2019 Controversial films

SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

A couple of 2019 films, Joker and Parasite, have drawn criticism because of their supposed endorsement of class violence, and one, Little Women, has brought outrage from literary purists who think that the movie is overly feminist and is not true to the spirit of the book on which it was based. The purpose here is not to do an analysis of each scene in these movies, but instead to address the above criticisms leveled at these motion pictures.

There have been protests in several countries, with people using clown make-up, to protest corruption and other grievances in their countries following the release of Joker. Since the character of the Joker is a psychopathic killer, one can understand why there is fearful concern for people using his character as a force for social change. But, if the film is accurately assessed, it is not promoting violence, but instead is a cautionary tale about how the marginalization and abuse of struggling individuals can lead to violent uprisings.

Joker turns the Batman story on its head by providing a backstory for its main character that shows him and others as victims of the selfishness of the rich and powerful. It takes place in 1981 in Gotham City (the comic book story equivalent of New York City), but the setting and location is relevant to the present. The world is upside down in terms of what most would want for its citizens. There is garbage everywhere, since the sanitation workers are on strike for better benefits. Shops are closing. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) ironically has a job advertising a going-out-of-business sale that will cause the elimination of jobs. He holds the sign upside down to imply the inverse society that he inhabits. Arthur has a condition, for which he hands out cards, which makes him laugh at what would normally be reasons for sadness, which again shows that things are the opposite of what they should be. His social worker says he can’t see Arthur anymore because funding was cut, commenting, “They don’t give a shit about people like you, Arthur. And they really don’t give a shit about people like me, either.” Arthur comments on the decline of the human condition when he says, “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” And, his increasing insanity mirrors what is happening everywhere.

Arthur, despite his wasting away, physically and mentally, because of his plight (Phoenix lost a great deal of weight for the role), just wants to make people laugh. Despite the sadness that permeates his life, Arthur said his mother told him “to smile and put on a happy face.” She said, “I was put here to spread joy and laughter.” As it turns out, he becomes an instrument for just the opposite of what his now severely ill mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), hoped for, (her name shows how little value someone like billionaire Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) assigns to her). But, she is complicit in her son’s metamorphosis. She lied to Arthur by not divulging that Thomas, for whom she worked and loved, is really Arthur’s father. Thomas cast her aside, making her signing papers to conceal his affair. So, the young Bruce Wayne, who becomes Batman, is really Arthur’s half-brother.  Here we have the suggestion that the two are mirror images of each other, and that their roles could have been reversed if conditions were different. In fact, Thomas, on television, shows his anger about how someone disguised as a clown who killed three of his executives on a train is a “coward” who “hides behind a mask.” Thomas says that the violence was due to someone who was “envious of those more fortunate.” (The film probably would have been more convincing in its argument if it showed the poor treatment of persons of color). In fact, Thomas’s executives were abusing a woman and beating Arthur on the train. Arthur is instead portrayed in the press as a vigilante, so Thomas’s rage can be directed at what his son will become, a person wearing a mask working outside the law. 

One of Penny’s boyfriends inflicted a head injury on the young Arthur, which may account in part for his mental illness. Street thugs badly beat him when he is working at the closing store. Before he shoots the executives with a gun given to him for protection, the men also beat him. At first he shoots in self-defense, but when he hunts one of the attackers and guns him down, Arthur crosses over to becoming a murderer. He dances a death ballet in the men’s room afterwards, celebrating his deadly empowerment. Arthur is invited to be on a show hosted by Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), who just has him as a guest to humiliate his lack of comic talent. Arthur admits to killing the three executives, saying, “I killed those guys because they were awful. Everybody is awful these days. It’s enough to make anyone crazy.” There is the film’s warning. Push people enough, and they lose their psychological footing, and become unbalanced. 

When Arthur confronts Thomas he says all he wanted was “a little bit of warmth. Maybe a hug,” and at least some “decency.” Without that in his life, Arthur identifies with all the other deprived individuals and becomes their symbol of anger. On the Murray Franklin show, Arthur turns comedy into tragedy, as happened in his life. He says, “What do you get … when you cross … a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? … I’ll tell you what you get! You get what you fuckin’ deserve!” Arthur, having been introduced as “Joker” then shoots Murray in the head. In and of itself, it is a very disturbing scene, but it is consistent with how Arthur’s pathology was nurtured. Outside in the streets there is rioting by people wearing clown masks. Arthur rides in a police car after being apprehended for his murder on television. But, his “followers” ram the car. In a significant image, people in clown masks pull Joker out of the car window. It appears as if they are delivering a baby. Joker is removed from a vehicle of the law into a world of anarchy, and it’s as if the Antichrist is being born. One of Joker's followers kills Bruce Wayne’s parents as the boy watches, which is the galvanizing moment that turns him eventually into Batman, who, let’s face it, doesn’t care about how villains become who they are. Joker then stands above his demonic flock and uses blood to paint a smile on his face to add another image of an upended world.

The message is what goes around comes around, on steroids. The movie is sending out a warning. There is a difference between advocating violence and exposing the elements that lead to it to prevent its inevitability.

Parasite has a different story and takes place at a different time (the present) and place (South Korea) than Joker, but its theme is the same. Perhaps because it is a foreign film for American audiences, it has not experienced the negativity that greeted Joker, which has more violence throughout the film. Also, Parasite is more intimate, with its plot focusing on a smaller group of people, instead of the scary apocalyptic impact of Joker.

Here the film also depicts social class struggle. Ki-woo Kim (Choi Woo-Shik) lives in a ghetto with his family in poverty. Their apartment is a basement unit. The movie uses the subterranean to emphasize how the poor must endure subhuman conditions. Conversely, the rich live literally and figuratively high above street level, stressing how difficult it is for the lower-class inhabitants to rise above their level in society. (Joker also uses a steep flight of stairs to show Arthur’s struggling in his life, and eventually his descent into madness and violence). The Kim family tries to eke out a living assembling pizza boxes, showing how the members must relegate themselves to a marginal task to help feed others. They have to endure a drunk urinating right next to their window and being fumigated by the town to kill vermin, as if they are part of the infestation (the image connects to the title of the movie). 

Ki-woo has a rich friend who visits the Kim family. He gives them a rock that is supposed to symbolize good fortune. Not exactly a generous present from a wealthy person. Instead of real help, he only supplies the hope of doing better. At first, however, the Kim family does seem to experience good luck. The friend is leaving for a while and has a student who he is in love with and wants Ki-woo to tutor because he trusts him with her. (His trust is misplaced since Ki-woo begins to romance the girl). Ki-woo does not have a college background, so he gets his sister, the crafty artist Ki-jung (Park So-dam) to create fake documents. So begins the Kim family’s infiltration into the rich Park family. The Kim family plots to get the father, Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) to become the driver for Mr. Park (Lee Sun-kyun). Ki-jung becomes the art tutor for their son who had a traumatic event when he saw a “ghost” in the house and now paints horrific paintings. They get rid of the housekeeper, Moon-kwang (Lee Jeung-eun), by exposing her to peaches, which trigger an allergy that makes it appear as if the housekeeper is contagious. Mrs. Kim (Jang Hye-jin) takes over her job. Mrs. Kim and her daughter comment on the Parks. The daughter says, “They are rich, but still nice.” To which her mother replies, “They are nice because they are rich,” which implies the Parks can afford to be nice, while those in need must sometimes descend to unscrupulous behavior to get by. It is interesting to note that the housekeeper has been working in that residence longer than the Park family has lived there, having serviced the previous owner. This fact shows how despite her longevity of employment, her lot in life has not progressed. 

The thing is, the Kims handle the new positions very well. They are capable workers who if just given the chance can prosper. However, for them to latch onto making a good living, they get other workers fired by employing some nasty maneuvers. It is in this way that this film presents a larger view of society as a whole through this microcosm than does Joker. However, both movies suggest there is a domino effect once marginalization and cruelty occur.

The film cons the audience, too. It appears to be a funny satire through the first half of the tale, but then becomes very dark. While the Park family leaves for a trip, the previous housekeeper, Moon-kwang, shows up, interrupting a Kim family party that has them indulging themselves on the Park family’s food and drink. The Kim family discovers that Moon-kwang has been hiding her husband, Geun-sae (Park Myung-hoong) from loan sharks in a hidden basement in the house. She finds out that the Kim family members have manipulated the Parks, and she threatens to expose them unless they do her bidding. A severe rainstorm causes the Parks to cancel their trip and they call saying they are returning home. In the havoc that ensues in an attempt to evade being caught, Mrs. Kim throws Moon-kwang down the steps leading to the secret cellar. The woman is badly injured and afterwards dies while her husband is restrained, gagged and secured in the basement. Again, the inability to ascend out of misery is stressed, but here members of the lower class inflict the punishment on one of their own. 

The Kims are able to escape but their below-ground-level apartment is flooded out, and they lose all their belongings, except, ironically for the good luck rock. Ki-woo, badly shaken by what has happened, carries the rock, saying it clings to him. It becomes similar to the rock that Sisyphus must eternally push up a hill (the impossibility of rising out of one’s place in life is stressed again). The Parks throw a party for their son’s birthday. Ki-woo descends into the hidden basement and is ambushed by Moon-Kwang’s husband, Geun-sae, who slams the rock onto Ki-woo’s head. We again have the proliferation of violence, even among people of the same social class. Geun Sae is the “ghost” that the son saw previously coming up the stairs of the lower house level, a sort of person deprived of life because of his poverty. He is just as crazed as Joker, as he stabs Ki-jung, who eventually dies. Mrs. Kim is able to stab and kill Geun Sae. Earlier, Mr. Park said that the driver before Mr. Kim took the job would “cross the line,” trying to become too familiar with Mr. Park. He says the same thing about Mr. Kim’s smell, reminding him of Kim’s poor origins. Mr. Kim overheard Mr. Park tell his own wife about Mr. Kim’s smell. When Mr. Park seems like he is smelling something unpleasant, Mr. Kim snaps. He seems to realize that the real reason for the loss of his daughter and the rest of this violence starts with the rich marginalizing the poor. He stabs Mr. Park killing him. 

Mr. Kim manages to escape. He becomes a ghost of himself, replacing Geun Sae in the house’s hidden cellar (tomb?) during the time the rest of the Parks move out and before the new rich family moves in. After being in a coma, Ki-woo recovers. Mr. Kim is reduced to using Morse code through blinking lights and tells his son where he is and that he was able to bury Moon-Kwang without anyone finding out about her, since the victims of society are not noticed (just as Joker says, until they revolt). Ki-woo communicates a message to his father telling him he will become educated, get rich, and buy the house, so they can be a family again. There is a sort of blurry, highly lit shot of Mr. Kim rising to meet his wife and son. But, it is only a dream at this point, and we are left with the feeling that Ki-woo’s hope may only be wishful thinking.

The director, Joon-ho Bong summed up the theme of his movie by saying that coexistence between different parts of society has become so unbalanced that “one group is pushed into a parasitic relationship with another.” But because they are struggling to survive, is it fair to “call them parasites?” He says, “They are our neighbors, friends, and colleagues who have merely been pushed to the edge of a precipice.” This film, like Joker, is a cautionary tale about the inevitable plunge into madness and violence unless something is done to stop the free fall. 

And now for something completely different. There has been criticism by some of Greta Gerwig’s version of Little Women. If one were to restrict the shortcomings of the film as a cinematic experience divorced from other considerations, then the focus would be on plot, character, directing, editing, cinematography, etc. For instance, one could argue that there was no need for the jumping back and forth in time instead of telling the story in a linear manner. Cutting between past, present, and future periods can be useful to gain interest to wonder what led to a set of circumstances. Or, it can take different points of view from various characters experiencing the same situation. It can also be used to contrast present attitudes or behavior with past or future ones. But, this story has been filmed seven times for theatrical release and television. It is based on a multigenerational best seller. The plot is well known so the jumping back and forth does not really add much in trying to show how the characters change over time.

But, there has been a myopic view expressed by some who just focus on several of the comments and actions of Jo (Saoirse Ronan) without considering other feelings that she expresses. This exclusion of what is happening in the rest of the movie is done to argue that the story has been changed into an overly dogmatic feminist vision. But, it is called Little Women after all, not Little Woman. And, the title, of course, is ironic, since there is nothing small about the intelligence and strength of the character of these females. 

Gerwig has incorporated elements of author Louisa May Alcott’s own life into the story she tells, thus not basing the movie only on the novel. Thus, criticisms that it is not a faithful retelling of the novel fail to take this broader aspect into account. For instance, Alcott never married (just like Jane Austin, and this film has an Austin feel to it in criticizing the stress on the practicality of marriage over the human need for love). The ending of the film is enigmatic, as Alcott’s arguing with the publisher of her book about concessions to the public’s wants are replicated by showing cuts between Jo’s meeting with her publisher and her supposed running after Friedrich Bhaer (Louis Garrel) because she loves him. But Gerwig in her script noted the sequence as “possibly fiction.” Friedrich’s impact in this story is not as profound as the one in the 1994 version of the novel, since here it is sister Beth (Eliza Scanlen) who inspires Jo to continue to write, which leads to her story of the family. Maybe Jo actually wants to include Friedrich in her life, since he is shown at the end as a teacher as Jo prepares to open her school. But he is not the only element in her life, and possibly not as important as other interests, or not a factor at all, because that is her choice.

In this movie Jo says, “I don’t believe I will ever marry. I am happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up.” Some may argue that putting independence as the only criteria to live by does not allow for the interdependence necessary in a loving relationship. And, Jo expresses that problem herself when she says women “have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition and they’ve got talent as well as just beauty, and I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it! But … I am so lonely.” Those last words stress how Jo is conflicted about the emphasis on freedom over the commitment to another in a romantic relationship. 

In that same scene of dialogue between Jo and her mother, Jo is even reconsidering her refusal to marry Laurie (Timothee Chalamet), so lonely is she. But Marmee (Laura Dern) is the one who asks if she truly loves him. Jo says, “I want to be loved,” to which Marmee says, “That is not the same as loving.” The selfish need to be loved is emotional greediness, and in that way is similar to marrying for one’s own monetary practicality. Marmee here expresses the generous relinquishment of total independence for the good of more than the individual. To argue that Gerwig’s film is only about exalting personal individual freedom over everything else is an unjust attack on the film.

It is important to note that Meg (Emma Watson) freely chooses a domestic life as her means of fulfillment. Jo seems to want to force her version on her sister of how a woman should live when she says, “you should be an actress and have a life on the stage.” But Meg knows what she wants and says, “I want to get married … I want a family and a home.” Amy (Florence Pugh) correctly expresses the reality of marriage of the time when she says to Laurie, “as a woman I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family. Even if I had my own money, which I don’t, it would belong to my husband the minute we were married.” Yet, she foregoes marrying a person richer than Laurie, choosing to wed him for love instead. And, she continues what she also loves, as an individual, which is to paint. The film may be feminist, but it is about choice, and it does suggest that women should choose what and whom they love, not just espouse freedom as part of some agenda. 

People tend to be loyal to the books they love, and it is understandable that when a filmmaker changes the story, it can anger the readers. For example, Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Natural, ends with Roy Hobbs being a failure. The movie version shows him triumphant. There are many instances where the film will not carry the same title as the book so as to distance it from the source material, signifying that it will not be a faithful rendering. Perhaps the best, although not easy, approach is to judge the book and the movie objectively, and decide if each works on its own based on the artistic merits of the separate mediums.

Next, Oscar picks and preferences.