CDS Journal

I learned of Quentin Tarantino's thoughts on the movie Joker and was interested in his explanation of what he called "subversion". The term means " a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed, in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms ". Tarantino uses the term to explain that this is what is happening in the climax scene of Joker because he says the filmmakers " got the audience to think like a fucking lunatic and to want something they would never normally want ". I disagree with Tarantino and, possibly, with the understanding of Subversion itself. As I have come to understand human psychology, it is far more likely that what's being changed in the process Tarantino is describing is that a more honest level of morality is being revealed. The definition of Subversion suggests that people's morality i...

"In order to understand how people were induced to obey unjust regimes and participate in atrocities such as the holocaust, Milgram set up an experiment. Volunteers were told they were taking part in scientific research to improve memory. Separated by a screen, the teacher would ask the learner questions in a word game and administer and electric shock when the answer was incorrect. They were told to increase the voltage with each wrong answer. Two thirds of volunteers were prepared to administer potentiall fatal electric shock when encouraged to do so by what they perceived to be a legitamite authority figure... in this case, a person in a white coat." Milgram experiment 1963 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzd6Ew3TraA Milgram experiment - https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment