Trigger warning: mention of suicide.
Art is a powerful form of expression that plays a big role in society. It can motivate people to join a movement and do something worthwhile or even do something terrible. We now live in a society where terrible things are constantly happening. Instead of actually tackling these issues head on, society continually attacks different forms of art, for their role in glorifying such actions.
As the new Joker movie is being showed worldwide, the biggest talking point from the movie is not about the story line or the acting. It was in fact the role the movie plays in society. Critics of the movie say it glorifies violence and the Joker, who is one of the most evil fictional characters. We constantly see the media attacking different forms of art on their role in glorifying the story, to such an extent where they would like to censor it. What these people fail to see is that other factors play a much bigger role for these terrible actions.
The Joker movie follows the life of Arthur Fleck, who struggles with a number of mental health issues. As the movie continues, the character goes from a harmless person to a frightening being. Slowly but surely, we start to see his evil side. It is true that the audience feels sympathetic towards him at the start of the movie. As he becomes evil, the audience starts to fight with themselves whether to feel empathetic or disgusted by his actions. Of course, most sane people will becomes disgusted by what he does at the end. I can understand why people would say this movie glorifies violence and the character of the Joker. For the first time we really get to see who the Joker is. In terms of violence, every movie with violence glorifies it. Even your favourite superhero movies.
Even though the movie may glorify the Joker and violence, to say the movie is responsible for bad things happening is wrong. You can’t blame the movie for mass shootings. If you really care about stopping mass shootings then you need to look at the cause of these attacks. Why does America have a mass shooting every month? The answer isn’t because of a movie. The main reason is because guns are so easily accessible in America, that any person can get their hands on one. Secondly, many of these attacks are politically motivated, which would mean they’re terrorist attacks. America is such a divided nation with the far-right leading it. If anyone glorifies violence, it is the President and the people leading the nation.
It is not just America where we see an attack on art for its role in glorification of violence. We also see it here in the UK. Politicians and the media are constantly attacking music that glorifies knife crime. No one goes from zero to stabbing just because they listened to a song. Why are the numbers of many crimes increasing? The cowards answer would be to blame music and movies which glorify a certain lifestyle.
If you actually want to understand why so many crimes are being committed, then look at the policies that have been implemented in the last ten years. Austerity has meant thousands of people are now worse off. Families are living in poverty. Good jobs are hard to get. People in work are living in poverty. Schools have had their funding cut and youth centres are shut down. There are cuts to the police services. These are just a small number of many reasons why crime is on the rise. Young people are being raised in poverty with very little. They don’t receive a good standard of education. They don’t have anything to do after school. Once they leave school they find it hard to get a decent job. It becomes very easy for a person to go down the route of crime if they’re a living under these circumstances. Austerity is the real reason why the crime rate is increasing, not music and movies.
Criticism isn’t just towards violence. People also criticise when art involves mental health. Shows like 13 Reasons Why have been criticised for glorifying suicides. I am not defending 13 Reasons Why. I think the criticism is justified. However, we can’t blame the show for an increase in suicides. There are deeper reasons why this is happening. We have to look at why so many people are going down that route. People don’t receive the necessary support that they need. People feel alone. Help is either not there or too difficult to access. We see people constantly talk about mental health. We see movies, shows, songs about it. Even with all this talk, there is no real action being taken by the people in power. It is all great talking about what we should do, but without action, all that talk is useless. Criticising a stupid show will not stop suicides. We need changes that are required to actually provide help to those who need it.
Art plays a big role in society, probably more now than ever before. Movies and music are available worldwide. It is so easy to be captivated and motivated to do the things that are being said or seen. As more terrible things happen around the world, people start to criticise these forms of art in their role of glorifying these actions. It may be the case that the art form does glorify, however, to solely blame it is wrong. There are bigger, more important issues that should be tackled, instead of censoring and suppressing art.
Aleha