The “JOKER” Movie And The Criminalization of Mental Disorders.

As an adult, I have not been the biggest DC fan at all like when I was a kid. But, that last Joaquin Phoenix's "Joker" did quite a number on my overthinking daily routine. 

Mental illness had always been looked at as a valid reason and strong motivation for crimes, and people with mental disorders have always been looked at as criminals. A lot of people were touched by the great performance of Joaquin's as the brilliant impersonator he is, but few of us felt it, we felt heard and seen for once in our lives too, our weirdly unjustified behavior was finally explained to the public. 

Although, it makes me personally a bit jealous, how he mattered enough for the cinema industry to shed the light on him while the rest of us are fighting in the shadows of the shame our society drops on us. 

It really got to me when "Joker" had spoken on our behave when saying: "the worst part about having a mental illness, is people expect you to behave as if you don't", which is true. This is actually the hardest part as well, because most of the mental disorders do not have cure, only pain killers and stabilizing pills with side effects that ruins our body -as approved by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in March of 2009- more than our illness itself ever will. 

So, we have to be brave and strong enough on our worn up own, and do our best to not let our symptoms show in front of people. People would either mock us, look down on us, or worse yet... petty us. We are forced to walk this world acting like we are O.K. and stable when we never fully are, and we master those everyday scenes of ours to the point where people actually do get fooled and treat us like the normal and healthy person we rarely are… and I do not know whether to be proud of us, or to break down tired from all this acting we waste our energy on instead of using it to find the peace we need to reach stability and serenity?

“Joker” was more than just a sad movie, it was a sad reality. He did not become a criminal because of his illness, he became one because of how people treated him, they have awakened that little criminal inside of him... humans are too busy to connect with what makes them human nowadays.

The movie shows a dramatic side of “Joker” as a character, as it shows in most scenes how not all of us are always strong and in control all the time, some of us got beaten up too hard -metaphorically and literally- to the point where we got too weak to fight our own demons, and those demons got unleashed on the ones who had the main hand in irritating them, they got unleashed on the actual demons and criminals among us. It showed how a simple love affair could have calmed down his storms, an appreciation from his idol could have made his inner criminal die, and how a truthful loving family could have saved him from that darkness inside him hiding behind his powerful mask of a delusional fake smile.