David Gornoski analyzes the new Joker movie, uncovering its themes about culture, scapegoats, hierarchy, doubles, envy, and the breakdown of myth with the support of the Mimetic theory of Rene Girard. Saturnalia and other winter solstice carnival festivals preceding sacrifice, Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Jesus and the Demoniac and other stories are brought in to illuminate why this film strikes a nerve in our times.
