Writing Samples From my Media Professional Writing class
A Comprehensive Review of the Joker
Since its first release at the Venice Film Festival this summer, months before its theatrical release on October 4th, 2019, the latest Joker movie—starring the talented Joaquin Phoenix—has sparred endless debate and controversy on whether a film like this should be created in today’s culture. The DC owned property is essentially considered a “comic book movie” but that label doesn’t truly encompass the serious themes the film embodies. At its core, the Joker is a grounded, unsettling, and very powerful story when it comes to its social commentary on mental health.
Understanding the Tragedy that is Arthur Fleck
This installment of the Joker, directed by Todd Philips, is intended to be a stand-alone origin story depicting the demise of a struggling standup comedian named Arthur Fleck and the rise of his persona as the joker. The film itself takes place in 1981 within the fictional Gotham City; however, it was filmed in New York City. In the movie, you notice right away that the goal was to blend these “locations” together in a way that is seamless to the viewer. A city that is dirty and full of tension between social classes. A city with ordinary people begging to be heard by the elite. The structure of the film can be interpreted in many ways. But in the beginning, Philips does a great job in influencing the audience to care about Fleck, and there are three distinct scenes that show this.
We notice right away that he is broken, unstable, and is just a person who is looking for people to show him grace and compassion. In an early scene, we see Fleck minding his own business flipping a sign just outside his workplace. Kids come out of nowhere stealing his sign while running away. After chasing the kids for a little while, Fleck is ultimately lured into an ally where he gets hit by the sign so hard that he falls to the ground as the kids proceed to jump him. The point of this scene was to make us feel bad for Fleck—who was just doing his job like any normal person. This is significant because the main goal is to make the audience understand Fleck. As a director how do you do this? You make the character as relatable as possible. They might not agree with his actions of course, but in the end, they will understand why he got there. As a result, his friends at work gave him a gun to protect himself; which, to be honest, wasn’t the smartest decision on their end and this will a huge impact on the story later on. To make matters worse, he’s was also fired by his boss because the boss thought that Fleck took the sign for himself. We can also relate to Fleck in this situation as well. We’ve all been in a situation where we were telling the truth about something to others, only to end up being referred to as a liar. As you know, it isn’t a good feeling.
In a second scene, we see Fleck in an elevator trying to connect with his next-door neighbor—a girl he obviously has a crush on. The girl makes a joke about shooting herself in the head and Fleck decides to repeat the joke through a gesture of him shooting himself with his hand. To an average, normal person, this is insanely creepy but Fleck lacks the self-awareness to understand this and the audience feels bad for him. Ultimately, we know here he is trying to connect with someone and build relationships. We all been in a situation where we try to impress a girl but it has the complete opposite effect. The director did a great job of making the audience pity, Fleck. In that same sense we are rooting for him to do well (and not become the joker) but we all know that would never be the case in a Joker film.
In a third scene, we see the social worker fail to do her job. In her meetings with Fleck, she never tries to understand him. Fleck literally says, “All I have are negative thoughts” and the social worker doesn’t do anything—as if she’s not really listening. All three of these scenes show that Fleck was reaching out for help, trying to live a normal life, and trying to build relationships. Phillips builds this sense of tragedy within Arthur Fleck by building a narrative that basically says: the persona that is the Joker could have been avoided if “society” didn’t fail him when he was reaching out for help and others. That alone speaks volumes when it comes to mental health in this country.
The Subway Murder Scene (the turning point)
Within this point of the film, Fleck loses another job because he dropped the gun he received from his old coworkers in the middle of a hospital floor, where he was performing to make sick kids feel better through laughter. Eventually, he’s in the process of minding his own business riding the subway home when he sees three men harassing a woman. At this point, the audience is experiencing a mix of emotions. On the one hand, we want Fleck to step in and stop those three men. Teach them a lesson if you will. But we also know that Fleck has a gun and he is pretty unstable because he just lost another job. Ultimately, we want Fleck to get justice for that woman—in other words, we want him to finally win—but we don’t want him to kill them. As a couple of minutes go by, the three men make their way to Fleck and they start punching him. Beating him for no apparent reason. Fleck finally decided to pull out his gun, shoot one in the head and another in the body. The third man runs as Fleck chases him down and kills him too. This is a scene in the film that Philips uses in order to symbolize a turning point within Arthur Fleck. Through the use of artistic sound, camera shots, and slow motion, the audience sees something change in Fleck. There was a war between the loser that is Arthur Fleck and his persona of the Joker. The Joker won that war, and it wasn’t even close.
Social Class Tension (Thomas Wayne)
Early on in the film, Thomas Wayne (Batman’s dad) is presented through the eyes of Fleck’s mom. His mom is constantly watching Wayne on the T.V, as he is running for mayor, and you can clearly see obsessive tendencies from her as she writes and sends multiple letters to his office. Things get very interesting when we see Wayne on T.V during a news broadcast, addressing the subways killings that Fleck was a part of. Throughout that scene, you can see that Wayne is essentially clueless about what is actually going on. Philips is using this scene to further depict civil unrest within the film. This clash of the social classes: the rich, powerful, elite, vs the weak, ordinary, poor. This is so relatable to the audience because we see it all the time in real life when a privileged politician is creating all these solutions that sound good but within them, there’s a certain disconnect or even ignorance. I will say one thing about the end to not spoil the climax of the film. But towards the end of the film, we see Gotham on fire because of the poor finally pushing back the elite. Fleck, who is in a cop car at the time, is saved because of the riots themselves and is essentially seen as their leader. Someone who can speak for the poor and represent them.
The Controversy
As noted, before, along with this great film came a plethora of articles that were published with the sole purpose of criticizing its main premise. A great article was published by the Atlantic to unpack this complex movie and why some people believed that it was controversial. The article itself was titled Untangling the Controversy Over the New Joker Movie, and one of the main claims that appear from others watching this movie is that it will unintentionally promote violence in the real world. Director Philips had a rebuttal to this assertion. “We’re making a movie about a fictional character in a fictional world, ultimately, and your hope is that people take it for what it is,” he told Vanity Fair. “You can’t blame movies for a world that is so fucked up that anything can trigger it.” Even Phoenix decided to enter this debate as well saying: “I don’t think it’s the responsibility of a filmmaker to teach the audience morality or the difference between right or wrong.” I fall within the camp that you can’t blame movies for the reason why someone would go out of their way to harm others when 99 percent of the people watching the movie will do nothing but just enjoy it as entertainment.
Another major controversy that was mentioned in the article is that the public screening of this movie would only promote more mass shootings to occur in the theaters showcasing the blockbuster movie. Even the U.S military was advising not only service members to be on alert and but also local police departments to post officers during opening weekend as a precaution. Families who were a part of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado mass shooting during a showcasing of The Dark Knight Rises even voiced their concern as well and rightfully so. However, in society, we need to be careful. Are movies portraying violence as well as highlighting a polarizing character such as the Joker the true cause of this problem? If not, what are the factors causing this problem of mass shootings in the United States and how can we mitigate those factors?
The Film’s Success
With controversy and all, the new Joker film has still had a very successful theatrical release. According to Variety, the film becomes the first R-rated movie in history to ever earn over $1 billion at the global box office. With a budget of $62.5 million, the film also becomes one of the most profitable superhero movies of all time; and, according to Forbes, the movie made $304.2 million in North America alone after 5 weeks of the movie being available to the public. Below is a graphic provided by IGN ranking the top 9 R-rated movies in terms of box office success, including a congratulatory post by Ryan Reynolds himself—the star of the Deadpool movies.
//www.instagram.com/embed.js
Closing Thoughts
The Joker is much more than just a comic book movie. It highlights what could happen when society fails to address mental health. It addresses how and why an individual who would have reached out for help in the past, can be driven to ultimately reject that help in the future and the consequences of that decision. All the while displaying a social class tension and how that affects the local community as a whole. The new installment of the Joker is a great film and one of the best masterpieces in 2019. You should defiantly go out to see it, you are doing yourself a disservice if you haven’t already done so.
The Motivations Behind Creating a Fake News Story
It’s safe to say that a lot of Americans heard of the term “fake news” for the very first time on November 7th, 2018, when White House CNN reporter Jim Acosta and President Donald Trump had a heated back and forth interaction that went viral. It all started when Acosta got called on by the president and said “”Thank you, Mr. President. I want to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign.” Trump responded in a rude manner and said: “Here we go.” It was at this time when Acosta brought up the caravan that was heading towards the U.S border during that month. Acosta even eventually referred to an ad that demonized immigrants and mentioned that it was paid for by the Trump administration. He went on to say: “As you know, Mr. President, the caravan is not an invasion. It’s a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US…Why did you characterize it as such?” Trump responded by saying: “Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion.”
Acosta felt that the president’s use of language was plain wrong and misleading. Things ended up getting out of hand. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN” said Trump. “When you report fake news, which CNN does, a lot, you are the enemy of the people.” Ever since that day, Trump has mentioned the term “fake news” 229 times—and that’s only on Twitter. Let that sink in for a minute. It has been 317 days since that interaction. Virtually speaking, it is correct to say that President Trump talks about fake news—on Twitter—at least every other day.
But what is fake news? Well, simply put, fake news is created when a writer creates a news story for the sole purpose of misleading the reader. In Trump’s case, he sees CNN as a promoter of fake news because, as some would say, their reporters paint him in a bad light and in turn, mislead the American people. In his eyes, CNN is motivated by their own political ideology to promote left-wing political agendas in order to discredit his own. This is why he believes that CNN is the enemy of the people. But is the act of promoting a certain political ideology really the driver and motivation behind creating fake news? Let’s just say it’s much more complicated than that.
David Astudillo, who is a third-year Hispanic student here at UIC with a predominantly liberal stance in politics, said this when asked about why someone would be motivated to create fake news: “It’s hard because as a writer you want that publicity, but do you want to be labeled as fake news? I see fake news just like the telephone game we used to play as kids. A writer can write one thing, while another writer writes something completely different. Eventually, we end up in a place where we don’t know what’s real anymore. We don’t even remember where we began.” He ended up deciding that wanting to make a name for yourself and reaching a certain amount of recognition online was the main motivation.
However, for Cameron Harris, who was a new college student at the time of President Trump winning the election back in 2016, the idea of trying to make a name for himself wasn’t the main reason why he created fake news. In an New York Times article, titled From Headline to Photograph a Fake News Masterpiece by Scott Shane, Harris explains that money was the main motivation behind spreading lies on the web. He was already creating his own content on a blog but realized he had to do something in order to make more money. Once Harris cracked the code of creating fake news, he was making $1000 dollars an hour in web advertising revenue. He went on to say: “I spent the money on student loans, car payments and rent.” For Tamara, who wished to remain anonymous at the time of this interview to protect her identity, the reason for creating fake news was far more complicated. She created fake news because she was essentially told to do so by her boss. Within a BBC article titled I was a Macedonian fake news writer by Simion Oxenham, Tamara explains how she received a phone call from a friend. Her friend said: “I know you are doing nothing, here is a way to do something and make money and still not leave the house…You are good in politics and you are good at your English, so would you like to work on news sites?” Eventually, the profits she would receive were only a small fraction of what the boss would receive. Tamara responded with a simple: “Yeah, why not.” Little did she know, she would eventually regret this decision.
After communicating with her boss for the first time, Tamara realized that her job was to rewrite original U.S news articles so they couldn’t get detected as plagiarism. She was then required to “add” content that would make it more shareable on social media. When referencing the stories, she would write, Tamara said: “That thing happened, the people were there, the place was there. So, it was never fake stories…It was propaganda and brainwashing in the way of telling the story.”
Carlos Tenario, who is a fourth-year Hispanic student here at UIC with a more moderate view in politics, had a very interesting response when he was asked about what he believed motivated an individual to create fake news. He said: “I think someone would create fake news just to get a story out. Maybe someone is looking to be the first one with the story out there and they’ll never look for the actual facts.”
In the case of Tamara, her motivation behind creating fake news was to just get the story out—even at the expense of fabricating lies. Sometimes she would just shorten up the stories because she didn’t want to rewrite it the whole thing, Other times she would add content. She said: ““For example, if they are attacking, let’s say, Muslims all the time, I would get so furious about all their attacking that I would cut all of the bullshit and maybe put something nice at the end…It would ease the pain, my pain.” When the interviewer asked for an example, she responded by saying “something like ‘and at the end of the day, everybody is equal’.”
Before delving into the notion of what motivates an individual to create fake news, I along with many people strictly assumed that it was all based on a political view and misleading the other side. As it turns out, every individual has their own special reason for creating misleading content. Whether it is to spread a political agenda, making some good money on the side, or just being flat out told to do so by an authority figure, one thing is certain. As Americans in today’s society, we know that fake news is a big problem and very real. A problem that can very well end up damaging our democracy in the long run. Often times, we have people in this country that go as far as to label credible news as fake because of disagreements. But as Americans, we never want to dig deeper into the complexities that come with the question: what motivates someone to go out of their way to spread fake news? Whether it was a job offer you weren’t fully aware of or something as simple as making money in order to help with your expenses, the call for action is still the same. The more we choose to understand why people are creating these articles, the better we will be able to combat fake news with real solutions.
The Rebirth of Colin Moriarty
“Ah. Peace and quiet. #ADayWithoutWoman.” This is the tweet Colin Moriarty posted on International Women’s Day. More specifically, on March 8, 2017 at 12:23 pm. He actually posted this tweet while he was laying right next to his girlfriend—who thought nothing of it. Later that day, however, he went into work and realized the severity of the tweet. What would otherwise be considered a harmless joke, this type of humor is frowned upon within the very liberal gaming industry in which Moriarty resides in and he received a huge amount of backlash because of it. But was it really because of that tweet? Or did he receive this backlash because of other, underlying reasons?
Colin Moriarty, or “The Pride of Long Island” as many people call him, never originally wanted to work in the gaming industry. He was born in a small town named Port Jefferson in Long Island, New York on October 14, 1984. It was there where he developed a passion for football and hockey—soon becoming a huge fan of the New York Jets and the New York Islanders. During this time, he also developed a huge love for video games. Moriarty has always mentioned the fact that it’s always been hard for him to pinpoint exactly why he decided to play video games as a child. However, he does know why fell in love with them and it’s because of the classic gaming franchise Mega Man. More specifically, Mega Man, Mega Man 2, and Mega Man 3.
Moriarty attributes his success in life to many different mentors and he categorizes them as such—personal and professional. Early on, his parents played a huge role in providing the foundation of not only who he is as a person but also launching him to what would later be a great on-going career. Gerard Moriarty, a now-retired Lt. of the New York City Fire Department and one of the many heroes on 9/11, was Moriarty’s biggest mentor and guiding force in life. “I get my work ethic (bordering on and often becoming workaholism) from [my dad], as well as my independent streak (I like being alone).” Moriarty continued by saying: “Of course, my mom was also a mentor to me, particular with my temperament.”
In 2007, when Moriarty was 22, he graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts with a Bachelors’s in American History. During his time in college, at 18 years of age, he interned for IGN, the biggest video game entertainment company in the world—headquartered in San Francisco, California. At 22, after interning and freelancing for years, IGN offered him a full-time journalism position right after college. Moriarty never had to even apply. This made his transition from college into journalism a very smooth one. He said: “[Since] I got my freelance position the week I turned 18, in October of 2002…the life of freelance was something that was very natural to me five years later when I ended up at IGN full-time.”
Moriarty worked for IGN Entertainment for 12 years and during that time he accomplished a lot of things. He helped create the very successful PlayStation centric podcast called “Podcast Beyond”, where he wasn’t a series regular at first but shortly became one after its inception. Once he wrote his very first FAQ on January 3, 2000, for Mega Man on the NES—he got addicted. Two of his early favorites that he was really impressed with were from the video game Super Mario Sunshine and the video game Zelda: Link to the Past. His early work with FAQs helped him realize that his calling was to write technical manuals for the old NES and that transitioned perfectly when he started to write IGN Guides. He considers the guide he wrote on Fallout: New Vegas a personal favorite; but, as fans very well know, Fallout 3 has to be up there with some of the best guides he has ever created. In terms of professional mentors, as I mentioned before, Moriarty narrowed down his long list to three people—all of which are from IGN. He said: “Chris Carle, Mark Ryan Sallee, and Jeremy Dunham. Chris was the person who brought me into the fold as a freelancer back in 2002, while Mark Ryan hired me full-time after I graduated in 2007, and was my first boss. Jeremy was my first Editor-in-Chief, and really helped shepherd my career in those early years.” Moriarty would later move all the way up to Senior Editor in April 2013. His job was to write, read, and approve articles for publication. Essentially, everything went through him.
On January 5th, 2015, Moriarty entered a new chapter in his life. Him and three of his best friends (Greg Miller, Tim Gettys, and Nick Scarpino) all left IGN to create and found their own online entertainment company. The company itself is called Kinda Funny and the primary mission of this company is to create content on video game culture, film, and television through videos and podcasts. Unsurprisingly, the company became very successful very fast. On YouTube, which is their primary platform to share their content with their audience, they currently sit at 489,000 subscribers across two channels (Kinda Funny and Kinda Funny Games). However, as I hinted at in the beginning, a huge shakeup within the company was about to occur in 2017.
A couple of hours after Moriarty’s controversial tweet, Kinda Funny co-founder Greg Miller had no choice but to issue a statement. He said: “I fall into the camp that believes that the Tweet was in poor taste…I’m personally sorry to the Best Friends who felt slighted on a day meant to celebrate…Was Colin’s Tweet a joke? Sure, but that doesn’t make it OK. Context is important…When we broke away to do Kinda Funny, we wanted to build a community that celebrates the good and strives to be better…We didn’t accomplish that today, and we’ll do better tomorrow.” It is no secret here that Miller did not come into the defense of his friend—at least publicly. From the outside looking in, it seems as though Miller was doing his best to protect the company and the Kinda Funny brand. What ended up happening five days later, at least through the eyes of people who have come to Moriarty’s defense online, only further supports that claim. On March 13th, Moriarty announced his resignation from the company on his Facebook page. He said: “It’s with a heavy heart and great sadness that I announce my resignation from Kinda Funny, effective immediately.” He continued by saying: “This morning, the guys and I had a constructive conversation, and feel that, with our separate visions for the future and for the direction of the company, it’s time to go our separate ways.” This decision sent huge shockwaves throughout the Kinda Funny community and the gaming industry as a whole. I remember being deeply saddened by the decision because I valued Moriarty’s perspective and what he brought to the table.
Fourteen days after Moriarty announced his resignation from the company he co-founded, he appeared on the widely successful podcast titled The Joe Rogan Experience; where the popular American comedian, actor, and television host Joe Rogan brings a guest on to basically have, in its most simplest terms, a very interesting discussion around a certain issue or topic. On the podcast, Moriarty opened up about how he virtually felt that everyone was bashing him and kicking him while he was down. He said: “I’ve had a target on my back for years and that’s kinda the point that’s being lost on some people.” He continued in saying: “This was just an opportunity. No one was offended by this joke…No one was crying in their shower or losing sleep. To me…it was clear a few hours later when I finally realized what was happening, their in for the kill now. They found their way to get me.” Rogan then asked a very important follow up question. Rogan said: “Why do you think they want to “get you”?” Moriarty went on to explain that San Francisco, California is as “cartoonishly” liberal as everyone claims it to be. The gaming media and its industry is there. The people who write about games for a living is also there. He said: “It’s a huge echo chamber, they don’t like it when people penetrate the echo chamber.” Moriarty is ultimately referencing to the fact that there is a very progressive way of thinking that is reinforced over and over, and you have to subscribe to it in order to be a part of the gaming industry. Over the years, while working for IGN and Kinda Funny, Moriarty made a name for himself because of his outspokenness when it came to his conservative views and defending others he felt as though were being wrongly assassinated in terms of their character. Certain people within the industry didn’t like that. Ultimately, this was their chance to get Moriarty out. But, as you will see later, they failed miserably. Moriarty did recognized that there was an unintended consequence of the fallout he endured. He said: “…the silver lining of [this] dark cloud is [that] people from the outside now saw firsthand what I have been saying for a long time…I was kinda on the fringe, I was kinda being pushed out.”
Moriarty didn’t let this fallout destroy him. He moved on from it and reinvented himself within the gaming industry. Months after, he essentially created his own company that is primarily founded through Patreon. A place where fans can financially support independent creators and receive different perks depending on the amount you pay on a monthly basis. The company is called Colin’s Last Stand and since its genesis, it has gone through different iterations in terms of the content he creates and provide to his supporters. But, as it stands now, he currently runs three podcasts with only one full-time employee. Knockback, which is a retro podcast dedicated to nerdy nostalgia; Sacred Symbols, which is a podcast about all things PlayStation; and Fireside Chats, which is a thought-provoking interviewing series—much like the before mentioned podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. He even does a gaming show on YouTube called Side Quest where he does reviews and let’s plays for certain games. Right now, CLS is one of the world’s biggest Patreons (currently #32), and the second biggest gaming-centric Patreon in the world (only behind Easy Allies). Moriarty, as he said himself, is extremely proud of that. In such a short amount of time, CLS is now one of the best-known, independent, and completely fan-funded ventures anywhere online.
Being on the outside looking in, I wanted to further understand how Moriarty withstood what felt like the weight of the internet and the entire gaming industry on his shoulders. How he continues to bounce back and showcase unhindered resilience. This attempt to destroy Colin Moriarty basically resulted in a rebirth. A Moriarty that is stronger now because of it. He gave me some powerful advice. A statement that truly encompasses who he is and what a journalist should stand for. He said: “If The Horde comes after you, and you really didn’t do anything wrong, anything worth apologizing over or losing your life and livelihood over, stand your ground. Don’t apologize. Be unapologetically you. This is why I think people love me: Because I’m outspoken, fearless in what I say, and honest to the absolute core.”
Underperformance Within Chicago’s Public Neighborhood High Schools
Here is a link to my fourth and final story for this class (click here). Overall I felt this would be better to link to it because it includes all of my multimedia and sources for that story. Because of the opportunity you gave me, I believe both the Joker Movie Review and my CPS story are better in terms of quality. So thank you and I hope you enjoy.
Giovanni's Blog 