Comic Book Films & TV

[=BK=]

I feel like terrorist is too kind of a word for what The Joker is.

[Colly]

Would you accept comic super villain?

[Josh]

He’s not real, yet tons of people seemingly idolize the guy. “He wants to watch the world burn, he’s so cool!” He’s supposed to be a villain, someone that sickens you. And yet he’s held up more as an anti-hero by a ton of fans.

And now there’s this movie where he’s ostensibly the protagonist. A humanizing portrait. An attempt to sympathize with where he’s coming from. He’s a guy who doesn’t get what he wants and turns to violence. He’s a pastiche of every incel white terrorist or serial killer we ever see on the news. And it’s weird enough that societal reaction to those guys is “how tragic, what could have gone wrong” instead of “what a fucking monster” - and now this is the same approach with a fictional character.

When the Joker’s in a movie where Batman or another hero is trying to stop him and we try to understand the fucked up ideology that led him to this so we can stamp that out, that’s one thing. But this is told from Joker’s perspective. It’s sympathizing for its own sake, rather than understanding it in order to stop it.

Imagine a Freddy Krueger movie told from his perspective. “What’s it to be him?” Who cares? He murders kids, fucking stop him.

[Colly]

Have you seen it? It's not as if all films have to be about goodies, otherwise we'd have no Taxi Driver, or basically anything Martin Scorcese has ever made.

[Josh]

One does not need to see it to know that A) it’s from Joker’s perspective and B) it’s about the Joker doing (non-Cesar Romero) Joker things.

And not everything need be about good guys necessarily, but we’re culturally overstocked on anti-heroes and flat-our bad guy protagonists  - far more often than not, white male bad guys. See Breaking Bad, Dexter, Mad Men, any number of serial killer documentaries, etc. And on top of that, this is a character who is already held up by many fans as being so very cool. It just adds to the problem.

I’m not saying people are necessarily bad people for finding the film interesting, but I think there’s a fair amount of cultural blindness and ignorance to privilege on the part of the filmmakers.

Besides, this is the third big screen Joker in - what? Ten years?

[Colly]

I think "making too many films about white guys" is a separate argument that's far too deep to get into here, and I'd have agreed with you on the final point were it not for the fact this looks like it's going to be excellent and very different to any other "Joker" film.

To be honest the most revelatory thing from the trailer is the fact that apparently it was Robert de Niro who stole Bob Monkhouse's jokebook all those years ago.

[Josh]

It’s not a separate argument, but it is a subset of a much larger, important discussion. God knows we need more Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Miles Morales, Valkyrie, Falcon, etc. and less Joker, Venom, Batman, Tony Stark, etc. And that’s just limiting things to superhero stuff.

[Colly]

I don't disagree, but I just can't see the fact they're making what looks like a great character driven film in the middle of endless proper superhero films as a bad thing.

[MDK]

Can we not compromise and make the Joker black and a terrorist?

[GhostMachine]

The Joker is a nihilistic serial killer. And originally he was just pure evil, not batshit insane. The insanity wasn't part of the character until the early 70's.

And if you want `realistic', he wouldn't have lasted long in the comics. Batman wouldn't have killed  him, but wouldn't exactly go out of his way to stop anyone else, considering how many people he has killed. And Gordon would give up on bringing him alive fairly quickly. Whenever someone wants the Joker captured instead of killed, its contrived as a way to keep him around. 

In the real world, villains like the Joker and Red Skull would be very short lived. The Red Skull would be shot on sight.

[Josh]

2 hours ago, Colly said:

I don't disagree, but I just can't see the fact they're making what looks like a great character driven film in the middle of endless proper superhero films as a bad thing.

I just wish it were a character driven film about anyone else - ideally a hero. We’re just in a time when incel terrorism is on the rise and I feel like this is their story, for them.

[LittleDaniel]

 

 

[Colly]

I'm really not seeing it, unless the film is him sitting on 4chan for an hour pre killing spree. Feels about as cop out as "it's video games fault".

[Josh]

I’m not saying watching The Joker will drive people to violence (the way Trump and others claim video games will.) That’s not the relationship I’m pointing out. Instead, it’s that there’s a cultural fascination in (mostly white male) America (the Western world?) with treating deranged, violent white men as fascinating tragic figures, rather than unspeakable monsters. And this is part of that.

[DFF]

On a much lighter level, it's nice to see a DC property that looks like it won't be entirely horseshit.

[GhostMachine]

But you're okay with one that will be 9/10ths?

 

[Josh]

Amazing review.

“That perspective allows Phillips to feign an apolitical stance and speak to the people in our world who are predisposed to think of Arthur as a role model: lonely, creatively impotent white men who are drawn to hateful ideologies because of the angry communities that foment around them.”

[DFF]

It got an eight minute standing ovation at the Venice film festival. Guardian and Empire have both 5 starred it too.

[Josh]

I mean. I can’t say I’m at all surprised.

[DFF]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/02/incel-violence-joker-rightwing-film-joaquin-phoenix?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook