This is why I'm happy joker fans got trolled with the sequel.
You can be a fan of the character without agreeing with him.
In fact, the first movie already did it. Robert De Niro’s character Murray is right about most of what he says. Even him making fun of Arthur’s stand up was due to him not knowing about Arthur’s condition. Arthur knows Murray makes fun of almost everyone on his show, except serious tragedies like death and cancer, but then Arthur never clarifies about his condition when he’s brought onto Murray’s show. This debunks his baseless claim that “everyone is awful”.
1) his psychiatrist showed sympathy for his predicament, and rightfully called out the government on not caring about people like him
2) the woman on the bus yelled at him to stop bothering her son, then she expressed her annoyance when he started laughing, however when she received his medicinal condition card from him explaining his laugh, she did not antagonize him any further and clearly had a remorseful look on her face
3) his neighbor was nothing but kind and understanding to him, even when he breaks into her apartment
4) Gary showed nothing but friendship towards him. His reward for this was Arthur brutally murdering Randall in front of him, thus traumatizing Gary. Even if Randall was a piece of shit, Arthur still chose to prioritize his desire to lash out on those who wronged even if it hurt someone who had been nothing but kind to him
Also, Murray yells at Arthur that someone was killed this morning because of the movement he started, referring to the clown supporter who got shot. Arthur makes it obvious he does not care, thus all his actions have nothing to do with any sense of justice, but rather simply him choosing to stop caring about morality and just kill because he wants to. Arthur’s mental illness is not the type that makes him unaware of the morality of his choices, so he has been committing murder from an objective point of view. At most, the first guy he shoots in the subway could be argued as self-defense, MAYBE the second guy, but the third guy who was clearly running fast away was pure and simple murder on Arthur’s part.
This is why the second film fails. It could have let Arthur still continue to engage in Joker shenanigans but by the end Harley and his other supporters realize Arthur deep down doesn’t give a shit about any of them and so they abandon him and Arthur goes down swinging in one final stand against the police. Have Harley talk about the idea of Joker being bigger than one man, and the mysterious inmate carves that familiar smile into his face and begins to laugh. There, you have a Joker sequel that gives fans what they want while still making it clear Arthur as a person is not morally justified in his actions. Instead, we got a courtroom drama. Oh, and a musical, which is hilarious to see a few people go, “oh, the movie only bombed because no one wants to see musicals anymore”, and then months later Wicked Part 1, you know, a musical, is killing it at the box office. No, Joker 2 bombed because it’s a weak movie designed to appeal to barely anyone.
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