#32 - What To Do When You've Completely F*cked It
I had planned to write a very different newsletter this week. I planned to have a better week.
It started with me waking up in a Premier Inn in Nottingham which I will let you decide how you feel about. (Although anyone who knows me well understands I have a long-standing love of Premier Inn, fostered between the ages of 25 and 28 when all my mates got married in annoying charming locations).
I was in Nottingham to run some workshops and take part in a couple of Q&As for Open Door, an organisation looking to get those without financial means into drama school that was set up by the illustrious David Mumeni (who also starred in the Vaults run of True Brits). Teaching artistic stuff never fails to terrify me though I've taught in basically every job I've ever had. When I was a technician at a film school I quite enjoyed teaching Final Cut and other software to the students because it was the transference of practical skills from me to them. The outcomes were measurable. Whereas with writing...I do believe that some aspects of it are teachable. Many of them in fact. Just paradoxically part of me thinks it's almost better to be taught those things by someone who knows their stuff but isn't an active writer. I fear that my technique is actively bad but because I'm a professional writer, it carries more weight and I'm passing on those bad techniques to the kids.
In this case, the workshops were only about half an hour, far too short a time to destroy their abilities and I was able to pull together a character creation exercise which from the looks of it they mostly seem to enjoy (and kids are very good at letting you know they don't enjoy something).
So this part of the week? Fun. Inspiring. Virtuous even. But then...I did almost nothing after that. This wasn't intentional, I had a lot to do but I hit a low point and I just couldn't get my head into the work. There's one relatively small piece in particular that overdue with and while the person I owe it to is understanding, I feel awful that I can't seem to finish it. Every time I sat down to add to it, I'd look at my notes, I'd look at the mess of a sketch I'd made of the story and I would find myself springing out of the chair. It's not a big deal, Vinay! Why are you so scared of it? I was utterly miserable and felt like someone who wasn't in control of themselves or their future.
I think the further you get into a career, the greater the pressure you put on yourself for everything, absolutely everything, to be perfect first time of asking and there is no way of living up that. There is also no way around it, and in the end there is only one solution, one that I know but still took me most of the week to pull myself around to: Put yourself in the chair. Don't scan over everything and panic at the magnitude of the task. Write a small sentence. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to make sense.
It just needs to be on the page. And it really is that simple. Fingers crossed I remember that this week...
THE CLOWN FILM
I saw some great films in the past week at the London Film Festival: Little Monsters was a bundle of joy that knew exactly what it was and executed it perfectly. Jo Jo Rabbit I feel was better moment by moment and while, for me, it didn't quite land its intentions I applaud its ambition. Knives Out was utterly delightful and I can't wait to sit with it (and Daniel Craig's accent) again. Rocks was a beautiful evocation of girlhood in London and huge props to fellow playwright Theresa Ikoko's on her film debut.
But yes, here I am, about to talk to you about Joker. Sorry. Some mild spoilers below so if you want to see the film first, your newsletter reading experience should end here. Thanks for coming.
I was going to try to write a much bigger piece on this film if I could find the time but there are just a few things I'd like to pull out of it while it's still fresh in the moment and while The Guardian keeps publishing endless think pieces on it.
Firstly, some quick thoughts:
- For all its festival airs and Scorsese/art house comparisons, it's still a 15 rated comic book movie that cares about being seen by a wide audience.
- It flags a lot of stuff without developing it all that much and in that sense it operates better as a sketch than some sophisticated commentary.
- My gut reaction? I liked it!
And I'm resisting talking myself out of having liked it. Isn’t that an odd (but I’m betting quite familiar) instinct? One’s opinions - if not the one you’d like to have - requires aggregation to nudge it back to where you think a respectable opinion sits.
It gives me pause that that was my reaction to my reaction: I don't want to have liked this. It's something I wrestle with and fret about particularly with theatre where the community is so much smaller. Consciously or not, you want to make sure you're liking the 'right' pieces or else you're somehow a bit suspect. I've definitely fallen foul of that. Not that it isn't good or useful to consider other perspectives of course, but I will try to hold onto my own thoughts more in future and not grasp for the 'valid' response. But yes. I possibly don’t know what I think of Joker truthfully but I think I know what I think.
One think I really liked is that this movie dealt with a niggle I'd always had with Batman. My caveat before I go on is that I don't know the character super well, only through the movies and a couple of comics (including The Killing Joke which I understand provided some inspiration for Joker), so this has probably been fully addressed elsewhere but my niggle is this: Bruce Wayne doesn't have a meaningful personal relationship with Gotham.
He play acts in Gotham, he talks a lot about Gotham. But he doesn't have any real relationship with it as an actual city. We never see him happily walk through its streets. He never enjoys Gotham in the way, say, Spider-Man enjoys New York...but he needs it. His status as its protector validates his life. Gotham is an excuse. Hell, he doesn't even really live there. Does Bruce care about Gotham in a way that isn’t mediated through his parents' death and legacy? I don't think he does. And I think Joker flags that beautifully through Arthur's interactions with Bruce's father, Thomas.
I get the sense that Bruce/Batman mythologies his parents like I do with my mother who also died when I was young. They're not real people - you never really knew them as real people - they sit only as a motivating story. Joker provides undermines that mythologising by giving us a portrait of Thomas Wayne as a venal man who takes responsibilities solely on his own terms. He might bring good with his billions. But it’s not entirely motivated by it. His description of the protestors as 'clowns' was uncomfortably close to Hilary Clinton's ill-judged 'basket of deplorable' comment and I'm sure the comparison is deliberate.
And you know, of course Wayne Enterprises would have a financial investment arm. And of course some of the universe's biggest pricks would work there. Thomas Wayne does not want an equitable city, he wants one where he doesn't have to look at too many poor people and where he can always be on top of the pack. His son continues this stranglehold in his own way and in that sense, the film is an indictment of the benign dictator model of heroism. The Waynes and Batman are your protectors - whether you like it or not. Maybe Batman was the hero we needed in 2012. But it doesn't feel like it right now.
(I want to give a small shout out here to David Ralf and Rafaella Marcus' play, Alley. Pearls. Gunshot. that they scratched at the Yard Theatre last September which was a provocative look into a similar conceit, describing Batman as: "a 1% playboy who routinely beats up poor people in a suit made of billions of dollars of tech." It was brilliant. Please bring it back.)
Finally, for what it's worth, I didn't find it an incel glorification narrative nor did I personally find Arthur, the protagonist, particularly heroic or someone to emulate. With the exception of one incident, his actions still felt villainous...the film just complicated that villainy. While watching Joker I thought about the process of writing Murdered By My Father and the balancing act we tried to strike there of making you sympathetic to the situation and the pressures but not to their actions. For me, I think Joker more or less hits that mark and I was increasingly horrified by Arthur and I was able to be horrified while also being able to sit with understanding what drove him to that place. I don't think it makes excuses, I think it's more of a warning. It didn't feel like a Death Wish-esque vigilante revenge movie in the style of, say, Harry Brown which I actually found far more abhorrent and dangerous (and that The Daily Mail described as being "finally...a film that really matters"). In Joker, with the exception of the first set of Wall Street style goons, I never felt like anyone else deserved their fates.
So yes, I think it's possible to see in Joker a push back against egoistic paternalism *without* being a violent, anarchistic rejection of the need for a state. For me, it clearly makes the case that society is better when it provides care and a safety net, but acknowledges when the world is fundamentally unequal it will always be a net that both breaks your fall and keeps you low. By the end, Arthur has become an almost Pepe the Frog style character - an excuse for shithousery and violence, not a justifier of it. (Also, as my friend Jon put it, you also do miss the presence of a superhero in this moment.) I read somewhere that the film doesn't grapple with the prospect of copycat killings but the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne speaks to that. It's a neat, terrible twist that Arthur/Joker doesn't kill the Waynes - it's someone inspired by him. And for all the talk I've done of the nastiness of Thomas Wayne and the disconnection of Bruce, that moment is nothing but grim and sad. There's no cheer. There's no victory over the rich.
It's just a kid standing alone in an alleyway with his dead parents by his feet.
On that happy note...I'll see you next time. You won't get it Friday because this week is bad. But by Sunday. Definitely by Sunday. xx
If you're new to Patelograms and like what you've read, you can subscribe by clicking here.
If you're an old hand, thanks as ever for taking the time.
It started with me waking up in a Premier Inn in Nottingham which I will let you decide how you feel about. (Although anyone who knows me well understands I have a long-standing love of Premier Inn, fostered between the ages of 25 and 28 when all my mates got married in annoying charming locations).
I was in Nottingham to run some workshops and take part in a couple of Q&As for Open Door, an organisation looking to get those without financial means into drama school that was set up by the illustrious David Mumeni (who also starred in the Vaults run of True Brits). Teaching artistic stuff never fails to terrify me though I've taught in basically every job I've ever had. When I was a technician at a film school I quite enjoyed teaching Final Cut and other software to the students because it was the transference of practical skills from me to them. The outcomes were measurable. Whereas with writing...I do believe that some aspects of it are teachable. Many of them in fact. Just paradoxically part of me thinks it's almost better to be taught those things by someone who knows their stuff but isn't an active writer. I fear that my technique is actively bad but because I'm a professional writer, it carries more weight and I'm passing on those bad techniques to the kids.
In this case, the workshops were only about half an hour, far too short a time to destroy their abilities and I was able to pull together a character creation exercise which from the looks of it they mostly seem to enjoy (and kids are very good at letting you know they don't enjoy something).
So this part of the week? Fun. Inspiring. Virtuous even. But then...I did almost nothing after that. This wasn't intentional, I had a lot to do but I hit a low point and I just couldn't get my head into the work. There's one relatively small piece in particular that overdue with and while the person I owe it to is understanding, I feel awful that I can't seem to finish it. Every time I sat down to add to it, I'd look at my notes, I'd look at the mess of a sketch I'd made of the story and I would find myself springing out of the chair. It's not a big deal, Vinay! Why are you so scared of it? I was utterly miserable and felt like someone who wasn't in control of themselves or their future.
I think the further you get into a career, the greater the pressure you put on yourself for everything, absolutely everything, to be perfect first time of asking and there is no way of living up that. There is also no way around it, and in the end there is only one solution, one that I know but still took me most of the week to pull myself around to: Put yourself in the chair. Don't scan over everything and panic at the magnitude of the task. Write a small sentence. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to make sense.
It just needs to be on the page. And it really is that simple. Fingers crossed I remember that this week...
THE CLOWN FILM
I saw some great films in the past week at the London Film Festival: Little Monsters was a bundle of joy that knew exactly what it was and executed it perfectly. Jo Jo Rabbit I feel was better moment by moment and while, for me, it didn't quite land its intentions I applaud its ambition. Knives Out was utterly delightful and I can't wait to sit with it (and Daniel Craig's accent) again. Rocks was a beautiful evocation of girlhood in London and huge props to fellow playwright Theresa Ikoko's on her film debut.
But yes, here I am, about to talk to you about Joker. Sorry. Some mild spoilers below so if you want to see the film first, your newsletter reading experience should end here. Thanks for coming.
I was going to try to write a much bigger piece on this film if I could find the time but there are just a few things I'd like to pull out of it while it's still fresh in the moment and while The Guardian keeps publishing endless think pieces on it.
Firstly, some quick thoughts:
- For all its festival airs and Scorsese/art house comparisons, it's still a 15 rated comic book movie that cares about being seen by a wide audience.
- It flags a lot of stuff without developing it all that much and in that sense it operates better as a sketch than some sophisticated commentary.
- Its broader comic book/melodrama turns sit uneasily with the (admittedly still stylised) grounded aesthetic.
- The mental health angle is tricky and in some places it handles that discussion well, in others quite poorly, but I think it's important to flag that the film doesn't place his mental health as the motivator of any of his violence.
- The mental health angle is tricky and in some places it handles that discussion well, in others quite poorly, but I think it's important to flag that the film doesn't place his mental health as the motivator of any of his violence.
- My gut reaction? I liked it!
And I'm resisting talking myself out of having liked it. Isn’t that an odd (but I’m betting quite familiar) instinct? One’s opinions - if not the one you’d like to have - requires aggregation to nudge it back to where you think a respectable opinion sits.
It gives me pause that that was my reaction to my reaction: I don't want to have liked this. It's something I wrestle with and fret about particularly with theatre where the community is so much smaller. Consciously or not, you want to make sure you're liking the 'right' pieces or else you're somehow a bit suspect. I've definitely fallen foul of that. Not that it isn't good or useful to consider other perspectives of course, but I will try to hold onto my own thoughts more in future and not grasp for the 'valid' response. But yes. I possibly don’t know what I think of Joker truthfully but I think I know what I think.
One think I really liked is that this movie dealt with a niggle I'd always had with Batman. My caveat before I go on is that I don't know the character super well, only through the movies and a couple of comics (including The Killing Joke which I understand provided some inspiration for Joker), so this has probably been fully addressed elsewhere but my niggle is this: Bruce Wayne doesn't have a meaningful personal relationship with Gotham.
He play acts in Gotham, he talks a lot about Gotham. But he doesn't have any real relationship with it as an actual city. We never see him happily walk through its streets. He never enjoys Gotham in the way, say, Spider-Man enjoys New York...but he needs it. His status as its protector validates his life. Gotham is an excuse. Hell, he doesn't even really live there. Does Bruce care about Gotham in a way that isn’t mediated through his parents' death and legacy? I don't think he does. And I think Joker flags that beautifully through Arthur's interactions with Bruce's father, Thomas.
I get the sense that Bruce/Batman mythologies his parents like I do with my mother who also died when I was young. They're not real people - you never really knew them as real people - they sit only as a motivating story. Joker provides undermines that mythologising by giving us a portrait of Thomas Wayne as a venal man who takes responsibilities solely on his own terms. He might bring good with his billions. But it’s not entirely motivated by it. His description of the protestors as 'clowns' was uncomfortably close to Hilary Clinton's ill-judged 'basket of deplorable' comment and I'm sure the comparison is deliberate.
And you know, of course Wayne Enterprises would have a financial investment arm. And of course some of the universe's biggest pricks would work there. Thomas Wayne does not want an equitable city, he wants one where he doesn't have to look at too many poor people and where he can always be on top of the pack. His son continues this stranglehold in his own way and in that sense, the film is an indictment of the benign dictator model of heroism. The Waynes and Batman are your protectors - whether you like it or not. Maybe Batman was the hero we needed in 2012. But it doesn't feel like it right now.
(I want to give a small shout out here to David Ralf and Rafaella Marcus' play, Alley. Pearls. Gunshot. that they scratched at the Yard Theatre last September which was a provocative look into a similar conceit, describing Batman as: "a 1% playboy who routinely beats up poor people in a suit made of billions of dollars of tech." It was brilliant. Please bring it back.)
Finally, for what it's worth, I didn't find it an incel glorification narrative nor did I personally find Arthur, the protagonist, particularly heroic or someone to emulate. With the exception of one incident, his actions still felt villainous...the film just complicated that villainy. While watching Joker I thought about the process of writing Murdered By My Father and the balancing act we tried to strike there of making you sympathetic to the situation and the pressures but not to their actions. For me, I think Joker more or less hits that mark and I was increasingly horrified by Arthur and I was able to be horrified while also being able to sit with understanding what drove him to that place. I don't think it makes excuses, I think it's more of a warning. It didn't feel like a Death Wish-esque vigilante revenge movie in the style of, say, Harry Brown which I actually found far more abhorrent and dangerous (and that The Daily Mail described as being "finally...a film that really matters"). In Joker, with the exception of the first set of Wall Street style goons, I never felt like anyone else deserved their fates.
So yes, I think it's possible to see in Joker a push back against egoistic paternalism *without* being a violent, anarchistic rejection of the need for a state. For me, it clearly makes the case that society is better when it provides care and a safety net, but acknowledges when the world is fundamentally unequal it will always be a net that both breaks your fall and keeps you low. By the end, Arthur has become an almost Pepe the Frog style character - an excuse for shithousery and violence, not a justifier of it. (Also, as my friend Jon put it, you also do miss the presence of a superhero in this moment.) I read somewhere that the film doesn't grapple with the prospect of copycat killings but the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne speaks to that. It's a neat, terrible twist that Arthur/Joker doesn't kill the Waynes - it's someone inspired by him. And for all the talk I've done of the nastiness of Thomas Wayne and the disconnection of Bruce, that moment is nothing but grim and sad. There's no cheer. There's no victory over the rich.
It's just a kid standing alone in an alleyway with his dead parents by his feet.
On that happy note...I'll see you next time. You won't get it Friday because this week is bad. But by Sunday. Definitely by Sunday. xx
If you're new to Patelograms and like what you've read, you can subscribe by clicking here.
If you're an old hand, thanks as ever for taking the time.
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