quintinfoutz haha that's great. But yea the man definitely needs a therapist

[@katierasburn9571]

He sure as hell could afford one anyway lmao

[@MerijnH]

@@katierasburn9571 he should be open about his secret identity tho, he don't like that

[@thebluerobinett2436]

For real though. He has some deep traumas

[@galaxymoon8071]

As someone with anxiety, depression and autism this film hit really close to home. I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks it’s an amazing movie.

[@Astro_Aladfar]

That makes two of us.

[@anilau5113]

Same

[@comparsa1]

me too

[@wiltingrose1220]

I'm bipolar type 1 and its a hard movie to watch I thankfully have medication and therapy services available to me for free, American health care has never made sense to me so many people die because they're poor.

[@WhistleAndSnap]

Yoooo, I got those things too! It's great. And by "great" I mean "exhausting".

[@revanamell1791]

I think the movie pretty much runs underneath the character stuff this theme of poverty is a force crushing the little people and that when you're only getting stomped on and you have nothing, is it really such a surprise violence of some kind erupts. It's layered. Gotham itself is a powder keg and Arthur became the spark.

[@veramae4098]

I have a neighbor with brain damage from a car accident. Not his fault. His father's, who died in the accident. I went to see his public therapist once, just for a minute, and she told me she had 600 clients. He was eligible for disability income and I was critical she hadn't helped him get it earlier. I took him through the process and he was approved. His I.Q. is about 42. He showed me the papers. He had been a lot smarter, and he still presents as smarter because, I think, he grew up smart. 600 clients!!!

[@morganseppy5180]

Didn't mention at all that his psychosis went off the rails when he lost access to his meds. Going by this movie, he needs meds just as desperately as a father figure. Needed to come back and underscore how (public) access to mental health is vital for justice and compassion. He was a powder keg but we took away his meds.

[@legoqueen2445]

Spot on!!! I think people skip over that fact too easily. The fact they diagnose him as bipolar entering a full blown manic...well yeah if you believe you are godlike and running at the speed of light its easy to tip into agression/violence and feel no remorse. Your moral compass has gone out the window coz ur in the midst of a mental illness. Arthur goes Manic isn't the catchiest title but that seems to be the plot rather than the emergence of a villain.

[@RiveroftheWither]

I think they didn't mention it because they don't know exactly what medication he was on. Suddenly stopping your anti-depressants has a drastically different impact then stopping your anti-psychotics... They can't apply that info into the analysis because they don't have enough info. In the 80's it was common for patients to be prescribed placebos instead of actual medication, for all we know that could be the case with Arthur too.

[@d3l3tes00n]

The system fails another yet again

[@informitas0117]

I'm schizophrenic, I've been on over 10 antidepressants and 4 or 5 antipsychotics, they don't help. They are poison. When I quit them I felt better. Sure the voices are louder but they finally make sense.

[@legoqueen2445]

@@informitas0117 I hope you're doing alright mate. Schizophrenia is a tough gig. I have chronic depression and CPTSD and that's hard enough.

[@phoenixsoren]

I love the fact that before this movie was released, news outlets said "This movie will start riots" but after its release they went "Please start riots so we can be right."

[@captainteeko4579]

Well riots did happen shortly after nationwide in the US but definitely NOT because of this film

[@Missjunebugfreak]

It's also fucked up how much the media practically wanted a mass shooting to happen because of this film. Just to paint it in a bad light.

[@sandywolfr26]

@@Missjunebugfreak they was hoping for another movie theater shooting like the dark knight movie had. Remember that one guy who dressed like the joker and shot up a movie theater

[@hyperbolicraider4848]

The irony is instead of riots ppl and tourists went to the stairs that Phoenix was dancing on and took pics on it😂

[@sydneyd2094]

The media did a MAJOR crime against this movie. In no way was this movie even related to inceldom.

[@sporeham1674]

I adore this movie. It's painfully uncomfortable to watch, it feels almost as if you're following a real man without his knowledge to me. First time I saw it, I walked home through the city and felt DEAD. The feeling didn't leave me for weeks, it was very impactful for me.

[@Bored_Barbarian]

“The worst part of having a mental illness is that people expect you to behave as if you don't” As someone who has adhd and autism, very few quotes have hit home more than that.

[@Finalizor]

Does that mean I should stop trying to fit in (I deal with those two things as well plus anxiety and OCD)

[@Bored_Barbarian]

@@Finalizor pretending to try and fit in is called masking, and it can (depending on who your ask/what study/im not a doctor/ask your mental health professional) have negative affects on your life. To me there’s a difference between improvement and masking. If you feel yourself not talking about the life cycle of a fly during a conversation even though that’s something you’re really into, because you’re worried how people will perceive you, that’s masking. But, knowing when it’s normal to have random anecdotal conversations is different, as in, “oh, other folks are doing banter or sharing interests, I’ll share mine too”, is just improving social skills. You’re still being who you are, still sharing nerdy stuff or car facts or whatever your niche is. Personally, I’m horrible at sensing intent or emotions unless I know someone really well. I treat everything as what they say in terms of tone delivery. I’m getting better at analyzing tone and such, but still share nerdy D&D facts etc.

[@Finalizor]

@@Bored_Barbarian I'm a bit of a perfectionist and want to do things right but I have a hard time of knowing what the right thing is sometimes I don't think I'm capable of fitting in no matter how hard I try to, and even if I do it's not for very long And since I'm a Christian, mixing perfectionism in that creates a constant anxiety that only goes away when I escape with technology or other things I enjoy I can't let myself get left alone with my thoughts for too long The worst part is even when I'm trying to say things with the best intentions people sometimes take it the wrong way and it's so annoying I'm trying to do things right and to fit in and I fail a lot and sometimes I don't know if it's because I did do something wrong or if people just don't understand me I'm sure you understand what it's like to not have people understand you the right way

[@Bored_Barbarian]

@@Finalizor yeah. Half the time I’m worried my long-term girlfriend might be offended if I say something she takes the wrong way, (even though she reassures me it’s ok and that she knows I didn’t mean it like X even if I apologize in case she may have taken it like X). My .02 of recommendation would just be honest with people. “Hey friend group, just so you know I’m on the spectrum/may not aways get intent/say things the right way, but just know that I’m sorry if I offend you, please let me know if I do so I can try to be better in the future”. That way folks just know you may miss a joke or may not know the right response or pick up on someone’s mood if they are cryptic. Years ago, one of my exes was like “oh, you never noticed when I was putting hints about how I was feeling”, I was like “you literally know I have autism and I told you I’m not good at that stuff, I can’t read minds” 🤣😂 Thankfully my girlfriend now always makes sure she’s clear and always reassuring in case I seem worried or confused about what’s up with her.

[@Finalizor]

@@Bored_Barbarian I'm happy you have someone that can work with you And I hope I can find someone like that too However some people that might be aware you have autism like say some family members don't know how it affects you My aunt Assumes I do certain things on purpose probably because of the only boy out of her 3 kids that did things like burp on purpose Which I don't and I don't mean to sound condescending when I say certain things but people don't understand Not to mention there have been times they thought I was just being too anxious or worried when my anxieties were warranted One time I think I just might have a bit of a grudge for you is when we were camping at a lake and the air was pretty smoky but supposedly the fire was too far away to worry about...... We had to leave at like 11 p.m.- midnight As a cousin decided to leave because it was too smoky for her kid and it turns out the fire was at both sides of the road like a mile or two down from the camp By the time we packed up and we're leaving the officer's finally got there to tell everyone to leave tl;dr I hate that people brush off some of my worries when I have a legitimate reason to have some (not all) of them

[@meganngai1480]

I would really like if you guys reviewed a few episodes of Bojack Horseman! The therapy horse in season 6 reminds me so much of Jonathan (except Jonathan is actually good at what he does)

[@danielschroedinger2090]

To be fair, the therapy horse is not a therapist ;)

[@heyheyhayley4712]

I have only seen this movie once in the cinemas, it was with a friend who had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia, he struggled to finish it and we almost walked out but afterwards the conversation we had was so important and reminded us both that Mental Illness and Violence are not always linked.

[@hannahmetzger6622]

I hope your friend is doing better nowadays. :3. Love, hugs and props to you both from across the American pond!! :3. 🙂.

[@cindyhutchins9216]

I have disassociative episodes in times of very high stress and that's my reality sometimes. Needing to touch things to make sure they are real. It's terrifying

[@thathighguy6980]

Grounding... My therapist has me do it a lot in our sessions. I get in my own head so deep the memories and pain become real again. It's like a haunted house I need reminded isn't real anymore

[@cindyhutchins9216]

@@thathighguy6980 yeah, that's touching things for me. Grounding. I also decided this seems real so I'll just stay here.

[@thathighguy6980]

@@cindyhutchins9216 I hope my comment didn't come across as trying to correct. And I'm glad it helps you

[@cindyhutchins9216]

@@thathighguy6980 oh no. Not at all. More like connection. Nice to share experience!

[@em01455]

I understand that feeling. Disassociation sucks so much, it’s like being pulled out of your body and/or looking through an overexposed and gritty camera lens

[@TheDinkybird92]

Everything you said about him needing a male therapist is absolutely correct. Thats a strong point to make and really shows why things go so badly when he's not given a male therapist in the sequel, he's given a female, named Harleen Quinzell

[@truecountrymusicfan]

Honestly having gone through therapy for depression It was desturbing how the health care system left him in a state of abandonment . Sadly the real health care system that I experienced was similar to what they gave in this movie.

[@magnuscritikaleak5045]

US has the most unreliable health care system.

[@AngryReptileKeeper]

And if it's not complete abandonment, it's "here, just take these drugs since we're not actually going to work on the root issues of the problem you're here for. I've got other patients to see." And then, "oh, it's not working? Let's just increase your dosage until you're an emotionless zombie who sleeps their life away and becomes dangerously obese."

[@Moeller750]

I love the analysis and discussions of Cinema Therapy, but I have to admit, my favorite moments are when Jonathan and Alan just go full on college roommate-mode, grab a joke and run with it. "You do get a trailer, and people bring you nuts whenever you want them" "Remove these from my presence, they aren't salty enough" "Seriously, cashews" Cracked me up

[@egg_bun_]

Oh my god, that joke was amazing.

[@chillinvillain7800]

If we go to the doctor every year to get a check up on our physical health-even though we’re healthy-just to make sure, then we should do that with our mental and emotional health as well

[@stefs3460]

The problem is a lot of people don't have access to healthcare. Even if you qualify for assistance, getting it is another story. If you do have access to healthcare however, I agree! Women are already used to going to at least 2 doctors a year and many people go to dentists. Going to a therapist is just like going to those other drs. Physical therapy as a preventive once a year ( helping you with occupational hazards) would also be a good idea for comprehensive care.

[@chillinvillain7800]

@@stefs3460 this too!! Our health care system needs some major tweaks, and this is definitely one of them

[@stefs3460]

@@chillinvillain7800 Yes this is a case of to save a dollar they spend 3. Preventative care by once a year check ups, screenings, dentist visit, psychotherapy prevent much more expensive problems later! It's like householder and cars, if you maintain them and fix small problems you avoid much more expensive problems later or possibly losing the entire structure or vehicle. With a house or car this is a waste of money because you have to buy s replacement. There's no replacement if you waste a person 😢

[@Poglavnit_Pferdefuhrer]

Don't forget even *now* a *ton* of insurance companies consider mental ailments analogous to "cosmetic surgery" aka will *barely* cover it, if at all. Because it _seemingly_ "does not affect the patient's ability to work" .... Until, of course, it does.

[@Dowlphin]

Theory and praxis. It's a lot of hassle to actually do that, takes time, and because it is quantity-over-quality, you get only those checks that are most likely to miss the things that would be most important to know, and even worse, can create a false sense of certainty when you are crudely checked for something and given a green light even though a more thorough test might give a red light. The physical health care sector is just as much in managed, suppressed, painted-over crisis as the mental health care system. It is systemic, so the same thing expresses itself in many ways. I have two GPs that I cannot stand, no option of going to another one, and my GP is now a KZbin channel. The KZbin doctor helped me in many ways while I cannot remember my GPs ever actually having helped me, but they did bad stuff. The sky is falling and people are still cheering like it's some exciting Hollywood blockbuster.

[@Zazabazaa]

As somebody with mental illness and a developmental disorder, I viewed this movie as a show of what would happen if society reached a breaking point, through the lense of a citizen that was trying to get better but was repeatedly beaten down for it. He wasn't always a bad person, he had kindness in him, he had care, but he was also not well and the more that people bullied him the more he began to crack until he officially lost it. Mental illness is not bad but when it comes from dark places and that person is drowned in that darkness with no escape, no way to breathe, nobody there to pull them out, it can end up following someone in their decent into a dark and demented mindset. It's the same as how I feel about Jinx from Arcane; it's not the mental illness that's the problem, it's the society that beats the person down until they see no other option other than being a murderous psychopath.

[@tryandsaycecili]

During and after seeing this movie I was so incredibly uncomfortable and sad for Arthur. Some people chuckled in the theater at some parts where Arthur is in his episodes or when he gets abused and I just felt nothing but heartache for him. "I loved it but I didn't like it" was definitely my take away.

[@cartoonmaster2401]

Something tells me there's some Jokers irl...

[@lucyk9136]

Allan: “I loved it, but I didn’t like it.” This line could be about relationships too…

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

I've been in a few of those. They're... weird.

[@IceMetalPunk]

Actually, the way I felt about this movie fits perfectly with my last relationship: "I loved it dearly and liked it a lot, but man was it toxic, one-sided, and dangerous."

[@adityabairathi]

1:30 : Would they have become villains...? 1:32 : Would they have turned to villainy...? You see why he's the therapist and he needs therapy? Your choice of words makes a tremendous impact. I love seeing fellow therapists on YT channels like these

[@natesmodelsdoodles5403]

*Implying that villainy can be a very unhealthy coping mechanism.

[@charlielambert5301]

The thing I love most about this movie is how uncomfortable I feel from the very beginning to the very end when watching it. Masterpiece

[@Caca-yq2di]

I’ve been thinking about that so much lately, but the media and stuff that I love the most is always one that leaves the biggest impact on me, which is always due to disturbing image. Joker is my favourite live action movie, Coraline is my favourite animated movie, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is my favourite book and Scissors by Slipknot is my favourite song. All of those I admire so much for making me feel deeply uncomfortable/unsettled/sad

[@sunflowerz1219]

I would love to see an episode covering Loki from Marvel's Thor movies

[@katarinawikholm5873]

Preferably with references to the real Norse Loki that Marvel cannibalised.

[@LizGridleyArtist]

yes please, I raise my hand for this

[@AroojBasit]

Yes to this!

[@octavia2060]

Especially some insight on the relationship between thor and loki

[@MerijnH]

@@octavia2060 and between Loki and Odin and Frigga. Serious daddy issues

[@metaltsigga]

This movie affected me so much, that I was literally pushing back a panic attack for the last 30 minutes of it in the theatre and simultaneously wanted to pull through because I could not let it end with that feeling. I admire how great it pulled me into the "shoes" of the Joker, and I remember the great relief I felt, when he stopped trying to push back his frustration and just let it all out. I never ever had a movie experience where I felt relieved by watching a man kill, where I felt a panic attack soothed by murder sceenes. And I'm the one who hates gore, because I always empathize with the reciever of violence on screen. In short, to say I admire the makers is an understatement, and I don't understand critics, who say it is not a good origin film. I do get the issue on stigmatisation though.

[@elfsieben1450]

Thanks for sharing that! ❤️

[@thewildcardperson]

Imagine what a old boomer thinks of your statement relieved by muddr scense your not wrong bit they'll look at it a certain way

[@metaltsigga]

@@thewildcardperson Yeah, pulled out of context it really makes me sound like I have issues :D They'd probably imagine a person who likes to sneak into fresh crime scenes with conflicted glee, or hide in a bad neighborhood with a sandwich to wait for a mugging - just like a peaceful "birdwatching". Creepy.

[@nataliawashington872]

Basically moral of the story: if critics say it’s bad, it’s actually a good movie

[@elmerandrewcrowley2822]

@@nataliawashington872 this right here

[@AARgirl12]

This comment is really for Alan and Jonathan - I just want to say that I LOVE your videos, so so much. I've been watching for a while, and I still quickly squeal every time I see ya'll post. I've been in therapy for all my adult life, and I love it to death - and Jonathan is an AMAZING therapist! I also love movies, and I love hearing Alan's take on the film making process and learning fun little secrets about certain things. I also see that ya'lls videos are slowly getting better and better, which is so cool to see. I hope you continue making these beautiful videos as long as ya'll see fit, and I promise to continue watching and supporting you guys. Please keep posting so I can keep secretly watching at my desk at work - it helps the day go by so much faster :) LOVE YOU GUYS!

[@CinemaTherapyShow]

Jonathan here. I'm screenshotting this comment to enid to Alan, I love it so much. You've made our day. From both of us, thank you. Truly.

[@Marlyjade]

As my mom says "everyone should go to therapy, whether you need it or not." Because we all have issues we need to bypass and there are specialized practices for all issues, for everything from mental illness to minor issues with motivation. My mother used to be a family therapist who worked with problem parents and children who were mentally disabled. It's nice to see that this channel is spreading that message, that the mentally ill aren't the problem but how we are treated by others. I don't have anything super outstanding and obvious but I have Autism, ADHD, anxiety, and depression. I will act weird in public sometimes, like if I'm tired. I want my mom to watch this channel because she would enjoy it so much. She used to use movies to teach about what certain disorders look like to both staff and patients. Finding Nemo was her golden goose because it had many examples

[@izarawanjiru]

Your mom is right 💜✨

[@umanuu]

even healthy people gotta eat vegetables

[@hanri6367]

I struggle with depression, and I gotta say, I wish the movie came with a trigger warning. Or that I waited to see it until I was in a better mind space, because I left the cinema feeling unbelievably heavy, and I was in a bad space for about a week after. (It was still one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, though)

[@loryhell6982]

Same

[@ursulabach566]

In my country it was in cinemas for like a week, then removed because of the impact it had on people and then put back with warnings and you could only get in the cinema if you were +18 years old

[@alwaysprimavera]

This is so important. Trigger warnings should always come with movies. I've been triggered so many times watching movies and series it's ridiculous.

[@NostalgiaArtist]

i always look up "insert movie name here content warnings" and look at what people are saying before i go see/watch something. some shows/movies have sent me into several week or even several month long spirals so i have to be careful U_U

[@Ingemaja]

I decided to stream the movie when it was available for streaming in my country. I kept pausing every 20 minutes or so to walk around or doing other things while simply trying to calm down. I broke it into two evenings of watching this movie, and that was heavy. Can’t imagine how it felt to watch in the cinema. I totally agree about it needing a warning, and I’m sorry to hear that it left you in such a bad space. Hope you’re doing better now

[@KountKristyl]

Connected to this it would be interestin to see Cinema Therapy cover Harley Quinn in both Suicide Squad (the bad film) and Birds of Prey (the much better film) and how she deals with and rises above an abusive relationship.

[@IceMetalPunk]

What about in the Harley Quinn animated series?

[@KountKristyl]

@@IceMetalPunk I mean Harley in general is a fascinating character

[@IceMetalPunk]

@@KountKristyl Agreed! I've never liked Batman, so I didn't really know anything about Harley Quinn until the new animated series. I fell in love with the character immediately, and then I saw Birds of Prey and realized that the portrayal doesn't matter, the core of the character is *amazing.* The juxtaposition between her being a brilliant psychiatrist while also being batshit crazy is just... well, you said it best, it's fascinating.

[@lovorka3321]

Joker is a pure example of full on abusive psycho boyfriend how he treats her like a garbage.

[@khloebartolo4133]

i liked suicide squad it was my like first superhero and super villain i watch that i remember

[@tortiffy]

This movie was very difficult for me to watch because I felt like I was watching a 'bad end' for my brother, who suffers heavily from mental illness. The people I was watching it with enjoyed it but weren't crying by the end of it, some of the scenes hit so close to home. It is such a good, uncomfortable movie.

[@TheHammy1987]

When I watched the film at the cinema, I cried for more than half of its duration, simply because I thought it was so incredibly unfair how he was treated by the people around him, I felt so sorry for him. It was an extremely uncomfortable experience but I still want to watch it again sometime - I do believe it can teach empathy and compassion, at least that was what I took away from it. I just don't know when I'll be ready for crying that much again...Thank you for analyzing the psychological aspects, this was a very fascinating insight!

[@TheHammy1987]

@Suebian Oh thank you, that's a very nice thing to say - and it made me smile :)

[@alissey]

I usually cry a lot when watching sad films. For instance, when I watched Angel's Egg by Mamoru Oshii, I then cried for 3 days and mourned for 6 days more. When starting to watch the Joker, I prepared a pack of tissues and was expecting to shed buckets of tears, based on what I'd heard about the movie. Surprisingly, however, it wasn't what happened... Instead, I felt detached and alienated from Arthur even at the most disturbing and traumatizing moments. And I’m the person who usually fully immerses myself in the characters’ emotions. I am wondering why it wasn’t the case with me here. I felt like the film creators went overboard with portraying how gruesome Arthur's life is.. It's just hard to believe that such an unremitting sequence of traumatizing events is possible in real life. (You're watching every new scene and you think: okay, I’m expecting something bad here - are they gonna beat him up? And they do.) Another reason why I felt detached might be that Arthur is portrayed in a realistic way, and we are deliberately shown all his unsettling and unflattering traits as well. Like, when he’s stalking the woman, having awkward fantasies of being hugged by Murray on stage, or putting his fingers in little Bruce Wayne’s mouth to force a smile on him. It isn’t teary, but rather unsettling and uncomfortable to watch. You get a lot of “fremdschämen” moments. I felt that if I met him in real life at one of these moments, I might’ve been creeped out.. Which is terribly sad to realize, because I understand really well that Arthur is one of those people who have a lot of kindness and potential and who deserve to be loved and cared for, but whose social awkwardness adds to their mental issues and trauma even more. And problems with socialization is a vicious circle for which they can’t be blamed. So yes, I believe the movie has taught me to be more understanding towards people who are somehow different.

[@christinaandre6286]

I love how you take about the exercise on schizophrenia. I teach in a BSN program and we do a similar exercise where the students have to wear headphones with the voices and they have to perform a series of activities including a written component and an interview. They wear the headphones for 2 hours. Very impactful for students

[@Femininelovevibes]

I do t understand, why they say he is bipolar when clearly he shows so many signs of Schizophrenia

[@luvswinwin]

@@Femininelovevibes I mean, he’s skilled therapist… I’d take his word over yours.

[@reachfanatic1234]

@@Femininelovevibes well they may not want to bring it up for many reasons and they explain it early that after combing over multiple sources they were comfortable with the Bipolar diagnosis and discussing that. Along with that the schizophrenia symptoms aren’t as numerous compared to Bipolar. With schizophrenia, in terms of the DSM5, there are criteria that people will exhibit that make it easier to diagnose. For the Joker it’s mostly just the psychosis or altered reality he experienced where he was with the apartment neighbor the whole time throughout the movie. But with the BPD it shows in several ways as explained in the video. I’d say it’s to just cut down on the runtime of the video rather than them just not caring or understanding it

[@informitas0117]

I'm diagnosed with schizophrenia (well, schizoaffective depressive type) and while their little exercise is probably better than nothing the absolute variety the beings have is all from whispers from the ventilation to booming voices from the sky. They can be talking to you for weeks. They don't stop. You have to try to understand what they want, read the signs in the walls or water droplets, these impossible symmetry of shapes. When it goes badly it's just insects all over. For me that is, the bad signals get translated differently by all "schizophrenics".

[@elfsieben1450]

There is something similar for depression. It's not a perfect simulation, but the experience touches on some of the surface symptoms and how they affect your abilities and mood: You are clothed in aurally insulating headphones, small additional lead weights on your torso, back, arms and legs, clumsy overshoes and gloves, you are told to walk through a long dark tunnel, and while you do so a calm, low, monotonous and slow voice relentlessly tells you nothing but destructive, loathing, pessimistic thoughts about your self-worth, abilities, relationships, your chances to succeed at anything, to build or keep up a life on your own, you are being shamed about how people supposedly see you, your lack of importance to and harmful influence on them, how you are essentially different from them, and basically that you were better off dead. Before and after your walk through the tunnel you are given a standardized test with scaled multiple choice questions, asking about how you currently feel, how you think about yourself and self-evaluate your skills in certain areas, your social standing, and also including some cognitive tasks for you to solve as part of the test. Both subjective mood and self-evaluation, but also objective performance go significantly down with most people, some more, some less, but significantly so. Nocebo effect.

[@GallifrAngel]

“It gets you to empathize with someone who is a villain, and that’s not something we generally like to do” People whose favorite characters are Loki and Anakin Skywalker and Prince Zuko (aka me): 😬 yeah...I’d never wanna do that

[@DerAykac]

Loki redeems himself, Anakin dies and becomes Darth Vader, Zuko grows old, wise and peaceful. The Joker... that´s kind of a different story i´d say.

[@Xehanort10]

You can be interested in villainous characters and even feel sorry for the more sympathetic ones as long as you know that what happened to them doesn't excuse what they do and their actions are unjustified.

[@bupekabamba6017]

I sympathized with Amy in Gone Girl and Joker

[@MargauxNeedler]

@@DerAykac still, we can sympathize with why he's locked up in a mental asylum... and are able to see how it could have been avoided.

[@bryanwoods3373]

@@Xehanort10 One thing I noticed from people's reactions to the movie was how so many kept saying that Arthur was wrong for becoming homicidal and that the film was trying to justify and excuse that descent into homicide. But I believe they missed the point. A large part of the current mindset is that "everyone has excuse, I have reasons." They blame others for their actions without concern for context, but they know themselves and their own reasons for their own actions. A major part of Arthur's descent is that everyone that was mean/cruel to him viewed themselves as just one moment and not enough to do anything. But they aren't seeing all the others that are also pushing him down. And then that one tiny snowflake is too much and causes the avalanche. Sure, Arthur is responsible for his own actions, but everyone else is also responsible for their actions against him that helped lead him to making those choices. Just like we need to be more aware of how our small actions can have a greater impact on the lives of others.

[@rogerdickerson6390]

30:32 -- Note how out of focus the crowd is. Arthur may think of these people as his tribe, but only because he has never had a real connection to anyone. He isn't really connected to the people in this crowd, either; they are blurry, faceless, abstractions of people. But they are exalting Arthur, and that matches Arthur's delusional ideas of what his relationships are supposed to be like. The people in the crowd have totally the wrong idea about Arthur, too; the relationship is broken from both directions.

[@elfsieben1450]

Great observation! This film is so densely filled with symbolism, I should watch it once again. I might have missed a few more details the first two times around.

[@kyrus4989]

My mom made this observation to me because we watched it together when I got out of the psych ward. She was concerned I would get the idea that his ending was happy because he got acceptance and she made it clear that people will try to take advantage of me as a mentally ill person and that the people praising him in the crowd at the end do not actually accept him or have his best interests at heart, they are using him to push their message.

[@WitchlingFairyelle]

As someone who had rapid cycling bipolar I appreciate you discussing it. No one ever talks about it

[@aschmi-mu9110]

I like, that Alan was really able to show off his knowledge of film making. I never would have recognized even a fraction of the things he mentioned.

[@naenre21]

Honestly this makes me hopeful. My last therapist told me right in the door of a couple that didn't want help and that he was 2 years from retirement so didn't care if I got better or not. Great therapy.

[@elfsieben1450]

Alas there's them therapeuts out there, and they can rely on the fact that there's not much affordable competition around, so some poor bastard will always knock on their door and stay with them out of sheer desperation. But there are also good ones. Don't give up! 🖤

[@dyvfsdgdrgkhgderx9282]

I had a therapist that was a wonderful woman. Her life was really hard she was in the foster system for a long time and she ran away from home often when she was adopted. She hung out with a bad crowd and her principal told her she would never turn into anything in life. She went on to get her degree in psychology and saw him at the college and he said “ I never thought I’d see you studying” and she replied “yep and I’m actually about to get my masters degree.” She’s gone through a husband passing. She is so sweet sometimes people come in and they don’t have any money and she still treats them. I was worried to see her because I was gay and she was a woman in her 60s and I was worried she would judge me but she didn’t. Don’t lose hope there are great therapists. I don’t see her anymore but I hope she’s doing so well bc she really deserves it.

[@lisakay2810]

As someone who works in a prison, not many people that come in are "crazy" quote unquote. I find it so sad the ones that come in that legitimately have mental health issues and don't know what they did wrong don't have more opportunities for help before it comes to that. When they get out we just send them out in the world hoping they do better even though we aren't equipped to help them the way they need.

[@monkey8823]

it must be heartbreaking seeing it happen ):

[@newmoon766]

As a type 2 bipolar person with a minor degree in neuropsychology, I find this so interesting. I have twice experienced episodes of uncontrollable laughter, to the point where I was splashing cold water on my face in an attempt to stop it. That was a few decades before I was appropriately diagnosed. Thanks. You are both entertaining and educational. : )

[@jeffreysmith236]

I am not sure that what you experienced is the same as mine. I have had 3 uncontrollable laughter attacks, but I absolutely remember what triggered them. All three lasted for minutes, and how many minutes is unknown, and I ended up on the floor for all of them. When I would stop, I would look at the trigger again and relapse. It has taken decades for those triggers to lose their power, now I just smile. I did not resist them in the slightest, I let them exhaust themselves and was grateful for the release. I wish I could find something else to trigger me again like that, I desperately miss that kind of laughter, it has been 25 years since I laughed that completely. And now I am sad, very sad. Laughter is very therapeutic, and is needed daily. PERHAPS you were needing that release so badly that your mind delivered it, not at all caring whether or not you thought you wanted it? Our subconscious often does know what we need more than we do. I do not know your issues, and do not claim to.

[@newmoon766]

Hi Jeffrey. One of my "laugh attacks" involved an all-nighter writing an undergraduate paper, and a dumb joke about peas. I'd have been happy to let it play itself out if not for the time pressure. Laughter is certainly therapeutic, and I've often wondered about the biochemistry involved. Absurdity is a defense against insanity, for certain. 🤕 More often, my all-nighters have ended in uncontrollable weeping, which arguably also has cathartic properties. I'd like to see research on those topics, but it would be very hard to design. 😏 @@jeffreysmith236

[@ishkajules]

I had to pause for a moment when Alan said "this movie gets you to empathize with a villain" because that is EXACTLY what Batman does. (Maybe not so much the more recent versions of movie Batman, but definitely Batman: The Animated Series) Batman consistently shows empathy and compassion for most of the villains he faces even as he physically beats them down, and pushes for their rehabilitation in Arkham. Batman literally does what Cinema Therapy is doing in this episode.

[@catbatrat1760]

Dude, my exact thoughts!! My impression of Batman is from the DCAU, so yeah, I do see him as someone who is intimidating as all hell but surprisingly compassionate deep down. "For all that fierce exterior, I've never met anyone who cared as deeply about his fellow man as Bruce Wayne." - Amanda Waller, Justice League Unlimited, "Epilogue" The Batman: TAS episode "Lock-Up" is also a good example of that, especially at the end when Batman is explaining to Lock-Up why he's fighting him when, in Lock-Up's mind, they're on the same side.

[@jujublue4426]

Batman saw his parents die in front of him, it's very traumatic especially for a child that age so that's where his compassion and desire to help come from.

[@benish3890]

My favorite part if the movie is that it doesn't show us what it's like to live in Gotham, it shows us what it's like to live in Arthur's head.

[@ilovecoffeeandrobots]

I’m here so early Alan hasn’t even cried yet

[@SpookedeeB]

HAH 😂

[@joopizdebest]

lool give it time

[@mirora2212]

Well that’s early

[@mossydreamz]

the crawling into the fridge scene was so upsettingly relatable to me, just wanting to get into a dark cool space away from it all. i found myself thinking "oh man, yeah, that would be a really nice reprieve in there"

[@miriam3916]

I have maladaptive daydreaming tendencies, and while they arent as vivid or severe as hallucinations, seeing Arthur's departure from reality, all his fantasies about being cared for or these extreme powerful fantasies really hit close to home. It's a coping mechanism for dealing with a reality that's both too empty and too painful

[@Safiyahalishah]

I didn't realise they now had a name for this. I'm both glad and disappointed: glad because it's uncomfortably common and deserves to have its own field of research; disappointed because... it's uncomfortably common and deserves to have its own field of research. I've been daydreaming to a truly excessive and unhealthy degree since I was a child, and it's a trend that I have been seeing a lot in people my age and younger. It's not just a coping mechanism, it's being described in psychological fields as a behavioural addiction. And no wonder, when it's so difficult to stop even when we're in a good headspace. I know for a fact I would find life less stressful if I wasn't indulging in useless escapism for so many hours a day. Why deal with the real world when you can just think about something else? Coincidentally, I am also a monolingual biracial person named Miriam. It's a small world.

[@revinaque1342]

Wow, I go through the exact same thing when I'm under a lot of stress! I had the most vivid daydreams in university. I've been really stressed lately, and I've started having vivid daydreams again. There's this whole alternate universe in my brain where I'm a successful actress collaborating on a reality show with Song Joong-ki in Korea, complete with a backstory of having relationships with other actors I've admired in the past, with timelines that line up with their real-world projects and relationships. I work in healthcare, I've never been interested in acting or performing, and I've only ever been to Korea once as a tourist. 🤦

[@RozyPoyo]

@@revinaque1342 bro same. Except it was harry potter and pokemon. I recently got the idea for an original idea and am now trying to figure out how to write it. I like it, but sometimes it can be a bit much.

[@AnarchyWillows]

i have maladaptive daydreams consistently to the point where it's affecting my schoolwork. it started out to cope with abuse and now i just can't function without being able to escape into my mind when i need to.

[@tynameowth]

i used to daydream so much it got unhealthy and was affecting my daily life. I would just think of scenarios even including my friends/partner, family and at some point i would be so convinced some of it has happened it messed me up and got me into lot of uncomfortable situations. Thinking somebody said something to me only to realize it was my daydream and not reality. I have been conciously deciding not to do it as often and for few years now it's been better. I still fantasise sometimes about different/better life for myself and use people i know for the scenarios but i am more aware it's not reality and only do it when i am really struggling. I had no idea it was an actual medical problem, makes me wonder how many people have similar issues and don't know it either.

[@benjewmin2]

I had untreated clinical depression for about 10 years. The empathy I feel for the joker, the grief, feeling of no control, loneliness... the joker movie makes me cry sometimes, when just trying to comprehend how lonely and in pain he was before going off the edge... really powerful show as usual, but this movie means a lot to me...

[@freakfire74]

Hope youre doing better now, Benjamin. Thanks for sharing and take care.

[@potatug1212]

I feel you. I've only recently got myself treated despite being depressed for so many years, so the movie just resonated with me. The isolation, loneliness and pain just hits so close to home. I hope you're feeling better now as we go through this.

[@benjewmin2]

I appreciate the concern... Y’all can prolly attest, you cannot believe the quality of life achievable when you don’t face your demons alone... I’m sure they know, but Alan and Jon do a dam good job building a platform to, if nothing else, remind us that we are NOT alone. Drink water and go outside a lil ❤️ y’all

[@fashionbyarpita9215]

As soon as I saw the title I remembered azula from avatar the last airbender, it still gives me chills whenever I remember her scene where she hallucinates her mom

[@firestorm165]

"Hello future me" did an absolutely amazing job breaking down Azula's character from a psychological perspective and I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't already. I'd put a link to it but for some reason KZbin doesn't like that

[@fashionbyarpita9215]

@@firestorm165 ya nowadays for some reason youtube isn't allowing to put links in comments

[@nikitagupta8900]

ATLA would be such a good episode!

[@fashionbyarpita9215]

@@firestorm165 but ya i have watched that video already

[@AroojBasit]

Yes to this!