To unwind the tangle of events of the movie "Joker" perhaps the most correct decision would be to start from childhood. Arthur Fleck is a little boy who was adopted by Penny Fleck, a woman with mental disorders (intrusive thoughts, hallucinations, etc.). She worked most likely as a housewife for Thomas Wayne for a long time. He was a man with influence in Gotham City who tried to help the residents and renew the city from the ashes.
Arthur's childhood
Based on his childhood, we understand that Arthur was not a conflicted boy, his mother said: "He was always smiling", while at the same time her boyfriend was an aggressor and domestic abuser, beating not only his girlfriend but also injuring a little boy.
In this context, we can see that the child due to the physical abuse develops mental disorders. But, staying on topic, if we delve deeper into the movie itself, there may be another theory. Penny Fleck was in a love affair with Thomas Wayne, and he, as he has a high influence in society hid it, deliberately bringing Penny to delusions and obsessive thoughts, denying all intimate contacts with her, perhaps even he was a rapist, beating her and the child, as well as forging the adoption certificate in the card from the mental hospital.
Thinking about it, you can imagine such a picture yourself, because the movie itself changes and breaks all the frames, templates of your thinking, showing that reality and your idea of the world is incomparable with the universe in the main character's head. But let's go back to Arthur. Having seen in the movie that his childhood was cruel, we can say that the uncontrollable laughter of the main character as a mental disorder has already begun to develop. As described above, it was due to head trauma, in this case there are several more appropriate descriptions of the disorders:
1) laughter epilepsy developed by exposure to a benign tumor - hypothalamic hamartoma, with the person experiencing additional stress that results in uncontrollable laughter;
2) pseudobulbar syndrome: due to craniocerebral trauma a person violently cries or laughs for any reason, a neurological disease;
3) affective lability is characterized by emotional intemperance (fits of laughter and crying), may be a consequence of head trauma.
Youth of the protagonist
The next stage in the life of any person, of course, is school, college, university, but they were not shown in the movie, so we can only assume based on the image of the already adult Arthur. When we go to school, separated from our family, we are already in a social society trying to adopt norms and also bring them home.
In this context, we can see that the main character developed mental disorders such as psychopathy and sociopathy. Most likely, his peers did not understand him as a child, because he stood out among others, was "special" and as you can understand, society tried to make him an ordinary, "normal" person. Even the picture where he ran after the teenagers because of a plaque can say about the naivety of a child who has his toy taken away and has to fight for it. At the same time Arthur himself after being beaten by teenagers did not say that they were bad, labeling them as "Well, they are still children, they don't understand".
So let's return to the topic of psychopathy and sociopathy. They are associated with alienation from the social world, not accepting social norms and rules, permissiveness, aggressiveness, egoism. In this case, a person does not have a thinking disorder and therefore understands everything he or she does. Drawing the attention of society to themselves (this topic will be discussed in more detail below) telling on the program that the murder (which was in the subway) is the norm and in general was the liberation of all residents from scum like them, so they should be thankful for the rescue.
Have you developed an understanding of the main character yet?
Seeing a matured Arthur Fleck throughout the movie also gives us some clarity into his messed up life. Arthur lives with his mother who is sending and checking the mail every day, what do you think about this situation? Does the constant, daily monotonous activity that he has to put up with scare you? While also helping his mother by feeding her, bathing her, and of course, watching her favorite Murray Franklin program.
Having no personal space, being constantly in the "shackles" of his mother, he has to put up with what is happening, listening to the constant tantrums about Thomas Wayne. The protagonist, trying to find somewhere to find himself, goes deep into "black jokes" about death, violence and failed attempts in his childhood.
Let's stop at this point
If you see a notebook with jokes, you will immediately notice that Arthur not only wrote down his humor there, but also glued simple pictures, and also wrote everything that he had in his heart (what will change if I die, etc.). The constant negative thoughts, as well as the depression that develops, leads to bipolar disorder.
Note that at one moment Fleck is frustrated, withdrawn and unwilling to interact with the outside world, then shows hyperactivity, feels euphoric, dances, releasing all his emotions outward. This disease, as well as schizophrenia to a greater extent scientists are described as damage to human genes, that is, the disorder is at the genetic level.
That is why he needed pills to reduce activity and at least control some processes of his body. In the movie we see that Arthur attended sessions with a psychologist, and the incompetence of the specialist led to even greater misunderstanding of interaction with other people. Based on the fact that the help was only medication, he had to keep himself in control, but after social services started to close, the medication ended, he began to show full mental disorders, one of the key ones being visual hallucinations and delusions.
The paranoid syndrome characteristic of schizophrenia is an incurable disease, and for this reason alone, medication was able to slow the progression of the disease. The protagonist sees reality distorted, bringing in his own edits, which were not even there, taking hallucinations (everything related to the girl) as the truth. His mind plays tricks on him, trying to show this "norm of behavior", robot, house, girl, date. Also the lack of attention leads to these hallucinations, as well as the lack of friends, help, and in general a person who will just listen to him, as the psychologist was not there for him.
More about socialization
Arthur had no understanding of friendship, at work he was indirectly communicating with Randal and Gary, and when he heard Randal's lies he realized that no one was his friend, he was on his own, although there was Gary, who was friendly to him.
In general, work gave him pleasure as the protagonist himself said, after he tearfully begged not to fire him, but this event also became a trigger in his life. Loneliness within, mental illness, discontinuation of medication to maintain the condition, and the lack of someone to listen to him lead to these events.
Hallucinations, where Arthur, having watched a program with his mother on television, first sits as a mere spectator, and then the attention takes over, going on stage to Murray, hearing the "cherished words" that he dreamed of, he is overwhelmed with happiness. After, already rehearsing how to go back to reality to the host of the program, he talentedly hides the hatred with which he will come there.
Closing scene
Let's now move to the scene in which our protagonist, transferring people's attention to himself with the prank of kissing the doctor, still listens to negative jokes and barbs in his address, comes to the opinion that he imagined differently Murray. He thought he would be understood and listened to, but ends up killing the program host for revenge and lust for attention.
Crowd Effect
At the same time we see the predecessors of the Joker in the movie, "inspired" people with the same madness and rash actions.
This concept can be described as a crowd effect, groupthink, which pushes to make irrational decisions, understanding that it will remain unpunished. Decisions made in a crowd are mostly biased and less rational than those made individually, getting out of the system, realizing that there is a person who broke it, gave freedom and free will to emotions. In a crowd any interaction leads not to consensus but to a worse decision, as there is a leader who will take responsibility for all your actions.
Having built a chain of life from the events shown in the film, everyone will make a conclusion for themselves, emphasizing their line of decisions, asking themselves the questions "how would I have acted in this situation?", "what would have been....", "what motivated him to act this way?", etc.
