This study aims to discuss the events in America of the 80s and how they are related to the last ten years’ events through the application of Greenblatt’s concepts of resonance and wonder. To achieve this goal, the character of Joker in Phillips’s movie entitled Joker (2019) will be analyzed in order to understand the impact of the movie on the viewers and how the movie is connected to Moore’s comic book Batman: The Killing Joke (1988). Utilizing Greenblatt’s theories will prove how history is repeating itself and that there is no work of art created in the vacuum. Both Joker and Batman: The Killing Joke deal with America of the 80s. This article proves how Phillips’s movie is connecting the past to the present by showing Trump’s era and also the events in Lebanon, making people see reality and realize that they are in many ways similar to the character of Joker. Subsequently, Foucault’s concepts of power and resistance will be employed in order to investigate the way injustice leads people in Lebanon to rebel by using Joker as a symbol of their revolution. This article proves to befit the need of those researchers who are working on adaptations and new historicism in that it connects fiction to the real world; it shows how a work of art is affected by culture and vise-versa. It is concluded that a work of art is related to its culture and the history of this culture. Moreover, this study reveals the relationship between reality and fiction and how Gotham city as the setting of Joker is connected to Lebanon and America.

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