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When the film-critic establishment, or at least a major swatch of it, turned against “Joker,” the issues that were raised about whether the film was somehow “irresponsible” went beyond the raw question of whether it might end up inspiring an act of violence. The critics seemed to be saying: Whether or not it inspires violence, the film is speaking “for” incels ? i.e., angry depressed white men who have nothing to do with us, the good progressive people, and so we resent the fact that the pathological incel brigade has been given its own blockbuster megaphone.But that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how movies work. “Joker” isn’t a drama about one isolated, festering demographic of hatred in our society. Like all great pop fantasies, it’s a dream. It works by expressing something about all of us.What it’s expressing is the inner tenor of a certain moment in time ? in America, and maybe the world ? when hate has begun to take over. The culprits seem obvious enough. A U.S. president who revels in any destruction he can cause, flaunting his lack of empathy, demonizing those who aren’t “normal” Americans. The followers who support and mimic whatever he does, as if they were part of a cult of white rage. (They are.) The currents of nationalist fury that are spreading, like a virus, through Europe.But we know all that. Part of the karma of our time is the way anger has become symbiotic. Quite apart from the despicable agendas of right-wing rage, we’re at a moment when the lashing out of the kind of anger we used to associate with fire-breathing talk radio is becoming a universal addiction.I’m in no way implying an “equivalence” between the seething intolerance expressed on a daily basis by Donald Trump, with his neo-fascist exhortations against the rule of law, and the liberal intolerance of Trumpism, which is wholly justified and necessary. My point is that America is fast becoming a dysfunctional family of mutually reinforced resentment. If you grow up reacting with bottomless rage against an abusive parent, that reaction is totally justified, but it still makes you a person full of rage. (That’s why people go to therapy.) If you live on social media, look at what our culture, including liberal culture, is becoming: a series of rants and gripes and feuds and takedowns, a kind of unending middle-class war over everything from the proper ways of motherhood to the ending of “Game of Thrones.”As Arthur says in “Joker,” “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” As the basic security of the American middle class frays before our eyes, the primal anxiety is starting to tear at the fabric of people’s well-being. Yet even liberals can’t agree on the solutions. (Single payer? Looks good on paper, but politically it sounds to some of us like Trump’s ticket to the permanent presidency.) The only thing everyone seems to agree upon is how violently we disagree. https://xn--12cat5czdh8azae2qta1d2b7a.com ’re becoming the dis-united States, a volatile landscape charged with combustible aggression. What’s important to recognize, however, is that the anger at the center of this social-cultural-political entropy isn’t simply a destructive force. It has taken hold because in some desperate way, it’s a cathartic force. I rant, therefore I am. I snark and tweet (with a vengeance), therefore I am. I rage, therefore I am.