Last Name 1 Last Name 2Critical Claim paper A single violent event in our lives can affect the rest of life. One can either become evil or a spiritual person depending upon the type and intensity of the event that happened to them. The story of the movie Joker (2019), is based on the same plot. Joker is a psychological and thriller film based on the life of a comedian who failed to make his audience laugh. He descends into insanity and gets inspired by violent activities against the wealthy people of Gotham. Just because he was unable to make his audience laugh, he turns into a violent person. The movie Joker assumes that Breaking social norms can cause isolation and the outbreak of the evil desire inside a person. Many aspects of the subway scene in the movie “Joker” reflects the life of people around us. Joker, a person who was suffering from a mental illness but unable to explain it to the people around him make him outrageous and evil. The Joker works on the streets, spinning signs, and at the children's hospitals, which shows that he was trying to make a living honestly. The problem he encountered was that he used to laugh at times, which were inappropriate. Due to the condition, he could be beaten or sometimes face a budget cut for which he could not afford his medication. From the events, it can be observed that Joker was feeling miserable, helpless because he was unable to control himself from laughing since the condition was not in his control. The text can be seen by the use of costumes. The costume that the Joker wears hand-off various implications. The purple suit worn by The Joker assists with demonstrating that something isn't directly with him. His oily green hair, alongside the purple suit, are not ordinarily parts of the regular closet. The cosmetics of The Joker and the post-blast Harvey Dent pass on their primary character attributes. The white on the substance of The Joker would typically pass on a feeling of virtue, yet his bruised eyes and red grin instead feature his dull and turned character. His lasting smile underscores his cruel cleverness while his scars are reminders of the grieved past that structure his character. The text can also be seen by the use of lighting. Theghting in the film, while usually dull, is vast in the statement of the subjects. One specific scene, a cross-examination of The Joker by Commissioner Gordon, starts in stay with the main light originating from a little work area light. As the camera faces The Joker, his body is covered up in the shadows, leaving just his roughly painted face uncovered. This lighting passes on the threat of hiding in the shadows, which The Joker represents. Batman enters the scene, and the cross-examination room is at the same time washed in a brilliant, white light, connoting the 'great' that Batman represents. Watching the movie, it is observable that his uncontrolled behavior attracts the attention of the people in the corner of the train who were teasing a yo ...

1. Last Name 1
Last Name 2Critical Claim paper
A single violent event in our lives can affect the rest of life.
One can either become evil or a spiritual person depending upon
the type and intensity of the event that happened to them. The
story of the movie Joker (2019), is based on the same plot.
Joker is a psychological and thriller film based on the life of a
comedian who failed to make his audience laugh. He descends
into insanity and gets inspired by violent activities against the
wealthy people of Gotham. Just because he was unable to make
his audience laugh, he turns into a violent person. The movie
Joker assumes that Breaking social norms can cause isolation
and the outbreak of the evil desire inside a person.
Many aspects of the subway scene in the movie “Joker” reflects
the life of people around us. Joker, a person who was suffering
from a mental illness but unable to explain it to the people
around him make him outrageous and evil. The Joker works on
the streets, spinning signs, and at the children's hospitals, which
shows that he was trying to make a living honestly. The problem
he encountered was that he used to laugh at times, which were
inappropriate. Due to the condition, he could be beaten or
sometimes face a budget cut for which he could not afford his
medication. From the events, it can be observed that Joker was
feeling miserable, helpless because he was unable to control
himself from laughing since the condition was not in his
control.
The text can be seen by the use of costumes. The costume that
the Joker wears hand-off various implications. The purple suit
worn by The Joker assists with demonstrating that something
isn't directly with him. His oily green hair, alongside the purple
suit, are not ordinarily parts of the regular closet. The cosmetics
of The Joker and the post-blast Harvey Dent pass on their
primary character attributes. The white on the substance of The

2. Joker would typically pass on a feeling of virtue, yet his bruised
eyes and red grin instead feature his dull and turned character.
His lasting smile underscores his cruel cleverness while his
scars are reminders of the grieved past that structure his
character.
The text can also be seen by the use of lighting. Theghting in
the film, while usually dull, is vast in the statement of the
subjects. One specific scene, a cross-examination of The Joker
by Commissioner Gordon, starts in stay with the main light
originating from a little work area light. As the camera faces
The Joker, his body is covered up in the shadows, leaving just
his roughly painted face uncovered. This lighting passes on the
threat of hiding in the shadows, which The Joker represents.
Batman enters the scene, and the cross-examination room is at
the same time washed in a brilliant, white light, connoting the
'great' that Batman represents.
Watching the movie, it is observable that his uncontrolled
behavior attracts the attention of the people in the corner of the
train who were teasing a young girl. They thought that he is
making fun of them because the girl refused to accept the offer
of sharing food items with one of the well-dressed guys on the
train, who seems to be from a rich family background. For a
normal human being, especially a man, it is insulting if a girl
refuses any offer in front of other people or the friends of the
guy. Having a clown laughing at the same moment adds more to
the embarrassment. The laughter attracts the men, and due to
the embarrassment, they humiliate the clown even though he
tried to explain to them his condition. The way he was laughing
was not normal; a normal person can not laugh like that; it was
undeniable that something was wrong with him. He was choking
due to laughter, but they didn’t pay attention; instead, they
humiliated him. The people in the corner had no idea about his
condition, which caused them to act the way they did.
The scene that happened in the subway raises many questions.
People in the city of Gotham, depict our society, where people
are not aware of many mental disorders. If the episode of

3. disorder occurs in a public setting, the person who is suffering
already gets abused or face violence. It is very certain when an
episode of disorder occurs. It is not in the control of the person;
however, instead of understanding them, people often start
hitting them or torturing them instead of helping them out.
Another crucial critical reflection in this movie appears to be
dark, uncaring where the hero of the movie is unable to find a
hint of comfort or relief. The Joker here is all alone in his fight
against mental illness; he was upset because he lost his job,
particularly for bringing a gun to a children's hospital, which he
was given by his friend to his protection against the increasing
criminal activities happening in the city. Losing his job makes
him extremely upset. No one understands him even the girl on
the train does not bother to look at him; instead, she ran away,
saving her life from those three rich guys on the train.
Everybody cared about their own lives leaving the Joker to
stand for himself.
In the later scene, we can see that the three guys approach him
while singing “Send in the Clowns” and were hitting him hard
when he tried to leave and grabbed his bag. In the self-defense,
he took out the gun he had for safety, and open fire on two of
them. After shooting them, he realized what he has done, but it
was too late to control his anger and outrage. He was being
poorly hit, was bathed in his blood dripping from his mouth. At
the same moment, he decided to kill the third one to vanish all
the evidence against him. After chasing him for a while, he
killed the third guy also. It is the evil conducted by the Joker,
which shouldn’t take place at the first moment. It reflects how
human beings, when stressed and are aggressive, take decisions
that we regret a lot later in our lives. This one bad incident
involving the murder of the three young guys encouraged the
Joker to kill more people. This scene has gained a lot of
empathy for the fans of the movie. However, an evil act is
always evil, even if a person is going through the worst events
of life. But, the Joker knows that people will never understand
his condition, and they can humiliate him; however they want;

4. therefore, he uses the gun as self-defense.
To Conclude, the subway train scene of the
movie reflects that the behavior of both; Joker and the guys
were not appropriate. We don’t know what others have been
through. Hitting and humiliating others is bad conduct of
behavior, but killing them in anger is a crime. Instead of being
responsible for the murder of these three people, Joker killed
another man in a live show later on in the movie, and people
rescued him after the police caught him. Therefore, such
violence should not be promoted even in the movies. That
conveys the young generation a message that we should act
violently in our dark phase of life. So, we can kill people just
because we are angry, have a disorder, and the world is not fair
with us because that is what the Joker did.
Last Name 1
Last Name 4Critical Claim paper
A single violent event in our lives can affect the rest of life. We
can either become evil or a spiritual person depending upon the
type and intensity of the event that happened with us. The story
of the movie Joker (2019), is based on the same plot. Joker is a
psychological and thriller film based on the life of a comedian
who failed to make his audience laugh. He descends into
insanity and gets inspired by violent activities against the
wealthy people of Gotham. In my opinion, the movie Joker
assumes that Breaking social norms can cause isolation and
outbreaking of evil desire inside. Comment by Mackenzie N
Breneman: Try to avoid 1st person plural (we, us, etc.) and
instead use “I” or avoid personal pronouns in general
Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: Don’t need to say
“in my opinion” Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: I
think I get the idea here, but it needs to be rephrased. I would
also include the 2 ways of reading the text in your first

5. paragraph right before this sentence
There are many aspects of the subway scene in the movie
“Joker” that reflects the life of people around us. Joker, a
person who was suffering from a mental illness but unable to
explain it to the people around him make him outrageous and
evil. In this scene, we can clearly observe that Joker was feeling
miserable, helpless and was unable to control himself from
laughing because the condition was not in his own control.
Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: Which scene? Be
more specific
Watching the movie, it is observable that his uncontrolled
behavior attracts the attention of the people in the corner of the
train who were teasing a young girl. They thought that he is
making fun of them because the girl refused to accept the offer
of sharing food items with one of the well-dressed guys on the
train; who seems to be from rich family background. For a
normal human being, especially a man it’s insulting if a girl
refuses any kind of offer in front of other people or the friends
of the guy. Having a clown laughing at the same moment adds
more to the embarrassment. A similar situation happens with
them when the “Clown” starts laughing when the girl refused to
accept their offer. But the violent and humiliating behavior of
those three men towards the Joker wasn’t good and justified at
all. They should have listened to him, when he was trying to
explain to them “it is a condition, I am having”, but in their
anger, they didn’t listen to the Joker. The way he was laughing
was not obviously normal, a normal person can not laugh like
that, it was very obvious that something was wrong with him.
He was choking due to laughter but they didn’t pay attention,
instead, they humiliated him. Comment by Mackenzie N
Breneman: This paragraph is more of a summary. It needs to
connect more to the claim and add to your argument
Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: If you put something
in quotes it should be word for word what is said in the movie.
This doesn’t seem like a direct quote
The scene that happened in the subway raises many questions.

6. People in the city of Gotham, depict our society where people
are not aware of many mental disorders. If the episode of
disorder occurs in a public setting the person who is suffering
already gets abused or face violence. It is very certain when an
episode of disorder occurs it is not in the control of the person,
however, instead of understanding them, people often start
hitting them or torturing them instead of helping them out.
Another important critical reflection of the world in this movie
appear to be dark, uncaring where the hero of the movie is
unable to find a hint of comfort or relief. A similar situation
happens in the real world, where people do not offer any help to
those who are in dire need. Everyone is busy in their lives, and
the one who is suffering has no moral support with him.
Similarly, Joker here is all alone in his fight against mental
illness; he was upset because he lost his job particularly for
bringing a gun to a children's hospital; which he was given by
his friend to his own protection against the increasing criminal
activities happening in the city. Losing his job makes him
extremely upset. No one understands him even the girl on the
train does not bother to look at him, instead, she ran away
saving her life from those three rich guys on the train.
Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: Try to focus on the
text rather than what happens in real life
In the later scene, we can see that the three guys approach him
while singing “Send in the Clowns” and were hitting him hard
when he tried to leave and grabbed his bag. In the self-defense,
he took out the gun he had for safety, and open fire on two of
them. After shooting them, he realized what he has done, but it
was too late to control his anger and outrage. He was being hit
badly, was bathed in his blood dripping from his mouth. At the
same moment, he decided to kill the third one to vanish all the
evidence against him. after chasing him for a while, he killed
the third guy also. It is the evil conducted by the Joker, which
shouldn’t take place at the first moment. It reflects how human
beings when stressed and are aggressive take decisions that we
regret a lot later in our lives. This one bad incident involving

7. the murder of the three young guys encouraged the Joker to kill
more people. For him, killing rich people is a tempting fantasy
of persecution and relief, of embracing nihilism in a dark and
terrible city of Gotham and will serve as a complete escape
from this terrible world. This scene has gained a lot of empathy
for the fans of the movie; however, in my opinion, an evil act is
always evil, even if a person is going through the worst events
of life. Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: This doesn’t
really sound like your writing based on the rest of the paper. If
you’re taking an idea from somewhere else, be sure to give it
credit Comment by Mackenzie N Breneman: This needs to
come back to the claim more
To Conclude, the subway train scene of the movie
reflects that the behavior of both; joker and the guys were not
appropriate. We don’t know what others have been through.
Hitting and humiliating others is bad conduct of behavior but
killing them in anger is a crime. Instead of being responsible for
the murder of these three people, Joker killed another man in a
live show later on in the movie and people rescued him after he
was caught by the police. Therefore, such violence should not
be promoted even in the movies. That conveys the young
generation a message that we should act violently in our dark
phase of life. So, we can kill people just because we are angry,
have a disorder and the world is not fair with us because that’s
what the Joker did.
Zecheng Cui
COM 204
Critical Claim Paper
“Welcome to Heaven Inc”
The Heaven Inc can show people the inner workings of it
that who will listen and answer people’s prayers. This text is

8. read by looking at the dialogues of the video and the actor’s
emotion. The Heaven Inc consist of department of prayers
sorting, department of answered prayers, and the God, which
shows what happens when people pray and how exactly a
miracle comes to life. This text assumes that people should give
up praying because it is useless and unworthy.
Eliza is an employee in department of prayers sorting that
sorts prayers from billions of people. She is exciting to
introduce her job at first but when she read prayers, her motion
was really a subtle change. The first-time reading prayer
“please fix my Wi-Fi”, she quickly throwed that away and
turning to next. However, the second prayer was “give me Wi-
Fi” so she murmured that and tried to read the third one. She
read loudly with confidence hoping that is not about Wi-Fi, but
it happened again. Then her eyes are avoiding the camera
because she read three prayers, but they are all about Wi-Fi.
From Eliza’s emotion, we can feel that she likes her job of
sorting prayers, but she is getting tired of same old repeating
prayers. People pray every day for trifle things or something
they cannot fix. When people had problems, they will shout or
yield that “God please fix it”. However, in this case, praying is
therefore complaining that we do that every day. Rather than
doing this useless and unworthy thing, why not ask maintenance
immediately for help or fix by yourself. Praying is wasting time
and it is placebo for people to avoid the problem. So, we should
stop praying and do worthy and actual things.
Craig is in department of answered Prayers that create
miracles for people. one of miracles he is proud of that is
helping a little girl achieve snow day on her birthday. Craig
naturally manipulated weather systems across the eastern
seaboard and canceled thousands of flights for creating a snow
day for the girl. Craig believed that it was all “worth”, but, on
the opposite side, it was unworthy for other people. Because the
Heaven Inc chose to create miracle for the little girl, thousands
of flights and millions of people were affected by the snow day.
The outcome of this prayer seems worthy, but millions of

9. people needs to pay the outcome to satisfy the girl’s prayer.
Therefore, creating a miracle for prayer is absolutely taking a
toll and wasting time. If pray is working, it is unfair and
unworthy for the rest of people who do not pray. So, we should
stop doing this unworthy prays.
The Heaven Inc also allows working hard people or urgent
prayers to have the opportunity to report to the CEO himself,
God. God is the only one who can save people, but he seems to
be reluctant to hear prayers. When Craig took an urgent prayer
to the CEO, he is rolling his eyes and then staring at the table to
avoid eye contact with Craig. This emotion implies the CEO is
really unwilling to save urgent prayer. While Craig said, “oh
god, please stop this terrible typhoon.”, the CEO tried to be
stupid and repeat the word “typhoon” to make an illusion that
God knows nothing. After Craig leaved the office, God stared at
the table again and sighed, probably saying in his heart, “Oh
God, please do not take prayers to me anymore.” God’s emotion
shows he is unable to help us even though we work hard, or we
have an urgent. So, we should give up praying because the CEO
of Heaven Inc cannot even help you.
The Heaven Inc
COM 204: CRITICAL CLAIM MAJOR PAPER
This assignment addresses two of the course’s learning
outcomes: that (1) “you will be able to write a clear thesis
statement that condenses an argument into one sentence,” and
(2) “you will be able to generate and support an argument about
a communication text.” To pursue these objectives, you will
turn in a typed, double-spaced critical essay at the beginning of
lecture on Wednesday, February 19.
Select a recent (December 2019, January or February 2020) text
that you believe is significant for some reason. I want you to
stretch your concept of a “text,” so you may not choose the
most conventional kinds of texts—speeches, essays, editorials,
letters to the editor, or print or online articles. The text you

10. choose might be a movie or television episode, some sort of
public demonstration or protest event, the most recent national
parks quarter, a popular song released in the last couple of
months, a new or revised web site, a new or proposed building
on campus, or any number of other texts as you may define
them. This means that you may critique a campaign event, for
example, but not a speech given at the event. Remember: The
text cannot be a speech, essay, editorial, or article.
Clearly identify the text you are using in your essay, and
explain how you are interpreting it as a “text”—how can you
“read” this text? This brief section should begin, “I will read
this text by looking at….” A couple of sentences or a short
paragraph on your first page should be enough to do this, but it
is a requirement.
Based on this text, write a 1000-word (approx. 3-4 pages)
critical analysis that demonstrates critical thinking about the
text and its significance. Your thesis should make a critical
claim about the text, and the rest of the essay should advance an
argument (complete with supporting examples from the text)
supporting your central claim. This paper should demonstrate
critical thinking as you make arguments about your text and
support those arguments clearly. You need not cite any
communication theories, and no outside sources are required.
This essay will demonstrate your ability to locate and define an
unconventional text, make a critical claim, and advance an
argument supporting that claim with evidence from the text.
A sample thesis (for an old text, too old to actually use for this
assignment) might look like this: “The billboards warning
about the emerald ash borer suggest that Americans place high
cultural value on trees and public landscaping."
On Friday, February 7, you need to be prepared to share your
text and a draft thesis statement for your paper in recitation
(this will count as a daily assignment!). You'll receive
feedback (and hear everyone else's ideas) in class.
Paper requirements:

11. *A clearly defined text that is not a speech, essay, editorial, or
published or online article
*A text from December 2019, January 2020, or February 2020
*A clear explanation of how the unconventional text will be
"read" (what are you going to count as part of the text? What
parts will serve as your support? In most cases, this will be a
paragraph somewhere on the first page. You might introduce it
like this: “I will read this text by looking at…”)
*Engaging at least 2 different parts of the text (so ONLY using
the lyrics of a song for evidence, for instance, would not be
acceptable to get at least a 3; you would also need to use
rhythm, tune, genre, artist/performer, or something else)
*A thesis statement that makes a clear critical claim about the
text
*Evidence that fully develops the argument presented in the
thesis
*Specific references to the text for support
*Approximately 1000 words
*Overall, a critique of the text, not the topic (using the emerald
ash borer billboard example above, then, you would need to
argue about the BILLBOARD, not the problem of invasive
species)
*You really don’t need outside sources and shouldn’t use them
(they tend to contribute to critiquing a TOPIC, not a TEXT).
But if you DO if you do use outside sources, you must
document them using APA style.
If you are missing any of these requirements, the highest grade
you can earn on the paper is a 2.
Your TAs and I are happy to read drafts or outlines, or just talk
about topics, in person. You may send specific questions by e-
mail. We will not read drafts or outlines submitted via email.
People often ask about word count. I don’t count words
carefully, but I do expect you to follow the spirit of the
assignment above. That means that if you turn in only 2 pages

12. or so, or you write much more than 4, you will be far outside
the length requirement (by hundreds of words).
(thanks to Bo Feng for the initial concept upon which this
assignment is based)