A musical horror?

Joker: Folie à Deux (Madness shared by two; 2024)
Director: Todd Philips

No matter how much they suck at anything, adults are not supposed to tell children they are wrong. They are supposed to be encouraged, only showered with positive vibes. It is believed to give them self-confidence and stretch them to greater heights beyond their capacity. 

Nobody is graded. Everyone gets a medal for participating. Everyone is a winner, and he is exceptional and made to believe. 

I have news for you. Go into the world and realise that nobody gives two hoots to you. Everybody is in a hurry. Nobody has time to listen and talk to you. Every man is an island.

To make matters worse, the others have no qualms about stepping on or over you to achieve their goals. Losing you is just one step closer to their goals. There is no time to coach or wait for you. It is a man-eat-man world out there.

Living under the hawking eyes of helicopter parenting or even chip-implanted surveillance, these snowflakes find themselves naked, exposed to the cruel elements of humankind. They once thought everyone was laughing with them all. Much to their disappointment, they realise that they were laughed at. They were not the Joker that everyone loved, but the butt of everyone's joke.

The question is when they will realise that reality and how they will handle it.

After the successful run of Joker in 2019, the filmmakers decided to push their luck. Joker (2109) did well as an evil, dysfunctional character from society's low rung, venting his anger in broad daylight in front of TV cameras. The audience felt for the Joker, and the movie garnered much attention and accolades. Riding on Joker's popularity, the scriptwriters must have taken his fans for clowns (or idiots). They roped in Lady Gaga to pair as Harley Queen, Joker's love interest. We get it that both characters were discontented with their parents and turned out dysfunctional. Both of them blame their respective parents for their predicaments. We get it. 

The shared madness between them and the periodic bursting into songs did not go well with fans. There should be something more concrete than occasional glancing between characters, falling in love, songs and soliloquies. 2/5.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It's cold out there!

Joker (2019)

It was a time when I was a teenager. I had been selected to play the role of Jesus Christ in a pantomime. It was an Easter play depicting the Resurrection. Obviously, the most alluring girl in the Sunday class, Catherine, was cast as Mary Magdelene. Everything went on all, and the show was enjoyed by everyone.

I realised the hard way that people are generally not nice, and children are imps. Life is not fair. There is no justice on Earth, and we are kidding ourselves that there is a higher judge out there who would mete out appropriate justice when the time is ripe. As if pacifying a wailing child, we convince ourselves, rather foolishly that payback may happen in the afterlife or next birth.

After the show, the children started teasing me as 'Black Jesus'. Of course, I did not know then that Jesus may have had Negroid features, but I felt particularly offended with the word 'black'. The teasing went on, joined by the other. One particular chap, Jeremy, I think his name was, was particularly aggressive in provoking a reaction. I chased him. When I could not catch with him, I removed my shoe and threw at him. By a twist of fate, it hit him painfully on his back to invoke a counter-reaction. Just about then, the Sunday School Master walked in, only to witness Jeremy getting the shoe treatment.

So began the talk session and after listening out both sides of the story (to be fair), the Master told both Jeremy and me to apologise to each other with a handshake.

I felt that I had been wronged. I had been told to say something that was not my fault at all. There I was minding my own business doing what a good student should do, and there comes somebody to provoke anger, and when I retaliate, I have to apologise. It appeared unfair, but that seems to be the goings of the world. When someone jumps a red light at an intersection to hit you when you are free to go, the fault of the offender is only 80%. The onus also falls on you to ensure that the road is free of traffic before you move. So say, my lawyer friends.

I have many received many WhatsApp messages depicting

him as a Joker. His mannerisms, accent and subject matter 
may not make sense to many but beneath all that is wisdom
that is screaming to be deciphered. Nithyananda of 'the me 
in you' fame. ©Nithyananda.org.

Nature is also not kind. Try spending a night outside in the cold. If you do not die of hypothermia, probably a wild beast will kill you. Play football in the torrential rain, if you do not slip and fall, maybe you would be struck by lightning. Living carelessly in the wild may expose you to zoonotic diseases, parasites in the soil, in arthropods and even the plants and water which are said to be the elixirs of life. They are all just out to get you. What does not kill you only makes you stronger. Life is just not fair. Life is not a bed of roses. It is not a reward.

I started having a soft spot for the cartoon character 'The Joker', especially so after watching Heath Ledger in 'Dark Knight' and his sad ending. This movie just cemented my liking. It highlights the plight of the little men in this world.

We all want to do our things in this world; indulge in niceties, do our things with our loved ones and hopefully, pave a unique path for them to tread. We think that by obeying the rules and setting our life path along the lines set by those who have been, we will be okay. We are deluded into thinking hard work and obedience equal success and happiness. Sadly, this is far from the truth.

There is a constant plot to swindle the masses by those in power to cow them into submission. The poor are their target whenever their economic pursuit hits a brick wall. Again the oppressed gets the blame and the brunt of sufferings when hardship hits a community.

'Joker' shows such a scenario. The divide between the haves and have nots have spread so extensive that the crushed are fighting back. Jokers are the scorns of the system who periodically rise to kick the society in the behind to jolt it to reality. 

They are essentially revolutionaries who make their political statements through noticeable means. Jokers cringe in the inside to make others laugh. At one time, people thought Jesus of Nazareth was a joker - asking his followers to turn the other cheek when struck! 

A good show 4.8/5.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.