Corrected entry: Dirt poor Arthur owns a VCR and answering machine, both of which were relatively new in the early 80s and too expensive for someone of his limited means.
Joey221995
22nd Oct 2019
Joker (2019)
Correction: His mother did work for the Wayne's, maybe she saved up and bought it.
She worked for him in the 1950s and had drug habits and abusive boyfriends - no way she'd have saved that much money. That stuff was expensive at the time; a VCR was well over $1000 which for inflation at the time was like 3000 bucks today, and an answering machine was around $250, so about $750 today. That is without counting blank tapes, the expensive movie tapes and this is a very conservative estimation anyway, the equipment alone could have cost 50% more.
Even that guy who gave him a gun could have stolen a VCR and sold it cheap to Arthur.
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Correction: This is assuming way too much. He could have gotten these in any number of ways from theft to gifts, to poor spending habits from him or his mother.
Quantom X ★
In the day the movie was made, VCRs, answering machines, two big television sets (his mom has a TV in her room too) are as little more than junk and don't disturb the narrative. But if the movie were set in 2020 and they'd watch Murray on their 82" screen in their living room and he'd doodle his thoughts on the latest iPhone, I kinda think that most people would raise an eyebrow about the tale of this family so down on their luck. Sure we don't have access to their bank statements and can't technically rule out that Arthur tripped over a big bag of cash some day on his way back from his beyond-minimal-wage job, but I think there's far more assumption in *denying* that this is strange, compared to just observing that it is entirely incoherent (given the time frame of the movie) with the premise of Arthur living a life without a single moment of happiness.
Sammo ★