But even though we see the movie through his eyes, and we are made to feel sympathy for him or others like him, in the real world we still (should?) know that “yeah, everyone who does shitty things has a reason. We don’t have to accept their reasons.”

On it’s face value in the movie universe, nothing Joker did was for a shitty reason. He killed a shitty person and instigated a rebellion against a bourgeois politician. Anyone who does that, mentally ill or not, is a hero as long as their stated motivation wasn’t reactionary.

The vibes and overall arcs are similar. And both lend sympathy, or an explanation?, for reactionary mindset and violent behaviors.

I’m pretty 98% of the people here want to see their politician’s brains blown all over the wall during a live broadcast speech. Is it reactionary to chuckle when I see a bunch of zionists get blown up or conservatives getting left out in the dark cold by their saviors or getting killed by the cops they salute? Sure. I don’t care. It’s funny, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.

People will view it in their own ideological lens regardless of how it was intended. The left reading is obviously “this is the natural conclusion of an isolated society stemmed with expensive and nonexistent healthcare and businessmen as politicians.” The “centrist” reading is “wow society bad. Media bad. Politicians bad. Wow.” The conservative reading is “mental illness is the only thing wrong with society, and liberal politicians don’t want to treat it” or “only white men are mistreated in society.” Both Taxi Driver and Joker are individualistic, but the former shows that one man’s action is futile in changing anything, if it even happened at all, whereas Joker portrays one man’s action as world changing.