Joker

In our 20th episode, Masha and Clare are discussing the 2019 film Joker, looking at its presentation of societal impact on mental health, its depiction of the consequences of wealth disparity, and how it reflects ableism in our society. In this episode, we draw on some of the ideas in Daraiseh and Booker's 2020 article: 'Jokes from Underground: The Disintegration of the Bourgeois Subject and the Progress of Capitalist Modernization from Dostoevsky to Todd Phillips’s Joker'. We critique some of the arguments in Justin Edgar's 2019 article: 'Joker makes great disability art by letting its hero bite back'. We also use the definition of the neoliberal creed from Monbiot/Hutchison's The Invisible Doctrine, and statistics on wealth inequality from The Equality Trust. If you have enjoyed this episode of Dystopian Fiction Has Been Moved to Current Affairs, you may also like our fortnightly Substack.