Capitalism is violent and its heroes are false: reflections on the joker, malaise and the spectacularization of social suffering

Abstract

The version of the film Joker, released in Brazilian cinemas in 2019, raises questions that are definitely topical and leads the viewer to reflect on the frailties, creative powers and resistance forces of humans pushed to the limits of their abilities, based on the troubled life of a man who is at odds with his past, deprived of the insignia of social prestige and suffering from a medical condition that compromises him and exposes him to the capitalist machines that grind up people and differences. It is on these issues that this text focuses, criticizing the thoughtless glamour of the hero figure, denouncing the ridiculousness of consumer entertainment and repudiating the exclusionary nature of societies organized and maintained around the violent, uncompromising and savage preservation of Capital, so that the main aim of this article is to take the characteristics of the society presented by the film's plot as credible, in order to make it a piece that can serve as a basis for thinking about and criticizing the modes of production of indifference and social illness typical of capitalism.

Keywords: joker; capitalism; society of the spectacle; violence.