Category: Uncategorized

What’s different about 2020?

Farheen Nahvi writes about the unnecessary pressures a new year brings.

I started 2019 in a place so different than where I find myself now that it’s making me wonder whether it’s any use at all to have a new plan for a new year. It was supposed to be a radically different year, but what I failed to realise then was that my absolutes aren’t how other people live, and my life isn’t in isolation from the world. But not all benefits are materially harvested; sometimes the best things to happen to us are lessons. So this is what I’ve learned, and what I hope might be just the thing you need today.

The significance of a new year in the human psyche is apparent in the way we think of it as a new start. We all excitedly wait for a terrible year to be over, so we can start afresh and break the cycle of misfortune-only to fall into the same pattern of dwindling hope and a descent into despair. If only the first day of the year had gone right; if only I had started on the right foot this year; if only, if only…

We place so much weight on the first of January every year to be the most perfect day in existence, that if it isn’t, we condemn our whole year to misery. We set up resolutions towards our betterment for a new year, and then feel terrible when we cannot immediately follow a completely new routine. We make promises about accepting that we are the masters of our own emotions, and then sink into despair of our own making when we cannot switch to being happy at the drop of a hat. We expect so much from a new calendar, that we seal the disappointment that’s delivered a few days later.

So what will be different about 2020? Perhaps we can all start with taking a deep breath, absorbing the freshness of January, and smiling; we got to a new day. There is nothing wrong with having resolutions and wanting to improve yourself, but the pressure of starting immediately, and thinking that if any old habits you want to get rid of surface in the new year is just a disaster- that’s what makes us spiral back into the pit we wished to climb out of in the first place. New habits take a while to stick, and starting slow is the only way we can make sure that we continue; not because of new year adrenaline, but because we want to develop a long-lasting ethic.

If you miss the January 1st deadline, the entire year is still ahead of you. What we need to remember, is that every day is a new day, and if we’re so determined on the first of January, we can be determined any other day of the year as well. As the grand scheme of epiphanies go, I did not reach this conclusion out of abstraction, but when I tried to make a positive change in my life last January, and again in June, and then again this holiday season, when I picked up writing again- it wasn’t impossible after all.

Maybe what we all need to really work for this new year is to stop feeling bad for ourselves, and stop evaluating our worth through somebody else’s eyes. We do not owe anyone our perfection, and any changes we want should be for us alone. Even if it is what helps our relationships, we should be able to start the ‘reform’ on our own. Nothing anyone ever says will make you want to change your circumstances and improve if you do not believe it yourself; I had heard this several times in the previous years (coming from well-meaning places), but never really wanted to move away from the comfort that comes with the consistency of self-destruction, not until I really wanted to, and I’m still working my way out. When we start doing things for ourselves, we do it at our pace, and we do it right; working according to someone else’s timeline will bring us nothing but despair.

I could not have imagined I would have the year that I had, and as we are wont to do, when the first major thing went wrong, I labeled the entire year ‘bad’. But it wasn’t just bad; there was always a penny where I lost a dollar, and the silver linings are the memories I want to take into this year.

So have a happy, better, kinder new year, and let’s try to make every day of 2020 a new day for the new beginning we all want.

Photo: author

Mr. Red Sky

Joyce Fang writes a scything indictment on her government’s environmental failures of the decade as we move into 2020 with the heat of the Australian bushfire disaster.

Mr. Red Sky please tell us why/

You had to hide away for so long (so long)/

Where did we go wrong?/

This festive period has sat unwell in the minds of millions of Australians. As we have been celebrating Christmas and welcoming a new year, the back of our throats has been filled with literal smoke that stings with the sour taste of betrayal from a negligent government.

This bushfire season in Australia has been worse than any ever experienced before. The situation has been worsening since the fires began in July, 3 months earlier than usual. 5.9 million hectares of land have been burnt with the flames spreading more day by day. That’s the equivalent of over half of Europe being burnt. From red skies, gas explosions, cities blanketed in smoke and ash falling like rain, the scenes coming out of the country belong to a dystopian film. There have been colossal impacts across the eastern and southern states, with the horrific destruction of properties, and the loss of wild and human life. The fires are even creating their own weather systems, with phenomena such as fire tornadoes and dry lightning (which are as terrifying as they sound). Many scientists have emphasised the influence of climate change in facilitating record breaking temperatures, extended drought and strong winds which have provided ideal conditions for the large exacerbation of the fires.

My social media feed is an uninterrupted stream of videos and reports of the fires, and although staying in Europe these holidays can be viewed as a welcome respite, the new year begs reflection and attention to the situation in the country I have grown up in, and the one so many of my loved ones still live in.

As we farewell 2019, we say farewell also to perhaps the worst decade in Australian political history. A decade marked by an incredibly unstable coalition government from the get-go that has seen half a dozen prime ministers. A decade of ignorance and denial and an absolute failure of our leadership to rise up in the face of our changing climate, the most significant challenge of our time and one that is exacerbating the fires. From the Liberal front bench tear down of the Labor carbon price (the only policy in Australian history to have ever reduced carbon emissions), to then-treasurer Scott Morrison brandishing a piece of coal in parliament, to underfunding the CSIRO, cancelling the Climate Commission, to approving the Adani coal mine and countless other feats contrary to global goals to reduce emissions; the failures of the decade of Australian governance surrounding climate change are exposed now more than ever in the face of a national catastrophe. We have not just taken a few steps backwards; we are now facing and walking in the other direction.

Australia ranks amongst countries with the worst climate policy in the world. Despite MPs stressing we have one of the lowest national percentages of carbon emissions at 1.3%, they forget to mention we have one of the highest per capita. As one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels, the country’s abundance of coal means the individuals and organisations that have profited from it currently have a tight grip on the government. Fires have long been a focus for Australian scientists, with countless reports warning of the dangers rising temperatures could have on our vulnerable country. Our failure to develop any sort of significant countering policy or develop a sufficient capacity to respond has raised much anger towards the cabinet’s decisions. The inadequacy of the response can be described as passivity. PM Scott Morrison has turned his back on the terror the country is currently experiencing, with criminal negligence to the gutting situation by continuing to deny the links between climate change and the fires. His holiday to Hawaii, and his NYE party in Kirribilli whilst Australia was up in flames perfectly symbolises his unprincipled attitudes and absence in leadership for a country that so desperately needs it. We are so disillusioned in the fight that even partisan bickering amongst Labor and the Greens on the left has also been blocking the united front of pragmatism that is required, as infighting has become a trademark of Australian politics this decade.

I feel ill reading the news. I am overcome with a sense of hopelessness that makes my skin crawl. It is now, more than ever, that Australian resilience is so necessary yet insufficient in a time of disaster. Put yourself in the shoes of those in Mallacoota, hugging the shore and being told to get into the water for safety, as the fire front knocked at their door. Imagine finding the dead bodies of a father and son attempting to defend their property from the fires. Imagine being the pregnant wife of one of those men. Think of those that have lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones from these fires.

To our coalition government, shame on you. Morrison, Angus Taylor, David Elliott, Michael McCormack, and Barnaby Joyce, shame on you. To the Murdoch media, shame on you. To those who continue to deny climate change for corporate and political gain- shame. on. you. You are a disgrace, Australia is outraged and disgusted and the world is noticing.

Looking ahead, the situation is far from over yet. With the fire season expected to continue for a few more months, dwindling water supplies and the questionable sustainability of our underfunded, mostly volunteer-run, fire service, the ferocity of the fires will continue to be a huge challenge as we enter the new decade. And so, the critics will continue to ask our PM and government: where the bloody hell are you?

photos

Interview with our Year Rep Candidates

First year student Ashley interviews the three year rep candidates to find out more about them and their ideas and motivations.

Running for Year Rep is no easy task — it requires devising new ideas to improve the Sciences Po community, an inordinate amount of effort, and knowing how best to capitalise on the allure of food.

While each candidate often does their best to pitch their ideas to a range of people during the campaign period, you might not have had this one-on-one opportunity. If you’re still deciding on who to vote for as the election date approaches, the responses of this year’s candidates’ (Any Li, Joaquin Castillo and Zhenhao Li) to our questions might help with your deliberation.

1. Campaign mottos and ideas aside, tell us more about yourself. What is one thing people don’t know about you?

Any: I play several kinds of instruments, and I’ll also be joining the KPop club after Diwali. One interesting fun fact is that I dream very often and they usually come in a series of stories; I remember all of my dreams very clearly. Usually, people say that if you don’t sleep well, you will dream… But I have dreams every day and I remember them so clearly, as if they were movies or dramas. There was once when I dreamt that I got out of a Metro station that looked like Paris, and there was a war going on (I’m not projecting anything!) and we had to go down into a cave to hide. Then, I was elected as the spy of our group to talk to the people who had initiated the war to reach peace.

Joaquin: I agree that it’s important to know more about the candidates so I created a video on that, where I talked about liking basketball, athletics and sports. But maybe something else that others don’t really know about me is that I always try to work for people because I feel that it’s my duty to be with people and help improve their lives. In fact, I used to be a Year Representative in my high school. Another thing I would say is that I miss the hikes that I used to do with my family — we used to go to the mountains near my village (in Spain), and this provided special moments for me to discover nature and the environment, which I really appreciated. I also miss going to the beach, and going to the sea, for sure.

Zhenhao: One fun fact about me is that I don’t eat coriander because I don’t like the smell of it. Also, I think that sometimes, people may feel that I might speak better Chinese than English, but please don’t hesitate to talk to me in English because it helps me practice expressing myself in English. I just really like communicating with people, so I guess that’s one thing about me that I’d like to share.

2. What motivated you to run for Year Rep?

Any: The Year Rep is supposed to represent the interests of all students. This year, we have more nationalities and ethnicities than ever before, so I think it’s very important to represent the interests of everyone. Last year, I also worked in a voluntary organisation and we introduced policies and information flows between migrant children and schools, so I’m familiar with having to communicate with others.

Joaquin: I think we’re used to seeing ways of representation that we don’t like. I think it’s a necessity to create or innovate or prove that there’s another way to be more democratic, and to show that our representation not only listens to all voices, but is also efficient in the things that it does. I would like this campaign to, in a certain way, revitalise and provide new ideas — not just ideas imposed by the candidates on others, but also more collaborative, where ideas are shared horizontally by everyone. This is what I call “guarantees of improvement”. This is why I think that renewing and strengthening the democratic process and the way we’re being represented is particularly important for our generation, because we’re the ones capable of inventing democracy, change political systems and invent new ideas. That is why I would like to be the one to represent the ideas of the people and of all their voices.

Zhenhao: I’m running for Year Rep because I feel that it is a way for me to connect with other people in my year. I really appreciate everyone’s talent and I would love to talk to as many people as possible. I also talk about my motivations in a video I uploaded to my Facebook page, so you can check that out too.

3. Given Sciences Po’s diverse student body, how do you plan on being accessible to your peers?

Any: Firstly, I’ve joined many clubs, which consist of people from different backgrounds who speak different languages, and I get to interact with them. Speaking of languages, I’m currently working on French B1 and hopefully I’ll get to B2 by next year so that I’ll be better able to communicate with students who are more comfortable speaking in French. Personally, I don’t want to put too much pressure on students, so I don’t think I will be organising General Assemblies with mandatory attendance just because everyone is so busy. But what I will do is to create a Facebook page with a link to a questionnaire asking for general solutions or suggestions to campus-related issues. It’s fine if you don’t want to fill it in, but I just want to ensure that I’m always available if others have any concerns about both academic and non-academic issues.

Joaquin: I really want this campaign to be an opportunity for everyone, regardless of their background, to express their thoughts. I’ve been talking to people since the beginning of the campaign, who are sometimes “intermediaries” who speak with people from other classes and programmes. They then tell me the demands of other students. For the moment, I have more than 6 “intermediaries” who are both 1As and 2As, and I hope that there will be more in the next few days. Of course, I would love to listen to everyone personally, but I know this isn’t easy, so I need help from other people to be able to listen to more concerns than if I worked alone. Other than this, I’m also planning on holding some events in the coming days and will publish details on Facebook. I think both of these will help me reach out to more people, regardless of their background.

Zhenhao: My background is pretty diverse because I lived in Hungary and went to a French high school, despite only being able to speak English and Mandarin, and am also originally from China. It was quite complicated being an international student in that campus initially, but I was eventually able to overcome language and academic issues. Everyone was different in terms of their backgrounds and everyone was unique in that they have different feelings and points of view about issues, so I think this multicultural setting helped me better understand the international community. I’m also a polyglot (I speak Chinese, English and French, and a little bit of Japanese!) so I’m able to talk with different communities directly and understand their real concerns.

4. If you had to use a song to represent your campaign, what would it be?

Any: One of my favourite songs is “The Other Side of Paradise” by Glass Animals. I feel like Sciences Po is already a very ideal environment, but there are other areas for us to improve on. It’s kind of already an academic paradise, but there are still other things to improve on, and that’s on the OTHER side of paradise. I think what the Year Rep is supposed to do is to try to make this paradise more satisfactory to everyone.

Joaquin: I don’t know if this is a bit dark, but I think the song “Renegades” by X Ambassadors shows that while there are some people who don’t feel good in society, everyone is still united despite this. Comparing this to my campaign, I hope that our Year Rep, not just for this campaign but also in the ones that follow it, will help all of us feel part of this campus. I think a union between people is necessary. I wouldn’t want to see people suffering, and I want to work on everyone’s welfare.

Zhenhao: I would say the song “Right Here Waiting” by Richard Marx! It represents my campaign because I’ll always be there to help others with their problems, and I want them to know that I’m approachable.

5. What are some issues that you’ve identified about school life, and what are your plans to rectify them?

Any: I think the first thing would be to deal with information flows between 1As, 2As and 3As. As 1As, we don’t have an organised file of study/exam resources or previous class’ notes from 2As and 3As, and I think we could create a Drive or get access to the 2A’s drive. I also want to create a Facebook group with 1As, 2As and 3As, where we invite 3As to share their overseas experiences, as well as experiences with the Parcours civique. If we can publish some articles or videos conducted with the 3As during the Summer vacation, that would allow the 1As and 2As to have an idea of what our lives during the third year might be like. Of course, you can seek advice individually by approaching specific 3As, but you won’t be able to meet every person face to face or ask them questions individually… But with a page, information would be more accessible.

Also, I would like to start the Yearbook project as early as possible, since we started quite late last year. Another thing would be the improvement of facilities — we can install a mirror in the music room (Room A1), provide more food choices in vending machines if this is negotiable with the BDE and the administration, and also solve the problem of the broken microwave more quickly in the future. These are just some minor things in terms of facilities. Another very important thing is improving communication with Admin. It seems quite basic, but it’s something that the Year Rep must do. Sometimes, the Admin sends emails regarding the rescheduling of classes only a day before, and if we don’t check our emails, we might not see the rescheduled timings. I would like to see if these arrangements can be done in advance instead.

Joaquin: One thing I know is that the 2As have been seriously struggling with finding their place abroad in another university for their third year. I would like to help them by increasing the amount of information accessible to them — I think there’s a problem of orientation because we don’t usually have a lot of information about that, so I would definitely like to help the 2As with their third year abroad through what I would call the ‘LH Student Toolbox’, which will provide tools for everyone to express themselves and how they hope things will improve even after the campaign. The Toolbox will also provide essential information on Sciences Po life — for example, who should I email when I’m sick, and what is the information available for the third year abroad? I think it’s important to open the dialogue to the 3As who are currently abroad by inviting them back on campus or asking them to share their experiences, so that everyone is able to decide where to go for their third year. I also know that many people are struggling with CAF, which is why I would like to help the 1As with their integration here through the ‘LH Student Toolbox’.

Some other people have also told me that there aren’t enough microwaves, so one of my electoral promises is to buy more microwaves for students. Another proposition that I think is extremely necessary is to hold a General Assembly for students every two months, because this is another way for us to enforce our democracy. I would like to make all the ideas proposed during these Assemblies into a reality.

Zhenhao: Personally, I don’t have any big problems with school life. But I’ve been listening to people’s ideas and I’ve discovered that there are quite a few issues that we can try to negotiate with the administration. For instance, the absence policy is a problem for many people because some students may be sick for a very long time but they’re unable to get a justification from the doctor within the allowed period. Some people may also have psychological problems, which makes it very difficult for them to justify their absence. I think this concerns quite a few people, and that this issue should be addressed. Or, at the very least, we should make the absence policy clearer for students to understand why and when/how they should obtain their justification.

6. What is one challenge you foresee yourself facing as Year Rep, and how will you overcome it?

Any: For me, the most urgent challenge would probably be my proficiency in French, especially when dealing with the French administration… But I think I need to be more patient with this. Also, I think there’s a lack of interaction with some people who sign up for classes in French because they’re not in any of our classes and we don’t meet them a lot. Another issue would be the flow of information, but as long as we have Facebook pages and groups, I think this problem can be solved.

Joaquin: I think one challenge would be facing the worry of not getting what I want after voicing concerns to the school administration. To overcome this, we would need to find compromises with the administration to allow things to be improved. I think the administration is concerned with our welfare, and I would like to thank them for that because I know it’s not the same in all places. This is needed for us to make it possible for ideas to be implemented. For me, another way to overcome these challenges is to draw on my experience of being a class representative in high school to implement a recycling network. I’ve said that our school needs to be more ecological and that we need to recycle, and I managed to implement a system of recycling when I was in high school… I have experience implementing ideas that might seem complicated initially, but turn out to be achievable after good organisation and a huge willingness to see them through.

Zhenhao: My challenge is probably speaking in front of a big crowd because I’m not very used to this, and would prefer talking privately to people. But I think this may be an advantage as well, because talking to people privately could help me solve problems directly as a Year Rep. To overcome this, maybe I can attend more MUNs (which I’ve just done!) to practice my public speaking skills. The speech that I need to deliver on Monday is limited to 1.5 minutes, which is exactly the same amount of time for General Speakers’ List speeches during MUN! So I think I’ve definitely taken LHIMUN 2019 as an opportunity to train my public speaking skills.

Remember to cast your votes for your Year Representative on Thursday. After all, if our P.I. classes have taught us anything, it’s that voting is a right that ought to be exercised!

(For more information on each candidate’s campaign, do head to the following links: Any, Joaquin, and Zhenhao.)

Joker – a review and a reflection

2 seperate pieces on Joker by Todd Phillips, written by Amir and Ji Sung, giving different takes and critiques of the film.

2 seperate pieces on Joker by Todd Phillips, written by Amir and Ji Sung, giving different takes and critiques of the film.

 

Part I – A Review – Ji Sung Park

 

Joker, released on October 4th, was highly anticipated, widely praised and greatly disappointing.

 

Do not misunderstand; it is a great movie in many aspects. The cinematography is superb; even with bright colors, the atmosphere feels darker than Sin City. The sound editing is pitch-perfect (Aha!); in the scene where Arthur dances his way down the stairs, the background music transitions quickly and appropriately from that reflecting the ostensibly comical image of the clown to that resounding his descent into madness – truly beautiful. The acting is Oscar-deserving. Joaquin Phoenix honors his last name with his flawless impersonation of the flawed character of Arthur Fleck, losing somewhere around 24 kilograms for the act.

 

But does the movie really deserve all the praise it is receiving? I have my doubts. Many audiences found it boring, not least because of the repeated and protracted laughter of the protagonist. But more importantly, it is a predictable story. Even Marvel zealots know who the Joker is. The downward path for Arthur was predetermined, and after watching the trailer a couple of times it will not be difficult for an indifferent granny to concoct half of the plot successfully. In that sense, the movie is a monotonous routine of disappointments and humiliation for Arthur. What is interesting is his growing versatility in murder. Given time, he might as well have killed someone magically with a pencil. May true DC (or movie) fans get my joke, and not be dazzled by the cheap Batman references in the movie.

 

However, the director does play a smart trick at the end of the movie. Instead of closing with Arthur dancing (that man just can’t stop dancing) on the hood of the police car, which would have been epic, the movie ends with Arthur having imagined a “joke” in Arkham State. This gives the audience a creative option for interpreting the movie; that the whole event was contrived as a mere “joke” by Arthur, in Inception-esque layers of imagination. Someone noticed that time does not change, or more precisely that all the clocks have the same arrangement in the movie, which seems to support the theory that the whole story was fabricated. Nevertheless, like Inception, there is no definitive explanation and there should not be one.

 

Now for the more serious talk. Some people suggest that Joker sheds light on the rejection and discrimination of mentally troubled people. Really, such awareness is not addressed in the film in any perceivable way, primarily because Arthur is not as insane as one may first suspect. By nature, he is not a psychopath, although he quickly turns into one. And with the exception of the hallucinations involving Sophie, he has a pretty strong grasp on reality. Enough so to deliver a fully-fledged, critical and apparently quite inspirational speech defending his murder. No, Arthur Fleck is neither as psycho as Norman Bates nor as sophisticated as Hannibal Lecter to entertain the audience by himself, ironically suiting the character.

 

Then, is Joker a critique on society and its inequality? The answer is: not really. The movie does illustrate how the rich upper class can be despicably apathetic and self-indulgent. But that alone does not justify murdering them. Thus, if the murders were committed by an unhappy social critic, it is an act of downright evil; if they were committed by a madman/psychopath, it is a series of unfortunate events (Aha!); for the victims, of course. In the end, what did Thomas Wayne ever do but punch an unreasonable man, reasonably, in the face? And what wrong did Murray Franklin commit to deserve a bullet to the head? It could be argued that they committed much more contemptful acts off-screen, but such accusation can be made of literally anyone. Therefore, the murder of Thomas and Murry cannot be more right than the murder of Christina Grimmie. Then, was the lower class so abused as to desire complete social upheaving? Sophie, who lives in the same miserable apartment as Arthur, doesn’t seem to think so. She has managed to put up with her harsh realities and establish a life for herself and her child. Moreover, Arthur murders Randall, a man in a similar socio-economic position as Arthur. The result of this action has obscured the conflict between the classes, and that between a troubled man and the world is highlighted. In fact, the story of the movie resembles the Taiping Revolution in many aspects; a gravely disappointed man-turned-mad unexpectedly leading the unsatisfied populace to a darker and more chaotic future. Only that it is set in a world far from realistic, unlike Parasite, or symbolic, unlike District 9, and only depicts a fictional inequality like in Elysium.

 

Then, perhaps the only valid message in the movie is the repercussions of lying, both to others and oneself. Penny Fleck, who is probably much more insane than Arthur, lies to her son about his origin. This inflames Arthur’s conception of being mistreated by society, exacerbating his mental state and for Penny, leads to her tragic death. Happy themes! Hopefully this movie did not inspire too many ideas apart from Halloween costumes.

 

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Part II -An Adventure of self reflection on social responsibility – Amir Harith

 

The reason I chose this title is that the film itself made me pull an all-nighter reflecting about my life and the society I’m currently living in. It provides me with a space, somewhere in my head, to recall the smallest cruel stuff and the selfish acts I’ve ever done that could hurt anybody in this world and also to put some thoughts on why I find familiarity in the despair experienced by Arthur Fleck, the Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix.

 

Up to this point, the critiques that I’ve heard from my friends who dislike Joker is that the movie is just another lesson of: what are the consequences of social inequality, bad social integration or the problematic relationship between the governer and the governed. I think we should see beyond this obvious, simplistic causality of why the society in the film descent to societal insanity showed via the great buildup of the movie. We should be able to see the subtle messages and the complexity that Todd Phillips attempted to bring for the audience.

 

The conceptualization of the world around us through the eyes of the privileged

 

What I found was thought-provoking is the fact that the film gives us an alternative perspective about Thomas Wayne. It is not only that it changes the common way of seeing him as the hero for Gotham that seeks to cure and redress the injustice (from altruistic businessman to an abusive person), it also tells us, the audience, through what agency we have been absorbing or accepting ideas. It is through the lenses of somebody else: the media that is run and regulated by the captains of industry, the rich or politicians that have personal agenda. This was most evident when Arthur gives his indelible speech that says “ If it was me dying on the sidewalk, you’d walk right over me… but these guys (the three dead Wayne rich workers), because Thomas Wayne cries about them on TV…” which tells us that, even if we don’t notice it, we believe in things that somebody else wants us to believe. The things that come to my mind especially when thinking about the Malaysian context is how we perceive ethnic issues – when politicians play their racial-religious card and we become “enthusiastic” talking about it when we otherwise wouldn’t. Or how many Malaysians see immigrants in the media – the portrayal of the dangerous migrants and how it affects our perspective on them. It might appear that this news coverage is harmless, but this hatred and the normalization of this “us vs them” mentality has become so entrenched, fortified and almost irreversible within the system that we ourselves contributed to by supporting it or worse, says nothing about this evil process. As a consequence, eventually, this vicious view is translated into an inhumane policy.

 

Furthermore, I also think the movie delicately asks us to be skeptical about the philanthropic behavior by the upper class and to avoid taking things at a surface level. When we see a politician or a CEO of a company tries to fight for the poor or donates money to the underprivileged on newspapers, we think they know what they are doing, and they are doing something right. As much as I would love to celebrate this charitable ‘intention’ and demeanor, we always fail to recognize that this act is an indirect homogenization of the powerless, the poor by a person who has never lived this life. It removes the possibility of seeing the poor as having various identities and simultaneously silencing their different interests and point of views. This is extremely important because it affects the way we see the methods of correcting the system and helping people – not having a white savior complex. I also believe that it influences the way we see ourselves (coming from a different spectrum of the middle-class) who either think that we are working just for the sake of improving our own lives, or even if there is some form of awareness about the need to help the have-nots, we feel complacent with the amount of work we’ve done to help them. We follow a university trip or an NGO to a poor area for a month and teach impoverished kids English or Mathematics, we think we understand them already and have done enough to help them. I believe there is no such thing as peace or ‘sufficient contribution’ if there is one person out there who is struggling to survive in the system that we are complacent and privileged to live under.

 

We are all morally liable for the injustice that’s happening around us

 

I believe many people who managed to find the good within Arthur, are able to resonate a lot with the everyday cruelty suffered by him. Throughout the movie, Phoenix tries to be selfless and to do what is presumed right, at least in his small circle. He never misses to check the mailbox just in case there is a letter that his mum asks him about every day. Which means, he never forgets about the needs or interests of people around him. When he got beaten up by some naughty kids, we can see his hand reaching for the broken placard showing that he cares about his job and potentially, that is the only way to help his family survive. When he saw the woman and her child running for the elevator, he stopped the door from closing. It may seem like these are small nice random acts that most people do in daily life, but I believe they are the representation of Arthur trying to keep his sanity through doing what is deemed as correct behavior.

However, all of these moral acts are fundamentally betrayed by something bigger than himself, something he himself cannot control: the discriminative system he is working for, lies told by the same mother he devoted his life for, made fun of by his idolized comedian, rejected and ignored by the woman he has a crush on. It is the same for many of us who sometimes feel that we are doing something that is regarded as honorable or something generally nice but then ignored, forgotten and worse taken wrongly as having bad intentions. That is why it is easy for us to relate to Arthur’s journey from the film because we experience this feeling almost every day.

 

I think what is more important is to acknowledge is how mean and cruel people can be on a day-to-day basis irrespective of whether or not they are deliberate. We probably do not have the intentions to hurt people, but our objectives can sometimes clash with other people’s interests and that is totally normal. The question then becomes how you can think about it before you sleep – the opportunities that you might have taken away from someone else. It is important to self-reflect so that you remove the tendency for being individualistic in every single step that you take because it potentially affects others. Fundamentally, I think Phillips’ message in this movie is simple: the sufferings that people experience at a micro-level, whether being rejected from a job because of their ethnic identity or rejected from having a decent life because of not having access to good education, are all our fault. We cannot stay motionless and have to do something about it.

 

Ultimately, this movie is not only about top-down viciousness, but bottom-up complacency and ignorance about the world around us. Joker is an allegory about what happens in a society where cruelty is pandemic, and empathy is absent. It is a wake-up call that beseeches us to be kind to one another.