Joker (2019) | Mental Health and Personality Analysis

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today's question asks I can take a look at the mental health and personality characteristics of the Joker this is the 2019 movie so this movie features Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro other questions related to this would be is this movie itself dangerous we've kind of heard that talked about and was it a good film this is a good time to issue a spoiler alert there certainly will be spoilers in this video and to remind everybody I'm not diagnosing anyone here the character Arthur Fleck is in fact a character the Joker not a real person so this film offers kind of a dark atypical portrayal of a comic-book villain a journey through a simple but unreliable narrative and we see it has a somewhat measured pace leaving time for character development which i think was part of the point of the movie so first I'll go through the timeline of what happens in the movie and the mental health and personality characteristics of Arthur Fleck the Joker and then take a look at my thoughts on the film itself so the narrative takes place in Gotham City around 1981 we see the primary character the person who would become the Joker Arthur Fleck he's a clown and he gets assaulted early in the movie while working as a clown some people take his sign he chases him down and then again they assault him so this becomes important later on now early on we see these in an appointment with his social worker and we learn he has a history of mental illness he has a prior hospital stay in his history and he's on seven different medications and we also see there may be some dysregulation of mood he shows the social worker his journal and his joke diary and she argues with them a bit is kind of judgmental also the office is a mess there's a desk between Arthur and the social worker so it's not really a very therapeutic environment this isn't surprising though because later on we learned that Gotham City will stop for this program so that social worker would not be available to him at some point during that later conversation the social worker makes it clear that the government doesn't care about arthur and it does care about her either so that's an interesting statement for a social worker or a type of psychotherapist to make even if it were true it's just unusual to say that to a client moving along we see an incident on the train we see that author tries to make a kid laugh and the mom gets upset and he gives her this laminated card and the movie never indicates this for certain but it appears he has a medical condition called pseudobulbar affect known as PBA and this is characterized by frequent and voluntary bouts of crying laughing or other displays of emotion these displays are exaggerated and they're disconnected from the individuals actual mood state right so what this means is the laughter or the crying is not necessarily consistent with how the person feels they could be sad but laughing for example it's typically caused by brain injuries or neurological disorders it's actually fairly serious and we see that again this is a medical condition not a mental disorder so it's not something that would be treated by a mental health counselor although a person with PBA could be treated by a counselor for any mental disorders that would become morbid with PBA a common comorbid mental disorder we see with PBA would be major depressive disorder now we also see the PBA is not tied to any unusual experience of emotion the outbursts can last for several minutes and the laughter often turns into tears we see a lot of uncontrollable crying with PBA now we see the author has an unusual relationship with his mother there's a routine there like they watch television together but neither one seems to have a lot of experience socially the mother also seems to have an affinity for Thomas Wayne and the Batman narrative of course that's Bruce Wayne's father so Batman's father we see that later on the movie author is helping his mother take a bath so they may have kind of animation ship there another important event early in a movie is that Arthur and Penny are watching a television show featuring Murray Franklin this character is played by Robert De Niro it appears the author is imagining that he's on the Murray Franklin show and Murray is recognizing how good Arthur is so Murray says if he had a son like Arthur he would give up everything like in terms of show business so we see it looks like Arthur has a fantasy of success he's looking for approval and he also believes that his purpose in life is to be a light to the world this is presented like a fantasy but it could also be a delusion again it's not really clear sometimes in this movie what he's just kind of thinking about and what he really believes is happening I believe this particular event though is really just more him fantasizing because of the assault that we saw early in the film I talked about before a co-worker encourages author to defend himself it actually gives him a gun and he has an interaction with the boss just after that where his feelings are invalidated so during that robbery of sign was taken from him and then he was assaulted with that sign and the boss tells him he's to return the sign or he's gonna have to pay for it so we see kind of an anger response here to this type of invalidation of feelings now later on we see that author is working as a clown again in a Children's Hospital and he's kind of dancing around and his gun falls out of his pants onto the ground just stresses the importance of having holster right but either way he's fired from his job for that reason we see later on that author is writing a subway home and there's these three men harassing a woman in the subway car author starts laughing presumably because of again some sort of condition and the three men take issue with that and they start harassing him and eventually start assaulting him knocking him to the ground and kicking him he draws that firearm and kills two of them now at this point so he kills two one runs away at this point he could probably make a case for self-defense right this may be justified because he was being assaulted at the time he fired but then he pursue the third man and runs him down and shoots him twice murdering him so self defense on two but then probably something like second-degree murder for the third initially with all this he's calm then he appears shaken many dances around a bit then he's calm again and confident and has a fantasy about kissing his neighbor Sophie at this point it's not clear that that relationship with Sophie is not real we find that out later now it turns out that those three men who were killed on the subway all worked for Thomas Wayne and all three men were wealthy so we see Thomas Wayne is on television and he's kind of arrogant he paints the killings as an attack on the elite Thomas Wayne refers to the killer as a clown this comes up later on the movie now again we see the situation as self-defense and murder Arthur doesn't shoot them because they were wealthy his actions were not about a rebellion or some sort of political uprising or statement next we see that penny leads author to believe that Thomas Wayne is his father right so we kind of have a twist here in the movie there's a conversation between author and Thomas Wayne we see that Thomas Wayne indicates to author that penny adopted Arthur during a time when penny worked for Thomas Wayne while so we see here that penny may be guilty of neglect and we see that Thomas Wayne assaults author after this conversation so author goes to Arkham state hospital not Arkham Asylum but the state hospital so this is kind of new as far as I know in terms of like the Batman narrative and steals his mother's records so it turns out she was a patient there at the hospital many years before I think thirty years before that so these records lends support to what Thomas Wayne told author so in terms of Penny's diagnosis we see delusional psychosis and narcissistic person is order of course delusional psychosis is not a mental disorder they're kind of combining a few things they're they're more like symptoms of other disorders but either way the trying to say that she's psychotic including delusions and is narcissistic we also see that she was there because she endanger the welfare of a child presumably author and that author was adopted again supporting what Thomas Wayne had said and that he experienced a head trauma and I find this particularly interesting because we know that PBA again is associated with head injuries so it makes the story a little more consistent at least for this part later on we see the initials TW on a photo of course anyone can write initials on the photo but either way we really don't know if this is a delusion this whole story that Thomas Wayne told about the mother or if the mother is actually telling the truth it seems pretty clear though that author believes that his mother was guilty of the neglect and the abuse because she has taken the hospital for symptoms of a stroke and author murders her in her hospital bed so as all this is going on he's invited to be on the Murray Franklin show right the show that he was watching earlier in the film and we see kind of practices for being on that show that's important because him being on the show really becomes more or less the final kind of dramatic scene so at this point we see these stops taking his medication he murders the guy who gave him the gun because that guy came over to his apartment there's another guy that came with him that author did not murder and noted that that person was always nice to him always treated him well we see at this point I think that author really transforms into the Joker right he's confident and seems to have a sense of purpose at this point a destructive sense of purpose but either way he does seem to know what he's about he's figured himself out to some extent or at least he thinks he has so we come here to the big ending again we see that now the Joker is a guest on the Murray Franklin Show this show is broadcast live he asked to be introduced as the Joker so when it comes onstage we see that Murray Franklin refers to him as the Joker in this kind of awkward conversation between the Joker and Murray Franklin we see the Joker indicates that everyone is awful no as empathy Murray accuses him of having lost self pity and then we see kind of an important quote that the Joker offers what do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash so right after saying this we see that the Joker murders Murray Franklin on live television he's arrested he's in the back of a police car and ambulance hits that car and he's freed and then he seems to have the audience that he's always wanted which are a bunch of people who are also dressed up as the Joker right because his killing of those three wealthy men kind of led to this uprising but then later on we see he's in a mental institution and he appears to murder a social worker there and attempts to escape it's not clear if he gets away or not so at the end it gets really jumbled I think so what do we have here in terms of mental disorders so again PPA is not one of the mental disorders here it's a physical disorder what complicates any type of diagnosis here would be that possible etiology of PBA the possible cause could have been a head trauma and that head trauma could not only explain the PBA it could explain a lot of other symptoms so I'm going to discuss other possible diagnosis running under the assumption that the brain injury did not lead to the symptoms so we see clear evidence here in the Joker of psychosis delusions there's no clear evidence of hallucinations introduced at this point there are a number of disorders that these symptoms could point toward including schizophrenia schizoaffective disorder bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder because there's no real evidence of mania like he's not you for he's not happy he's more sad and he does seem to have some of the negative symptoms like flat affect he appears to be expressionless at times I would say this schizophrenia would be the most likely here followed by major depressive disorder with psychotic features he mentioned the news not happy for even one minute of his life so that kind of supports that diagnosis of course somebody can have both of these disorders at the same time another possibility here of course would be schizotypal personality disorder we wouldn't see delusions with that disorder rather perceptual disturbances in the movie again it's not really clear with the neighbor Sophie that appears to be more like a delusion so I'd probably move over toward delusions more so than something like perceptual disturbances as gets a typical person a sorter what about other personality sweaters well the narrative is kind of confusing again with all the delusions we don't know what's real what's not but running under the assumption that the mother did have narcissistic personality disorder that would mean that author was more likely to have cluster B personality pathology so that would include antisocial borderline histrionic and of course narcissistic person is order now the one that comes to mind first would be antisocial personality sorter because we have this criminality component featured and the Joker's behavior as we consider the symptom criteria for antisocial personality we see that the Joker manifests repeated unlawful behaviors consistent deceitfulness impulsivity poor planning aggressiveness physical fights certainly murder would qualify him for that symptom a reckless disregard for safety same thing murder would support that symptom consistent irresponsibility is a little less clear but toward the end certainly he seems irresponsible and at the end he clearly has a lack of remorse so it looks like he may have antisocial personality sorter but the difficulty with this diagnosis is that the symptoms would have to be present to some degree for quite a while and it's not clear if he has any of those symptoms in his history if what he really has here is a sudden onset of these symptoms that would really just not be believable personality sorters simply don't work that way we also don't know if he had symptoms of conduct disorder before age 15 and that is required for a diagnosis now antisocial personality disorder overlaps with factor to psychopathy sometimes call it sociopathy and that's what we really see here someone who's emotionally reactive has high neuroticism and is impulsive regardless of whether he meets the official diagnostic criteria he does seem to have characteristics of sociopathy in terms of factor 1 psychopathy like the kind of psychopathy we would see and like a serial killer we see some evidence of this here callous unemotional toward the end fearless dominance toward the end but he's not particularly manipulative and he doesn't seem to be a pathological liar meaning he doesn't lie for no reason at all he tends to lie toward the end for purpose so the Joker has some factor one trait suppose personality is better I think described here as factor to psychopathy so then of course we get into this question of narcissistic person I disorder again the mother may have it does the Joker meet the requirements for NPD well here I think he clearly does not he does seem to have three of the symptoms a grandiose sense of self-importance and Eve's fantasies and a lack of empathy but it doesn't really seem to consider himself special in a sense of being high status he doesn't really seem to require excessive admiration he doesn't want some but not excessive doesn't seem to have a sense of entitlement again as I mentioned before he doesn't appear manipulative he doesn't seem to Envy other people not to the degree I would expect with MPD and he does not appear to be arrogant so he only has three of the nine symptoms required for a narcissistic personality and again we'd have to know the history because this disorder just wouldn't pop up out of nowhere there would be symptoms for some time we would see this throughout the course of his development so this brings us to the question is this a dangerous movie right we've seen this kind of talked about before as I indicated I don't think this is a dangerous movie any movie has the potential for trouble I suppose but I didn't see this one as particularly likely to lead to violence or anything like that more likely than a non violent movie to be sure but I didn't really see it as really standing out in that way I understand why some people are concerned about that though now moving on to the question was it a good movie well I know a lot of people found a lot of redeeming characteristics in this film the quality of the acting on the part of Joaquin Phoenix the screenplay the direction and I certainly the in-depth character study and what this film was trying to accomplish but I didn't really like the movie I don't think it's because the movie isn't my type of movie normally I would like a movie like this I think it's because the narrative for me anyway appeared kind of jumbled especially at the end again with all these delusions we don't know it's real it's hard to really invest for me anyway in that storyline being so kind of discombobulated and the message of the movie really doesn't align with science specifically I'm talking about the message that combining mental illness with an uncaring society leads to violence I agree it's not healthy to abandon individuals with mental disorders we certainly need more treatment available and we need more empathy and compassion but I don't like this narrative that connects individuals with mental disorders to violence that's simply not supported by the evidence I've talked about this many times before in other videos another thing doesn't resonate for me with this film is the idea that it puts out there that society should do the right thing out of a fear of violence I would say a better message would be to do the right thing out of a desire to be kind to help people achieve their potential and to reduce suffering now again it's a movie the purpose of movies is not always to contribute something to society but in terms of entertainment I really didn't find it entertaining either so I was kind of disappointed with the film one of the ways I kind of look at a movie to figure out whether I like it or not would be interest in a sequel and with this movie I just have no interest in a sequel so if they make one I'll probably watch it but I don't really have any interest in that now like I don't look at this movie and think I can't wait for a sequel to come out with movies that I like I'm usually looking for a sequel unless they really wrapped it up nicely a sequel doesn't make sense of course but that's one indicator for me and again I didn't really see that with this one now one thing I did like about the movie even though I didn't enjoy it as a film it did bring up a lot of interesting discussions about mental health right so it did bring mental health back into the spotlight and opened up discussions dialogues between people and I think that's a good thing right I may not like the messages of the particular film but at least it was in a sense bringing some awareness to the topic of mental illness so we know whenever I talk about topics like the Joker there'll be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they're sure to generate really interesting dialogue around this film and what the film was talking about as always I hope you found this description of the mental health and personality characteristics of the Joker to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 270,304

Rating: 4.8166065 out of 5

Keywords: The Joker, the Joker 2019, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, analysis of the Joker, Arthur Fleck, Arkham State Hospital, Arkham Asylum, Batman, Bruce Wayne, Thomas Wayne, murder, psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, delusions, psychosis, schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder

Id: WrWV443_D5U

Length: 20min 40sec (1240 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019