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Two people can look at the same artwork and come to different opinions. The field of PTSD often resembles an artwork depiction of human nature. Two people can look at the same data and have opposite beliefs about what it means.
Many have hailed Todd Phillip’s movie, Joker, as a visionary commentary that tapped into a profound social zeitgeist. Others believe the polar opposite; that it was an adulation of violence with nothing worthwhile to say and that bent over backward to stoke controversy and make money.
We are led to believe that the main character, Arthur Fleck, suffered childhood trauma and this abuse helped to create the emaciated monster that he became as the Joker. Furthermore, he completely forgot his history of child abuse until he stole his hospital record and then it all came back to him. These theories that trauma creates mass killers and that trauma memories can be totally repressed while having strong power over our behaviors are both discredited myths, yet many people believe they are true.
Fleck’s path to becoming the murderous Joker was triggered by several other misfortunes, including the government defunding the social programs he depended on for psychotherapy and psychiatric medications. He is a broken man that could have been prevented if we had just invested more in social services. There must be a reason killers become killers; they can’t just be born bad people. As Ann Hornaday wrote in the Washington Post, “Joker is a flagrantly seedy movie, one that constantly evokes the garbage, vermin, and social apathy that New York was known for at its worst. Welcome to Gotham City, where the weak are killed and eaten.” This creates the context for an amped-up version of the wealthy stepping on the throats of the poor as the cause of their problems.
The riot at the end of the movie signifies the impact of the Joker’s handiwork that something important has been touched in the masses. Without a riot, Fleck’s Joker would be just one forgotten lunatic. But the riot will make the wealthy pay. For good measure, the tycoon Thomas Wayne is gunned down during the riot.
Based on box office revenue, something indeed has been touched in the masses. And when critics knock the movie, as many professional critics have done, defenders of the movie punch back with their personal beliefs, as one defender wrote to a critic: “I can absolutely see this happening due to the massive decline of mental awareness of people. It’s a good thing you had a silver spoon. I’ve personally seen people go through this myself.”
The movie Thank You For Your Service is quite a different movie about how individuals respond to trauma. Released in late 2017, it is based on the best-selling book that chronicled the real-life struggles of Sergeant Adam Schumann and several of his fellow soldiers with the psychological aftermath of war. During their deployment, Schumann was the guardian of his squad. He rode in the front seat of the Humvee to spot improvised explosive devices (IED), and he was good at it. He was the guy who kept his unit safe. He was the leader, the problem-solver, the one they all leaned on.
However, their luck ran out. Men died and men were maimed and Schumann blamed himself for spur-of-the-moment decisions.
Most of the movie followed Schumann and several of his psychologically-injured friends after deployment. Schumann came home with PTSD and massive guilt that he failed to protect his guys. One soldier reminded me of the less-than-bright Private Louden Downey in A Few Good Men. He is panicked and lost when he comes home to find his fiance has left him and cleaned out their house. Schumann is there to comfort him and offers him the couch in his living room as long as he needs it. Another friend, who had been blown up by IEDs seven times, has irreversible traumatic brain injury and cannot remember the day of the week. But Schumann is there too to get him out of every jam.
Like Arthur Fleck, Schumann and company also deal with a lack of psychotherapy services. They are told it will be six to nine months to get treatment. Schumann tries to help a friend by going hunting. Schumann’s wife tries to help Schumann. A dead friend’s wife tries to help Schumann. Schumann tries to help himself by visiting and opening up to yet another wounded friend. These guys and their wives stick. They are bonded. They have each others’ backs.
Unlike Joker, trauma-exposed characters do not flip into psychotic murderers and instigate mass riots in the streets. They have a “rough landing,” but they do not blame the wealthy for their misfortune. As the drug dealer vet says, “I came back to the same sh*t. No job. No help. Nothing. We’re out here fighting... But we’re fighters. We make do.” Trauma did not change them into bad men. They stayed essentially the men they always were. Their struggles to figure it out are worth watching. As Vision tells Ultron at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron in regards to the strengths and weaknesses of humans: “But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that.”
Two people can look at the experience of trauma and come to opposite conclusions about how it impacts individuals. However, which movie you believe best embodies the impact of trauma in real life probably has nothing to do with the facts because humans are belief engines. Arthur Fleck in Joker is the murderer that no one leans on but has poetic nobility inside trying to bloom (he dances ungracefully after he murders). Schumann is the war hero everyone leans on but has dark troubles inside growing rot.
They are not two sides of the same coin, like Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places. Instead, they are fundamentally different beliefs about human nature. Fleck embodies the belief in nurture, that trauma can change your essential character, which is a compelling narrative but has no basis in science. Schumann embodies the belief in nature, that trauma can rough you up pretty badly but it does not change your essential character, which is apparently much less compelling as a movie but reflects best what we actually know from science, and, to me, is the more beautiful artwork in the end.
