The most recent Joker film isn’t perfect in terms of representing mental illness, but it does a pretty good job.
The quote in the picture above reminds me of Goffman’s Asylum, where people were not allowed to leave even though they returned to the behaviours of wellness; expressing frustration when things went wrong, talking to themselves to while away the time, and sadness at bad news.
Ivan Illich also has something to say here, about how the Joker is made more unwell by the society that stamps on his interpretations, and adds more pressure: “Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn’t organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.” – Illich, Medical Nemesis
“All of you, the system that knows so much: you decide what’s right or wrong the same way you decide what’s funny or not.” – Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker
Beth's Food and Sociology Blog 