My Inner Gene Siskel: Joker

I was conflicted when I heard they were doing a movie on the origins of Joker.  I always felt that he worked better as an enigma.  Chaos theory in human form if you will.  Or, as he says in the brilliant, Killing Joke: "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."  In fact, I believe that a good number of the ideas in the movie are directly inspired by this comic, which in my opinion is in the top 5 best Batman comics ever.  And then there came the backlash from people saying it was going to glorify mass murder, or that it would inspire incel culture.  Or it was a horrible representation of mental illness.  Or that it didn't need to be made.  Well, I wanted to see for myself what it was before I commented, so here is my review.  Spoilers of course for those of you that haven't seen it.

I was a little worried when I saw that the guy that directed the Hangover movies and Road Trip was going to direct this.  But, he's got his influences right, as this is a straight homage to mid-to-late 70s early 80s Scorsese.  Basically Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy.  Arthur even does the pointing the imaginary gun to the head like Travis Bickle.  Robert De Nero stars in this just like those two movies.  The movie's even set in that time period.  (By the way, very nice usage of the old Warner Brother's title card for the beginning of the film that they used in the 1970s and early 80s.  That's a nice touch.)  Gotham is directly modeled on New York City at the end of the 70s, with the crime and graffiti on everything, and the place just looking rundown.  It's a nice way to start a film showing society going to pot without using the modern day examples.  New York in that time was not the gentrified, high rent place it is now.  There were a lot of problems back then which strangely saw the explosion of artists coming from there.  Hip Hop came out of the South Bronx, Disco was from Uptown, CBGB was a cauldron of different musical styles, and graffiti writers like Keith Haring and Basquiat were on their way to being made famous.  (Sadly other graf writers like Lee Quinones, Rammellzee, Lady Pink or Iz the Wiz didn't reach the heights of Haring and Basquiat.)  Still, it is within this cauldron that Joker is actually set, replacing New York with Gotham City.

What I saw in the Joker was a discussion on how society views those at the bottom.  They're disposable, and basically there to be fleeced, or mocked.  In one scene, (spoilers) there are three well dressed young men on the subway, obviously inebriated, bothering a young woman.  When Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) starts laughing uncontrollably, which is a condition he has, they start to beat him up.  While they are putting the boots to him, to protect himself he pulls a gun and shoots and kills two, and then chases the third and kills him as well.  Instead of the three being remembered for the bullies they were, they are memorialized on the news as three men of good standing in society.  All three worked for Thomas Wayne, who speaks of the trash that killed these shining examples from good homes.

The movie also focuses on cruelty for entertainment's sake.  Robert De Niro's Murray Franklin probably comes across as a cross between Johnny Carson and Morton Downey Jr.  (What a dated reference, right!?!)  The consummate showman with an edge of nastiness.   When Arthur bombs doing his standup, Franklin plays part of it on his show and mocks him.  Heck, that's the basis for reality television, isn't it?  Simon Cowell saying, "I don't mean to be rude, but.." and then being an extreme bastard.  It's why we watch The Bachelor or Love Island, so we can feel better about ourselves watching others debase themselves in finding fame.  In this instance, the crowd loved the bit, and Murray Franklin's folks decide to put him on the show.  (By the way, Marc Maron is criminally underused in this film.  He's on screen for all of 3 minutes, but should have had a lot more.  Missed opportunity.)

The film also has a huge discussion about mental illness and how society treats those who suffer from it.  Probably one of the truest things said in the film is when Arthur writes, "The worst part of having a mental illness is that people expect you to behave as if you don't."  Society is still ill-equipped to deal with people who have mental illnesses.  Look at sports stars.  Soccer players in the UK are just now starting to have discussions about mental illness and how social media affects them.  Danny Rose, who plays for Tottenham, talked about the mental issues he's had, and said a team approached him about coming to play for them but wanted to check that he wasn't crazy.  (I think those are his words, but that's the gist.)    Mental illness is finally being discussed for veterans, but there is still no solution on how to ensure they get the help they need.  Jimmy Piersal wrote a book about his mental breakdown in the 1950s called "Fear Strikes Out".  The book came out in 1955, and they made a movie out of it in 1957 starring Anthony Perkins.  Did it make society take a look at how we treat those who suffer from mental illnesses?  Of course not.  Funding is inadequate, and public mental health institutions are closing due to lack of funding.  Many end up homeless.  In fact, in the film they cut Arthur's visits with his mental health professional, which means he now is cut off.  He also has a pretend relationship in his mind with the lady down the hall who has a child.  His world changes due to the realization that all his interactions with her were in fact made up, and he begins to embrace his world view.  (I'm shorting this part of the story.  Zazie Beets is awesome, and I love her work.  But a lot to absorb in the movie, and her part fits in with the mental illness discussion.)

Finally the movie, in my opinion, discusses the gulf between the haves and the have nots.  The whole discussion of the producers and everyone else.  Arthur finally shows himself to be the guy who killed the three men on the subway while on the Murray Franklin show.  He says basically that if it was him, they would have walked over him with no second thought.  But because Thomas Wayne cries about them on TV that their deaths are meaningful and tragedies.  It's an indictment of society, that praises those at the top and forgets those at the bottom.  This, in my opinion, is populism, either right or left.  But it turns out more in line with anarchists.  So Arthur Fleck assumes the role of Joker, a name given to him by Murray Franklin while mocking him on his own show.  He then kills Murray, is arrested, but then freed by the mob while they're taking him downtown.  He does end up in the mental hospital (a nice touch making it Arkham) and the riots occurring around town catch Thomas and Martha Wayne leaving the movie theater after watching Zorro The Gay Blade with their son, and ducking down an alley way.  Joe Chill follows after, and this scene is the birth of Batman.

The Killing Joke graphic novel basically ends with Batman begging the Joker to turn it around or one of them will end up killing the other.  It's a duality, and the movie shows that the creation of the Joker (at least in this universe) ends up being the creation of his greatest nemesis as well.

Lovely English Lass didn't go with me to see the film.  I knew she wouldn't like it and I didn't want to push her into it.  She definitely wouldn't have liked it.  Again, I'm not sure what I thought.  (The inclusion of "Rock and Roll Part 2" from Gary Glitter a notorious pedophile was a bit tone deaf to be honest.)  As a Joker origin, well it was fine.  Personally I didn't think we needed an origin story for Joker, but we got one.  Phoenix is really good in the film.  I did like his portrayal and it definitely sets up the "One Bad Day" riff in the original Killing Joke comic.  But did I like it? 

I'm not sure. But it sure made me think a lot.

Impostor Syndrome

I was reading on Facebook the other day one of those click-bait things that gathers together stuff from reddit talking about people that suffer from Impostor Syndrome.  For those who don't know what that is, I'll save you a google search.  "Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts his or her accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud"."  So there you go.  It's the overwhelming feeling that one day all that you're doing will be taken away from you because you think you're a fraud, a fake, and that you don't actually know what you're doing.  I never knew that the self-doubt I have about myself and my position within the Department actually had a name.  It was strangely comforting to discover that there are others out there that seem to have this issue as well.  It doesn't happen all the time, but usually when I'm under a bit of stress or if I start to think about how long I've been in the Department and how close I'm getting to being able to retire.  (We can retire at 50 or 20 years of service, whichever comes last.)  Seeing as I'm in my almost mid-forties, that's now something to think about.

Self-doubt has been with me probably as long as I've loved peanut butter, which is indeed a very long time.  Even when I know I'm good at something, I can never focus on it and revel in it.  I'm always worrying about what I don't know and what I've failed at instead of what I'm good at and things I can do.  It's a never ending cycle.  When I was in school, I was always very good in social studies.  History is something I really enjoy and even love, and excelled at it.  But I was never very good at math.  So I felt down that I wasn't excelling at math instead of being happy that I was doing well in history.  I won the Social Studies test (I think) 4 times from Elementary School through to High School without studying for it, but didn't win anything for my science fair project.  Guess what kept popping up in my mind bothering me, even though I had trophies showing my achievement in my room to remind me of success?  Yep, science fair.  I even started doubting I was actually any good at history because of my inabilities in other subjects.  How much does that suck?!?  I'm good at something, and yet I can't feel joy in it because I don't think I deserve it.

My work though is one of those things that always gets me with the feelings of being an impostor.  Much of it has to do with my first job in the foreign service, and how I was made to feel less than everyone else.  Much of this was because of my age.  Imagine walking into a workplace at the age of 24, being at least 5 years younger than everyone else, and being in charge of the largest section.  I got called "De Kleine Kind" (The little boy) by my staff at first, and then by staff in other sections as well.  In fact, one of my employees said, in Dutch that she didn't know I spoke, "We needed a man to get this place working, and they just send us a little boy!"  Let me tell you, that shit HURTS!  You're trying to do your best and getting roasted by your own staff before they even know you.  Lots of other stuff happened that dented my confidence, and since then I've had to work to prove to myself that I've earned what I have, and not that I'm just lucky.

This feeling mostly kicks up at about year 2 of my tour, as it usually means that I'm about to bid.  All the old insecurities start to pop up and I feel overwhelmed.  The problem is that I extended here for 4 years, so this time the insecurity is a year early!  Lord knows what it'll be like next year, but we'll just have to see I suppose.  Maybe one day I'll feel like I earned everything.  I certainly hope so, but there's so many times I feel like closing the door and hiding because I just know they're going to come find me and tell me that the jig is up and it's time for me to leave.

Thoughts on the Bible in Modern Times

Recently I've seen a lot of things on social media with pretty much the same message.  The memes were different, but the idea from all of them was that the Bible is clear on what it means and that what is right or wrong never changes due to changes in Society.  The clear implication is that things these people think are sins are sins, and usually there is a verse attached somewhere to prove their point.  (I've seen this on Twitter, Facebook, even Instagram.  Leviticus almost always comes up.)  The Word of God was, is, and forever shall be what it says.  And they're right: The Bible says and means what it has always said and meant!

Except when it doesn't. 

The Bible has been used over the years to promote many things and to support our own biases against certain "others".  People have used organized religion (not just Christianity but others as well) since time immemorial to support what they believe is correct.  To say that the Bible doesn't change just because your generation wants something else is a fallacy.  The Southern Baptist Convention was created due to slavery, and many in the South would use biblical allusions to make their case that slavery was justified by the Bible, and thus by God.  (In fact, the Bible was used to impress upon the slaves that they should suffer on earth and would receive their rewards in the afterlife as a way to suppress rebellion.)  In fact the split between Baptists had to do with naming a slave holder to a Missionary position, which was refused by the Home Mission Society's board.  I think no one now would say that slavery was endorsed by the Bible, but it was used as justification by preachers prior to the civil war.

Religion and adherence to the Bible were also given as reasons for segregation and anti-miscegenation laws.  Following Brown v. Board of Education, many places set up "private" schools that weren't bound by the integration order from the Supreme Court.  Most of them were religiously affiliated.  (Please google "The Lost Year in Little Rock" or "segregation academy".)  How many times was the bible used to keep the races separated in school, society or even in marriage?  Loving v. Virginia wasn't decided until 1967 for goodness sake.  Only a few die-hard racists now would openly say they are against someone being able to live in a certain area, go to a certain school or marry whomever they want of the opposite race because the Bible says it's wrong.

What about selling daughters in to marriage?  Marrying for love is actually a very recent development in human civilization, and it was discussed in the Bible that daughters were more or less sold to older men for money or for consolidation of power or land.

Equality between men and women is a relatively new arrival as well.  The Bible is STILL cited as reasons for why women should be living at home, popping out babies and being submissive to the husband's will.  ("Wives, submit to your husbands" is a quote that appears on a lot of comments sections.)  In the US the women have only had the right to vote for about the last 100 years, so society had to change for that to happen.

The fact is the Bible does say you should live a certain way, and I believe that many of what it teaches can be used to be a good person.  Take care of the sick, the aged and the poor.  Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.  Live your life as an example so that people see it through what you do and how you live, not how you talk about what you believe. 

But to think that the way we view the Bible is the exact same as it has always been is not true at all.  The changes are there, and in my view they've actually been beneficial to the world.

Again, these are just my thoughts on a random subject I've encountered recently.  Feel free to disagree, as long as you do it politely.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" by Kanye West

Have you ever been so mad at something you need to take your time before you respond to it?  Like, it upsets you so much you have to back off it so you can calm down before you actually tackle it?  Yeah, this song did it for me.  It's taken me more than two years since it was released before I finally calmed down enough to write something.  Why?  Because in my mind, minus 20 seconds, this could have been an absolute classic, a banger, a song people would talk about 30 years from now due to how perfect it is.  We're talking, "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" or "Sympathy for the Devil" level.

The T.L. Barrett sample at the beginning setting the mood, the Metro Boomin' tag dropping perfectly into the melody, and the up-tempo flow mixed with Kid Cudi singing the hook make an almost gospel song out of this.  It's church music for the new millennium.  Praise was written about this saying it was both advanced and familiar at the same time, which is something difficult to do.  (Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" comes to mind when I think of those two things happening simultaneously.)  "Beautiful morning, you're the sun in my morning babe!"  What a great line.  The song just keeps moving, flowing in the right direction with a beat that just puts a smile on your face.  Kanye's a great producer, as he's shown on other people's albums, and I feel him collabing with Metro Boomin was the right thing to do.  Two straight up pros bringing the best out of each other.  Then comes that 20 seconds I mention above.

But before I get to why that part upsets me, let's do the rest of the song AFTER the 20 seconds.  The song moves back into a discussion about how he met the girl mentioned in the missing 20, which follows a very familiar trope in popular music discussing a love interest and how they make you feel.  Familiar, but not worn out.  The rest of the song, with the backing vocals and the music make this song a classic!  It was used numerous times in Vines back before that App was killed by twitter, and even in a lot of YouTube videos, showing it had a lot of reach.  The fact that it was so popular, and still is apparently among Kanye fans, shows that people agree with me.  There's nothing that would have stopped this song from hitting Hip-Hop immortality like songs that enter the mainstream and stay there forever.  (I'm thinking "Shook Ones Pt. 2", "California Love", even "White Lines".)  But that 20 seconds kills all of it.

Now, the 20 seconds I'm going to talk about completely kills, in my opinion, all of the song.  For my audience, I'll describe it as best I can without actually using the words Kanye does, since cursing ain't my forte in the blog.  He describes having relations with a model who uses skin lightening techniques on a private part of her body, which then gets on his t-shirt making him feel stupid.  He repeats the word describing the body part and uses it to describe himself.  Honestly, that makes it sound more intelligent than it does in the actual song.  It's apathetic writing at its best, and idiocy at its worst.  This is a man that wrote some amazing songs with great lyrics.  (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a classic, no matter what you think of Kanye.)  So much could have been done with it, and he's a clever enough wordsmith to make a story out of it.  I keep thinking Slick Rick would have KILLED that verse with his sing-song flow and told a story of meeting a girl.  They could have kept the portion after about being high when he met her down in Tribeca and it still would have had me bopping.  But no, gotta put in the portion about getting bleach on his t-shirt.  It still astounds me that the guy who wrote "Monster" and produced "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" could be so disinterested in what is obviously lighting in a jar.

So there you have it.  So many words about 20 seconds in a song.  It should have been better, and it kills me that there is an almost perfect song out there that I could have shared with my son to demonstrate why hip-hop is actually an art form that should be respected.  Maybe Kanye can write a song called, "20 Seconds from perfection" as a rebuttal.  I'd probably listen to it.