Now if you imagine someone with means ($$$), who is tramatized by an event, disfigured, terrorized.. and of all things, exceptionally smart.. well, looking at the joker, that is what i see… I actually see him as a very intelligent person, who had something happen to him, which pushed him over the edge. When you have lost everything, what else can you take??

If you’ll note from my review, I said that there were two explanations, but only one rang true. Insanity comes in many flavors. Only a very few of them result in memory loss. I tried to make a point about specificity and the fact that Joker’s insanity is perfectly consistent with the way an abused child sees the world. I think it was lost on you.

As for the last part of what you wrote, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

Great review!

I live in a bit of a bubble. Something over 70% of people over 25 in my community have at least one college degree, so the reaction of the crowd around me is certainly not going to be typical. In addition, I saw it in a morning matinee to avoid most of the stoners and over-testosteroned young men. I think it’s quite possible, maybe even likely, that your experience was much like many around the country (although Phoenix is a place unto itself in many ways).

As I said, many are getting it at some level. But part of the movie’s appeal is its subtlety. So I’m sure that many are not.

Thanks for the insights.

The audience could not help but laugh at every cruel thing the Joker did or said almost throughout the movie. Scenes which should have induced revulsion, horror, sympathy or antipathy only seemed to induce humor and even enthusiasm. At first, I was willing to assume that folks were a little perturbed by the sadism of the Joker and unwilling to truly acknowledge the thoroughgoing nihilism of the character – that their laughter was born at least partly out of anxiety. But, soon I realized that the folks around me were literally getting off on the violence. It was hilarious – and sad.

It was not only sad, because few in the audience seemed to engage the film at any level deeper than an action flick – it was also tragic that an audience found senseless violence not enthralling, but funny too. People literally guffawed. Maybe this is what we descend to, when torture becomes a key element of our foreign policy and when we stand idly by while jackbooted thugs round up immigrants in brutal and inhuman raids. Maybe this has become normal. I felt as if the audience was composed of those good people on the boat who would not have hesitated in blowing up the other boat, not just for survival but just for kicks. It was like looking at those old photographic postcards of lynchings, which portrayed not only a horrific act of brutality, but even more terrifying, the faces of the decent people of the South, who were having a good old time, women in their fur coats, little Johnny on dad’s shoulders with an ice cream cone. It made me feel for a moment how fragile democracy really is, or even to go so far to think that it has been an utter failure.

To respond to Dr. Slammy above, I think the audience is getting it, but perhaps not in the way that JS thinks.

Did anyone else have this experience?

I suspect many, and maybe most, are getting it on some level. Good art is good art. It tends to work on many levels.

The few negative reviews appear to be from grade-challenged young men who get bored if there are more than two syllables before the next action sequence. I’m hearing from middle aged women who like this film, and that’s not an audience segment known for wild enthusiasm over comic-book movies.

Something tells me that this flick will have legs. We’ll see.

One of our greatest failings as a culture is our insistence on black/white simplicity – easy answers to complex questions, etc. We abhor depth and texture and hate those who would make us think about context.

Black or white. Gray is for pussies.

So I wonder about audience reception here. Since I keep hearing how much people love the film, I can’t help wondering – are they GETTING it? Or is the nuance you’re describing simply passing them by?

In any case, fantastic review.