”. Yet it is the content of the film, which Watson sought to twist. Addressing his 1.74-million subscribers on YouTube,Why was the establishment so afraid of this movie? [...] because Joker points a finger at the true reason why our society produces the diseased minds responsible for mass shootings. Because our entire culture is bathed in atomising consumerist, celebrity-at-all-costs nihilism.
Demonstrating sympathy for the murderous Fleck, Watson ultimately believed: “The movie holds up a mirror to how a society that humiliates shames and disenfranchises people is itself responsible for generating violence”.Joker — implying that criticism of its content is indicative of a wider ‘problem’ in the mainstream media. He is also using criticism of the movie — as well as its content — to distance himself and the alt-right from recent far right-inspired mass shootings in El Paso and Christchurch . Thereby, engaging in a whitewashing of the ideological motivation for their attacks and arguing that they were motivated by mental health issues as Fleck is in the film.
Finally, therefore, Watson, much like previous far right uses of popular culture, ultimately looks to derive wider meaning from the movie which promotes his own ideological worldview. He draws a sympathetic comparison between Fleck and those “who think differently” and an “entire generation of young men” who have been marginalised.
them as ‘deplorables’. The sinister implication is that Arthur Fleck’s murderous rampage was justified and he was fighting against a corrupt system, which had wronged him., is it any wonder critics have claimed the movie incites violence?Dr Paul Stocker is a historian of the far-right in Britain and a Research Associate at Teesside University’s Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies. He is the author of English Uprising: Brexit and the Mainstreaming of the Far Right .