(Mar. 16, 2023 ● Oslin Pierrette)
I really love the connection between these two films, The King of Comedy(1982) & Joker(2019). The Joker by Todd Philips & Scott Silver was very inspired by Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy. TS(Todd & Scott) crafted such a harmonious through line with the two films and main characters. The two make a harmonious story of how the joker became the clown, so many densely packed entendres within that. That added to the overwhelmingly harmonious cleverness of the pairings of the two, a very strong marriage, if you ask me. For reference I watched Joker before I even knew The King of Comedy was a thing.
Let’s start with The King of Comedy. It’s about Rupert Pupkin, a dreamer who just wants the opportunity to prove himself. He feels he has what it takes. He’s psychotic about his craft. Absolutely obsessed and consumed by his passion, puts in the constant effort. And he just wants the opportunity to prove himself. And he goes the lengths of insanity and beyond to see it through. (sounds like me honestly)
He seems like he has it down, he’s envisioned it and has played it out multiple times. Has his act and performance down pat. It seems perfect, maybe a little too perfect. It’s like your fantasy, the way you imagine these grandiose dreams, is never the way it happens. Maybe a less perfect alternative can happen. But it’s never as perfect as you dreamt for the most part. We do know he is a great dreamer. But your dreams can only go as far as you believe.
And when he got kicked out and banned from that building, it felt like that window to his dream had been shut… unless something crazy happened. And that’s the only option and way he could dream it up. For the most part, any conventional path is basically destroyed. He has been written off.
One thing I know about dreamers, half to most of their life is lived in their imagination. But after getting his dream crushed in reality. All we were available to watch in this second half of the film was his fantasy. His reality was meaningless after getting his door shut on his dreams. (This is my analysis of what I felt actually happened)
What I will say though, is that someone who has the ability to dream like that is a very valuable and potentially talented person. All they have to do is work on their skill set to architect their visions, dreams, and imagination. And I felt Rupert had the ability or potential, and he definitely had the work ethic and passion to see it through. You can always bet on someone with those intangibles. All he needed was someone with the resources to believe in his craft. An opportunity to prove himself. But that’s showbiz and the industry. There’s all these gate-kept veils that you have to go through to get the chance to have an opportunity.
But for the average person, not based on talent, but mainly your connections. If you are the average person, you probably don’t have the connections to gain the access to prove yourself. And you’re probably going to be gate-kept by a bunch of people who don’t have the ability to see the value in people when they have to prove themselves, a completely incompetent system. The only way you get around is some wild & crazy tactics, which was basically the second half of the film.
Look at what I have to do just to prove myself, why couldn’t you simply just give me the opportunity to prove myself. Now you’re making me seem like I’m the crazy person. When I’m just someone who desperately wants the opportunity, a very human feeling. So I might as well risk it all.
Risk it all to be a King for a Night, rather than to be a schmuck for a lifetime.
Now onto Joker. The King of Comedy was basically what created the villain story for Joker. Like I said before, I watched Joker first, I was indoctrinated in that universe first. So like in the Joker, everyone expects Joker to kill Murray (And the cleverness to make Robert De Niro Murray, the talk show host that Joker is enamored with. The same Robert De Niro who was Rupert Pupkin, who was enamored with his talk show host. Cool full circle moment). People have bought into the justification for what Joker was about to do. People sympathized with his madness, because we saw the horrid journey Joker went through. So watching The King of Comedy, you feel that pain of rejection again, that pain of being written off by society. The pain of desperately wanting a chance, and society not caring to at least give you one small chance or break. The pain of not caring what happens to someone who just desperately wants a chance, kicking them to the curbside, and whatever happens to them happens, with no remorse. The pain of feeling abandoned by society. Like Tarantino said “if the joker didn’t kill him, you would be pissed off,” and that’s what I felt with Rupert Pupkin. I expected Rupert to snap, I was waiting for the vindictive madness to appear, when he got kicked out of that building, and you felt his dreams completely shattered. You wanted to see the explosive climax of that downward spiral. But instead, unlike in Joker, where Joker was awakened from his delusions, it felt like Rupert went deeper and fully immersed into his delusions. It felt like all he had left was to create these wacky delusions, because it was the only way he was going to live his dreams. You felt the insanity of how far left his insanity delusions were going. But felt underwhelmed by the lack of vindictive madness that the joker gave you. (Still a great film, the direction it went for the film’s sake was perfectly fine)
That’s where the brilliance of the Joker comes in. Almost 40 years later, and you get that satisfying closure that is the creation of the Joker. You get to see the display of madness. You get to see the public see the display of madness, that derived from that pain of abandonment of society, lack of remorse of your drowning pain, especially a lack of remorse for the less privileged, and over-sympathetic response to society’s more likable people like the wall street boys. This makes you understand the menacing character that is the Joker. He wasn’t your typical empty soulless psychopath. He always felt like a created motivated sociopath. Whereas psychopaths have a natural evil to them. Joker’s sociopathy and vindictiveness felt like it was motivated and stemmed from somewhere. But it was finally on display for the world to see, the satisfying you see what you did to me, do you see my pain now, can you finally see me now! You see how far someone has to go to get vindication, all the craziness and the lengths of insanity someone has to go through. But at least, the vindictive got vindicated, a very bittersweet ending.
I really connect with these films. Sympathize with both characters and films. I understand that it may be crazy to some to look at both of those story paths as rational, but they are sort of rational responses to the madness of society. These aren’t naturally evil people. These are people who tried their very best to be good. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Reason I’m so connected to these films, I am jaded from the callousness of society. A world where I try so hard over, over, and over again, and still with that you can make zero progress. I’m willing to put the absolute consistent work in, a massive amount of effort. Absolutely confident in my craft and product. But I never even get a slight chance or opportunity to prove myself. Not someone seeing my work and turning it down, I don’t even get the chance for someone to review my work. That’s heart wrenchingly frustrating. It’s like I’ll start from the ground floor, but they won’t even point you to where the ground floor is. The direction they point you in is towards this abyss of nothingness. You have nothing to grasp or make sense of knowing what your next step is.
Then what’s worse is the only people you can get to are the incompetent gatekeepers of the incompetent bureaucracy. They’re the only people you have access to. You do your best to display your work and quality to some of them, and you can tell they don’t have the level of expertise to critique your work. Now you’re getting rejected based on a bad judgment call from someone who doesn’t have the expertise or insight to judge your work. “The danger of incompetence is that it often looks like expertise.” That’s what anybody who really wants an opportunity will do, like Rupert, just wait there until you can get a hold of a competent human. Those bureaucratic gatekeepers are no better than the automated robot customer service, where you feel you can’t accomplish anything you need, just keep pressing zero until you can speak to a competent human.
So what does one do with the frustration? Feeling so jaded. You can’t do what Rupert or Joker did, both illegal things. So I’ve been voicing how I feel until I’m heard.
The problem with that is, I am left with a lot of vindictive spiteful vitriolic feelings. And it’s a powerful feeling you can get lost in. It’s a crash and burn type of feeling, and you can crash and burn a lot of things around you, like Joker who simply wants to see the world burn. So I start expressing, and it’s as explosive as expected, but it’s necessary because it’s honest. You just need a redemptive aspect, and to start compartmentalizing to get to a truly productive place. And I get some very focused productive answers on things I can do and control, and how to keep moving forward.
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