“You just ask the same questions every week,” he continues. “How’s your job?” As we saw on the train, Gotham has no place for clowns or dreamers. Plastering a clown’s expression upon your mug is asking for trouble; it’s a great white target daring the vicious to smear it from your face. To be a clown in Gotham, you got to walk tall. You got to kill them with an unbeatable grin. You certainly can’t flinch.
“Are you having negative thoughts?” Arthur mimics his helper’s question and answers it for her, “All I have are negative thoughts.” The world is pressing down on him. He needs armor to survive.
At his mother’s bedside, Arthur stares up at a TV screen. Late Night talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) addresses his audience, “In a world where everyone thinks they can do my job, check out this guy.” Notice the color of De Niro’s hair. It’s much darker than what we see later on in the trailer. Joker could take place over a significant amount of time.
Arthur raises from his chair, and his face lights up as he sees himself on screen. Someone recorded his miserable set at a nightclub. A surprise appearance on Franklin’s show could radically change the course of his life … and it does.
Just not in the way that he hoped. We hear an excitable TV Arthur call out to his crowd, “When I was a little boy and told people I was going to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me…” When the word “laugh” is struck, a large smile stretches across hospital Arthur’s face. This is it. His moment.
“…but no one is laughing now.”
“You can say that again, pal.” Murray Franklin makes a mockery of Arthur’s joy.
Arthur finds himself the butt of Franklin’s joke, and the laughter he receives stings.
