The Joker Sequel Movie Shows How Hope Has the Power to Drive Conflict

The much-awaited Joker sequel starts with the titular protagonist in prison, pending trial for his murders committed two years ago. The man, frail and emaciated, chooses to remain quiet in the face of constant taunts from the guards, too happy to jump on any perceived infringements to beat up inmates. Gone is the confidence of the clown defending his actions, and inspiring millions who saw him as the symbol of fighting back against the authorities that seem to exist to protect Gotham's powerful bullies. As Arthur, the man simply retreats into an inner world of fantasy, shriveling as he heads to an inevitable death penalty.

That is, until, by chance, he encountered a young woman, Lee, an inmate in another ward for the psychotically disturbed. Minutes spent in a singing class for the prisoners allowed the two to bond over their mutual struggles. Growing up in the same violent neighborhood to violent, uncaring parents led both to a life of loneliness and delinquency, ultimately resulting in crimes, he is a murderer, and she is an arsonist. An unlikely profession of love expands Arthur's fantasies once more, as, colored by a musical procession, he details his love for Lee and their desire to lead a life of crime one day when he gets out.

But the boundary between fantasy and reality continued to blur in Arthur's head and in the real world. His lawyer informs Arthur that Lee is not who she proclaims herself to be, instead a rich girl with a graduate degree in biology and an unbroken family who faked her own crime to get close to the Joker. But Lee countered that the lawyer is not to be trusted, that she is the only one willing to work with him toward a common future. Conflicted about who to trust and who really cares about him, Arthur's confusion comes to a head just as his trial starts.

The conflict only deepens as he comes face to face with the people who made him who he is, in the form of witnesses and their stories being cross-examined in the courtroom. As his lawyer tries to make the case that he suffers from bipolar disorder, Arthur becomes more and more convinced that everyone, including the lawyer, his deceased mother, and every person he came across cared little about who he really is, but what they wanted to perceive him as. Whether as a villain deserving to die or a hero for the downtrodden, the others only projected images of what they wanted him to be based on their own hopes and dreams.

In increasing mental pain, Arthur lashed out, alienating everyone who, whether or not they truly cared, chose to remain in contact with him. Firing his lawyer in public, criticizing the prison guards, and most pivotally, confessing that there is nothing such as the Joker only led to Lee's forever goodbye, a sodomizing in prison, and a unanimous verdict of the death penalty. Arthur was broken, increasingly aware that it was not just him fantasizing about a beautiful future with Lee that he would never have, but everyone was also fantasizing about a world of justice, ridden of or led by the Joker.

So perhaps it was no surprise that Arthur chose not to hide from the pursuing police when his remaining supporters used a car bomb to break him out of the prison. And he chose not to fight back when a young inmate, no doubt disappointed in the self-declared death of the Joker, stabbed him multiple times in the prison corridor. As he realized that everyone just cared about the Joker and themselves, and none cared for Arthur, he no longer had any reason to run or live. Devoid of the hope for something that extricates him from the loneliness and ostracization, he loses all motivation to do anything at all.

Such is the power of hope. Lee's wealth and education did not drive as much as the hope of getting to know and collaborating with the Joker. Those youngsters in clown masks who detonated a courthouse-destroying car bomb and whisked Arthur away from the crime scene let the hope of a Joker-centered criminal empire overcome any fear of future punishment. And millions who hoped their version of justice would prevail made Arthur's trial the "trial of the century" covered by news headlines. Hope was enough to make them fight, break the rules, and kill.

This power of hope, so powerfully channeled through the Joker and its audience, has too many parallels in our own lives. As war rages on in the Middle East, Ukraine, and elsewhere, as political conflicts degenerate into verbal assaults on the belief systems of others, that power of hope, to vanquish one's foes, to throw off the yoke of the oppressors, and to create opportunities for self-determination, will continue to drive division, violence, and fanaticism as long as no one dejectedly extinguish the hope by themselves. The "visions" of charismatic leaders, whether politicians or demagogues, unfortunately, are not Arthur.