I brought up critics only to counter the narrative that it was universally loved. All I'm saying is that every time, you bring up the critics, and given that, it is important to bring up that the critics love is not universal. It can't keep being used as a defence.

"There is. We see an old photograph soon after with a message from Thomas to Penny saying “I love your smile” which casts doubt on his denial. It’s clearly meant to leave some ambiguity with the audience as to who was telling the truth."

I'll admit, I can't remember this scene, so I won't fight too hard on it. But it still doesn't change the fundamental argument that there's no sympathetic female figure. She's still the one who is blamed for abandoning him to her abusive boyfriend. She's still the one shown to embarrassingly infantalise him. We are still supposed to see Arthur killing her as the natural response. That he's been pushed to this. He's not 'wrong' to do it.
When she's killed, we aren't screaming at him that's he's making a mistake. We're supposed to understand what has driven him to this point - the whole point of the movie is that by this scene, we should be able to sit there and go, "Of course he became the Joker. There was no other choice left for him". Ultimately, she's still the problem.

"The context of the scene is that the city is cutting funding. She is empathetic with Arthur and says “they don’t care about people like us.” She is not the one in the wrong nor is she depicted as someone uncaring or antagonistic. The problem is the larger system."
That's exactly my point. The scene isn't about her. She just exists as a symbol to represent the larger system. She's a symbol of a system that pretends to care about people like Arthur but doesn't.
At the end of the say, Arthur isn't seen as wrong to yell and scream and abuse her. Like every real woman in the movie, yelling and screaming at raging towards her is correct. The sympathy the movie has to her disappears the moment that Arthur turns violent towards her
There's always an excuse why Arthur raging at a woman is right. There's always an excuse. It isn't her, it is the system. It isn't her, it is society being uncaring. But it is always a HER
The System is an excuse in this movie to justify abuse against women. The system always exists to justify that violence. But the movie is also more generous to Thomas Wayne, where, unlike the psychiatrist, the movie makes Arthur feel guilty for abusing him as Arthur goes off and cries in Arkham Asylum. Even when Thomas dies, we're supposed to go, "How sad for Bruce,", a level f empathy not given when Arthur abuses the psychiatrist because he's justified, it is the system's fault

Could I ask what you think the case for the movie is? Because it is hard to actually have this conversation if you aren't making a case, just trying to discuss critics again and do some minor nitpicks. Like, I brought up the way that the movie took a real life hate crime and attempted to redeem it. To me, that a serious problem with the movie. Yet you didn't mention it yourself. Do you agree with me? Do you think there's a good reason for the film to reimagine a famous hate crime using the logic that the shooter used to justify his racist actions? I bring up a big recurring pattern of female characters being the targets of white male rage, and you have some nitpicks, but there's no actual counter argument. I know I've written a lot, but it is hard to have an actual conversation if 90% of my argument is ignored to make slight factual nitpicks. I do think the redeeming a hate crime thing is actually a major flaw. And if we're going to let that point remain

So what's your case for the movie? What's your case that brings every sequence in the movie together into a coherent, functioning narrative? Why is Joker good? I would honestly be interested in hearing a proper argument