the Joker: Evil in film vs reality

AICN has EKM's essay on the way various actors portrayed the Joker. and another review of the movie HERE.

it sounds like the movie is trying to explain why the Joker turned crazy, due to being abused etc. and then there is the fact he is mentally ill.

I'm not into superheros, and even less into the Batman series, but for those of you who are, it sounds like an interesting albeit noir movie. 

the reason I am not into superheroes or movies with fake bad guys is that evil itself is bad enough, and the real fight against evil is the "jihad" against the evil inside our own hearts. 

Where does God come into this? By providing the courage to fight evil. And by being at our side (or inside our head) when we get discouraged.

like the 1970's, all the young have decided to fix the world: Instead of being "anti war" (which led to the Cambodian holocaust and the hundreds of thousands of boat people, which these same types never took responsibility for), the modern SJW are pushing global warming, without being aware that to Asia, it means letting your people stay in poverty. I mean, here when the price of petroleum products goes up or down one peso, it is headlines: Because it affects people at many levels of their lives, (from transportation to one's job, to the cost of food since growing food and transporting it to Manila relies on gasoline/diesel powered equipment, to not being able to afford LPG gas to cook the food)

demonstrating against "evil" is so ego gratifying, and lets you project your inner conflicts to someone else.

But only Jordan Peterson bothers to tell young people that they have to start with "cleaning their room" before they decide to become social activists to change the world.

the review actually mentions this in the movie the Joker: he mentions the garbage on the streets: is this about the 1970s, when NYcity was a dirty hellhole, or about 2019 San Francisco?

Does anyone remember that  NYCity, was pretty well cleaned up by Mayor Giuliani, who was accused back then for being a Nazi for enforcing the laws under the "broken window" theory that chaos/broken windows encourage larger crimes? 

which is why I am so annoyed at "social Justice warriors": they tweet viciously but don't take out the garbage. 

Well, some do: but they aren't members of the "in" group so just ignore them.

Ignoring the needs of ordinary folk to live in a clean and safe environment under the guise of "compassion" is actually a false compassion (sort of like the SJW here who hate Duterte and blame him for every murder, but who ignore the murders by criminal druggies and crooked politicians and kidnap gangs before he took over because it was ordinary folks, not criminals, who lost their lives.)

at the end of the movie Magnificent Seven, the lesson is that the farmers are forever: The heroes come and go like the wind, but the reality is the ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Old Man:
Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind, blowing across the land and... passing on. Vaya con Dios.

both are needed, but if you emphasize only the superheroes, you forget the heroism of ordinary people.

I was talking to my granddaughter last night and again warned her not to go into social work or psychology (she is a mothering type person and thinks this career would be similar to her motherly help of other students); 

I have worked among the poor of the world, both materially poor and (what is worse) the spiritually poor who descend into self destruction and destroying those around them. (think child abuse, substance abuse with child neglect, sexual abuse of children, and the psychic manipulation of children by their narcissistic parents). 

I managed to do this because (as I have been told many times) I lack "sensitivity". But a sensitive person like her would be destroyed by the horrors out there (one reason for the high suicide rate among psychiatrists... and in cops and soldiers is the helplessness in the face of evil).

Many argue they chose atheism not because they don't believe in God but because they are angry at an absent God in the presence of the suffering of children.

EKM has another essay about the lack of the presence of God in modern horror films, mainly discussing the Exorcist  and the Omen.

If the message of THE EXORCIST is that there's Good in the world to counter Evil, it's a rather uneven statement. The Good, it seems, exists in the hearts of those who are willing to die for another, and yet that quality seems strikingly terrestrial. By the end of the film, we see a splintered family that goes their separate ways, unable to face one another after the horrors that have occurred. Two priests are dead. A dear friend of Chris MacNeil is murdered by the latter's own daughter... Anything positive that has transpired has occurred through the direct action of Man rather than Deity.

ah, but that is precisely the point: the Deity sort of works via people who are willing to let him work thru them, so that they are his hands. 

and we pre Vatican II Catholics (and traditional Buddhists, and Jordan Peterson's lectures) are aware that the world is suffering, and it is one's personal quest on what one does when confronted with this fact.

But alas, the Pope is more worried about the rain forest and vague do-goodism than the suffering of children, so it is Jordan Peterson who preaches life is suffering (quoting the Buddha), not the Pope, which says a lot about why there is an impending revolt of the lay folks against the Pope.

as the reviewer noted: this is seen albeit vaguely in the Exorcist, but one wonders if that film is remade if this hint would survive the remake, or be trivialized similar to how the good vs evil in Harry Potter (a nice guy but where does his power come from?) contrasts with the deeper portrayal of ordinary folks fighting evil in Lord of the Rings.

again, as I said, I am not a big fan of superheros or horror film, but it make me wonder how the idea of a deity who cares about good and evil is disappearing from modern horror films. 

Or as EKM wrote:

Both films (i.e. the Exorcist and The Omen) are meant to frighten, and both succeed in doing so. One can't delve too deeply for Faith-affirming (or even Faith-negating) messages in works of popular entertainment.

Nevertheless, our society moves further and further from God as time passes, and it's a fact that becomes apparent while watching movies of this sort. Perhaps the absence of God in these films reflects our absence in Him.

Uh, "the absence of God... reflects our absence in Him": to which all I can say is:
Who do you mean "we" Kemosabe.

This says more about Hollywood and the cultural elite than it does about God, or even about ordinary folks, who know the voice of God is not in the earthquake or fire, but in the small quiet voice of their heart that helps them to notice the small hints that the Lord is there in the midst of their struggles.

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King 

Sigh.