{"id":5548,"date":"2016-05-11T21:38:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T16:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5548"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:13:00","slug":"joker-not-incel-manual-arthur-fleck-deserves-our-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5548","title":{"rendered":"Joker is Not an Incel Manual. People Like Arthur Fleck Deserve Our Empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><div class=\"container page-content\"><p><span class=\"dropcap\">&#8220;I<\/span><\/p><\/div><p>rresponsible\u201d. \u201cMesmerising\u201d. \u201cCinematic masterpiece\u201d. \u201cGrim\u201d. \u201cShallow\u201d. \u201cHauntingly beautiful\u201d. \u201cOperatic\u201d. These are some of the epithets bandied about Todd Phillips\u2019 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/joker-review-joaquin-phoenix-todd-phillips-the-dark-knight\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The polarising reactions are proof that the film has touched a nerve. Even though my mind wasn\u2019t blown by the film, I did find myself on the other side of the fence that promptly labelled it an incel manual. I saw <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as a cautionary tale of an incel \u2013 an alienated, impoverished, mentally ill, self-pitying, part-time rent-a-clown who nurtures aspirations of being a standup comic and is unable to come to terms with his lack of talent. It struck me as a character study of a man-child with a persecution complex that fuelled his vengeful rage.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is set against the backdrop of a seedy Gotham city replete with a garbage strike and disproportionate distribution of wealth. Arthur Fleck (the inimitable Joaquin Phoenix) is in state-sponsored therapy and on seven different kinds of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/vice\/prescription-pills-addiction-depression-family\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">medication<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. What happens when his counselling and source of medication are suddenly withdrawn by the city and his colleague, Randall offers him a weapon?\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m not supposed to have a gun,\u201d is Fleck\u2019s primary response. He is not the one to seek out the pistol. Here, Randall serves as a stand-in for the system that lends him the firearm, defunds<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/health\/loneliness-caregiver-mental-health-disease-illness\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mental health<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and shapes the metamorphosis of Fleck from a victim to a perpetrator.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even then, the film never denies that Arthur Fleck turns into a psychopathic, nihilistic murderer. What most angry criticism of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tends to have missed is that getting inside the headspace of a culprit is not tantamount to validating it. Likewise, acknowledgement of mental health does not translate into negation of accountability. \u00a0<\/span>\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1570802654.jpg\" alt=\"joker_movie_mental_health\" width=\"724\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-55300\" \/>\n<figcaption>\n<p>But perhaps why I found myself drawn to the ideas in Joker was because they challenged my obstinately held principles and posed moral dilemmas.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Observing Fleck like a counsellor would dissect their patient, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tries to identify the patterns of the mind at its most degenerate. If the social commentary seems feeble, it\u2019s not due to the lack of intent but because of the missteps in its writing. The depiction of an uncaring Gotham came across as preposterous and one-note. In the film, the residents of Gotham have unreasonably vast reservoirs of derision for Fleck: He\u2019s ridiculed by his boss, beaten up by strangers, and mocked by Murray (Robert De Niro), a talk show host he admires. Grimy Gotham is a metaphor for New York in the \u201980s and the present-day caustic online social media universe that is teeming with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/dehradun-student-death-toxic-masculinity-bullying\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bullies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and trolls. But to the film\u2019s credit, Fleck is also established as a delusional, unreliable narrator, who looks at major insults and minor injustices with the same lens of oppression.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Documentary filmmaker and author, Michael Moore, best known for his work on globalisation and capitalism eloquently puts <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in perspective <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.good.is\/the-five-most-powerful-lines-from-michael-moores-masterful-joker-review\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by describing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the movie as one that is about the America that gave us <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/humour\/donald-trump-narendra-modi-india-usa\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, \u201cthe America which feels no need to help the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/grub\/restaurants-pubs-caste-system-india\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">outcast<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the destitute. The America where the filthy rich just get richer and filthier\u201d he states. Another reading of Fleck lies in psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung\u2019s model of the psyche where he imagines the \u201cShadow\u201d as \u201cthe thing a person has no wish to be\u201d. In cinema then, an anti-hero is a personification of this \u201cShadow\u201d.\u00a0According to Jung, these reprehensible, malevolent impulses need to be acknowledged for good mental health. This is precisely what <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> does.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another psychological theory that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">touches upon is the aftermath of generational or historical trauma. In the film, Fleck\u2019s mother is bedridden and we later learn, a delusional <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/love-and-sex\/dating-relationships-tinder\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">narcissist<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She stands by as her boyfriend inflicts abuse on her son. Not tethered to any meaningful relationship, the final straw that marks Fleck\u2019s shift from Arthur to Joker comes from revelations of his childhood. According to a collection of essays on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/intl\/blog\/the-me-in-we\/201205\/how-trauma-is-carried-across-generations\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">traumatic transmission<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, edited by M. Gerard Fromm, \u201cwhat human beings cannot contain of their experience \u2014 what has been traumatically overwhelming, unbearable, unthinkable \u2014 falls out of social discourse, but very often onto and into the next generation as a chaotic urgency.\u201d\u00a0In that sense, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reaffirms the idea that most social evils like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pov\/upper-class-feminist-benefits-patriarchy\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">patriarchy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and anarchy begin at home.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p><i>Joker<\/i>  struck me as a character study of a man-child with a persecution complex that fuelled his vengeful rage. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But perhaps why I found myself drawn to the ideas in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was because they challenged my obstinately held principles and posed moral dilemmas. For me, Fleck didn\u2019t evoke sympathy as much as inquiry, underlined by a need to understand the sociology of his pathology. In an op-ed in The Guardian, writer Micah Uetricht dissects the film\u2019s message, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arthur has more than his share of problems, but a few of them would have been solved, or at least adequately and humanely managed, in a society whose budgets were oriented more towards people like him than Wayne. But he does not live in that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/arre-checklist-humans-of-housing-society\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">society<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and neither do we. Instead of public services and dignity, he gets that most American of consolation prizes: a gun, and the sense of respect that, while ultimately hollow, has long eluded him.\u201d<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar to<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Jordan Peele\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/us-review-jordan-peele-lupita-nyongo-america-get-out\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Us<\/span><\/i><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">also hypothesised the takeover by the disenfranchised recently. The anarchy in both the films pulsates with a similar intensity.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Joker <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is an acutely observed depiction of how the invisible and embittered are failed by the system that fosters gun culture. The most I can accuse <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is of not having the answers to the questions it highlights and it revels in the conundrum it poses. But on a whole,<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Joker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> incites empathy, not emulation.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What most angry criticism of Joker has missed is that getting inside the headspace of a culprit is not tantamount to validating it. That acknowledgement of mental health does not translate into negation of accountability. The film never denies that Arthur Fleck turns into a psychopathic, nihilistic murderer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":5551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[9437,9438,9439,9380,9440,707],"class_list":["post-5548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-arthur-fleck","tag-dc-universe","tag-gotham-city","tag-joaquin-phoenix","tag-joker-movie","tag-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Joker is Not an Incel Manual. People Like Arthur Fleck Deserve Our Empathy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What most angry criticism of Joker has missed is that getting inside the headspace of a culprit is not tantamount to validating it. 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People Like Arthur Fleck Deserve Our Empathy","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5548#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5548#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1570804791.jpg","datePublished":"2016-05-11T16:08:46+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-17T16:13:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#\/schema\/person\/f2437db83dd19b2b0980682d6db4be38"},"description":"What most angry criticism of Joker has missed is that getting inside the headspace of a culprit is not tantamount to validating it. That acknowledgement of mental health does not translate into negation of accountability. 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People Like Arthur Fleck Deserve Our Empathy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#website","url":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/","name":"Arr\u00e9","description":"In every person lies a creator and in every creator, an enterprise.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#\/schema\/person\/f2437db83dd19b2b0980682d6db4be38","name":"Dipti Kharude","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/800893b0eca6649dd50574f638da2886e4a2d650832396ac581a5d91029c5cfe?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/800893b0eca6649dd50574f638da2886e4a2d650832396ac581a5d91029c5cfe?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/800893b0eca6649dd50574f638da2886e4a2d650832396ac581a5d91029c5cfe?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dipti Kharude"},"url":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?author=77"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1570804791.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5550,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions\/5550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}