Lessons of Beto O'Rourke and "Joker": Mental illness is not the cause of gun violence

The hit movie “Joker,” released in theaters last week, unintentionally offers an object lesson in why society should stop vilifying mental illness — and why we need far more vigorous gun control.

Both points became evident in a single scene that perfectly captures both the movie’s ambiguous views on mental illness and those of American society overall. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a party clown who has just been assaulted by a gang and is commiserating with one of his co-workers, who offers him a gun. Fleck is initially horrified by the idea: He is mentally ill and legally isn’t permitted to own a firearm. Eventually he agrees to accept the weapon, an act that single-handedly turns him toward the path of violence and thereby sets the plot in motion.

One could write an entire article deconstructing “Joker’s” sometimes sympathetic and insightful, sometimes derogatory depiction of mental illness. (My full review can be read here.) Yet the more troubling subtext of this scene is that it never questions the idea that people who are mentally ill should be treated differently when it comes to guns. It is the weapon that allows Arthur’s innate capacity for violence to be realized — a capacity one the movie explicitly links to his mental illness, as well as society’s mistreatment of him.

In other words, a viewer could easily watch “Joker” and walk away with the same conclusion proclaimed by President Trump in August after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left 31 people dead: “Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun.”

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2019/10/14/lessons-of-beto-orourke-and-joker-mental-illness-is-not-the-cause-of-gun-violence/