In a previous post, I discussed how Arthur Fleck's childhood led to his adulthood agony, and painful transformation into a disturbed, distorted, and violent masculinity.
In my book, AFRAID: Understanding the Purpose of Fear and Harnessing the Power of Anxiety, I talked about the role of folk, myth, and movies in telling our own internal psychological struggles.
In this post, I will delve into the psychology of the second Joker movie, and the rest of Arthur’s journey to his death and end of his agony.
The movie begins with Arthur’s painful presence in the monochrome prison, a place where everybody is a man, a suffering or an abusive man. The main color theme is blue, the color of Arthur’s psyche, and his depression. But in parallel, outside of his internal agony, there is a colorful world. This is best portrayed in the scene where the prison guards, sheltering under colorful umbrellas, escort him in the prison yard. What is around him, the envelope, is colorful and lively, but himself in the middle, is still blue, drenched in the rain, without a shelter. That scene portrays so well Joker’s world. A colorful and joyous envelope, and a core drenched in agony. The musical aspect of the movie portrays these parallel worlds, even when both joyous and sad music are intertwined with each other.
Arthur is still expected to play the Joker’s role and tell a joke every morning he meets his prison guards, the father figures. This is a parallel to the maternal prison, where he had to live in a suffocating home of lies and pretend everything was okay.
Per his mother, Arthur was the result of a glorified secret romance. Now in the prison, and in his fantasies, he........