Joaquin Phoenix’s new flick The Joker is stirring up endless controversy. The Toronto Star says: “at the post-screening party, a debate broke out amongst the journalists and industry executives over whether the movie could become part of the texts cited by mass shooters.” Sarah Hagi of The Globe and Mail warns us: “the film does offer a queasy sense of entitlement, which seems to ring true to how lonely, violent men view themselves.”
The subject here is censorship — though no one seems capable of mentioning the word. For even if critics are not asking for The Joker to be pulled from theatres, this brand of journalistic rhetoric delivers a chilling message to artists and creators. Has the time come finally to stop creating films and plays with controversial themes? Maybe we should only write stories about politically correct heroes and heroines — men and women who are non-violent, virtuous, tolerant, and loving? The problem with cleansing art of any representation of toxic humanity, is that repellant individuals do exist (and will exist forever, unfortunately). Not thinking about them — or not talking about them — doesn’t solve the problem, it simply exacerbates it.
Those who suggest that The Joker should not have been made or widely distributed are buying into the false notion that art is the cause of human evil. This has never been proved, and never will be. Art — far from being the cause of societal distress — is merely its symptom. Art offers a barometer about what plagues and obsesses us; it is a unique and often weirdly accurate snapshot of how awful we are.
But it is not only art that is threatened by these veiled journalistic threats. This controversy over The Joker also endangers free speech. Social justice warriors have recently suggested that only those they deem ‘without privilege’ can ever really be victims of censorship. These suggestions are much more toxic than any movie representation of a comic book villain. Censorship is censorship no matter who is censored. I detest right-wing hate as much as anyone, but eradicating such speech from theatre, films, books and entertainment will merely silence thought and drive hate underground.
Joaquin Phoenix’s The Joker originates from the long tradition of discomfiting and attractive villains — one that goes back to medieval morality plays. We might as well banish ‘The Devil’ from Everyman. (The fact is that ‘The Devil’ happens to be the most interesting character in the play — much more enthralling for an actor to portray, or for us to watch — than a rather pallid and predictable character named Jesus!)
The fact is that banishing the representation of evil from art, spells the end of art itself.
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