Full spoilers follow for Joker.
You smell ’80s Gotham before you see it. The Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie opens with a radio report of streets piled high with waste, the result of a garbage strike that has affected everyone in the city. Some, though, are hit by the stink sooner than others.
The rarefied air up in the balcony of Wayne Hall must be cleaner. In the television interviews that punctuate his mayoral campaign, Thomas Wayne draws a hard line between those who make something of themselves, and those he dubs “clowns.” It’s a comforting perspective for the privileged of Gotham – the idea that there’s a karmic reason for the suffering endured by those they step over in the street.
Source: IGN.com How Joker Recast Thomas Wayne as Gotham’s Villain