i've been thinking about the movie "joker" lately and i think my biggest problem w/the movie is that it constantly brings up political themes while still being ambiguous enough to act as a rorschach test for anyone who watches it. the film can literally mean anything to anyone

for example, i thought the film acted as a strong (unintentional) criticism of capitalist alienation, but someone could watch it & think the message was: "wow, mentally ill people are scary!", and their interpretation would be equally valid, because the film believes in nothing

when i saw the movie in theatres, i came out of it feeling quite shook. it was intense, it was violent, and it was visceral. but if we remove the guttural emotions that the brutality of the film highlights, what are we actually left with? what does the movie have to say?

is there a point to subjecting yourself to 2 hours of a mentally ill man succumbing to his most violent impulses while being alienated by capitalist systems if the film doesnt even BELIEVE that these capitalist systems exist in the first place? what exactly is the point?

at its core, joker is a film that constantly conjures up political imagery while being too cowardly and too afraid to make any kind of salient point. it is an "art film" that is actually just as meaningless and just as vapid as any major blockbuster marvel movie