I dare you to anticipate Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Phillips's JOKER (now with something that may or may not be a SPOILER)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/6b/d1/ea6bd1a934d27512ea7208f5bac9d9aa.jpg

ridle me this jokeman

imo he should have kept the mustache from Her and, when he dons greasepaint, covered it Cesar Romero-style

The plot twist in this is that the Joker...is all of us

Hope Maron gets in a "So who were your guys, Joker? Alice Cooper?"

Wonder if he's going to eat China in this

you cannot marry an OS, jokeHer

Yeah so I'm going to come right out and say that as a black man, I feel like things like this explicitly put a target on my back and my family's backs and I already have enough of them, thanks. This is particularly true for me in a way it is not for most, if not all, of you, and your glib nonsense can eat my entire black ass.

another thing annoying about this -- maybe a centrally annoying thing -- is that the Joker already has a canonical origin story. (fell into a vat of acid while trying to rob his employer; emerged disfigured. was already criminal. there are other origin stories, of course, the comics do that.) the "he tells the story differently" thing, I've learned this morning, also began in the comics -- Batman observes at one point that, as a comedian, the Joker uses whatever material works for him.

but in almost every version with a fleshed-out story -- in every version other than ones just narrated by the unreliable Joker -- his criminality precedes the transformation. this is important, because the very people whose existence ensures that I wouldn't see this in the theater even if I'm certain I'd enjoy Phoenix's performance a lot are people who believe that the world owes them some form of restoration for their grievances. "If people had been nicer to the Joker, he wouldn't have had to kill all those people" is a particularly dangerous thesis to be presenting in 2019. Barring some "this is the story as he's telling it; none of it is true" revelation in the film, this thing looks pretty fucking irresponsible.

Also the Taxi Driver comparisons are feeling a little off since one thing about that film is that it had people surrounding Travis Bickle who were—despite his clear social awkwardness and weird tendencies—very decent to him, but he couldn’t overcome his issues and occasionally gave into his violence before he totally snapped (he killed a guy who was sticking up a bodega, and it’s hinted that maybe he did it because he was just a bit racist maybe). He didn’t have guys bullying him.

Joker movie feels like the gritty version of the Crazy Joe Davola clown episode from Seinfeld.

(In case it doesn't read clearly enough, my read above is in support of brigadier pudding's concerns. the "imagined grievances" of the Joker as seen in the trailer & described in reviews are the grievances of entitlement, specifically white male entitlement, which has always been violent but which, under the current admin & in the current climate, is surging. A movie that lends support to the grievances of white entitlement -- that nurses "white guy gets violent revenge for not getting what he wants" narratives -- is dangerous, especially to black people in the US in 2019.)

"I wanted people to take my posts seriously so I chose the screen name 'brigadier pudding'" - me in 2019

thank you for your service to the crown

(In case it doesn't read clearly enough, my read above is in support of brigadier pudding's concerns. the "imagined grievances" of the Joker as seen in the trailer & described in reviews are the grievances of entitlement, specifically white male entitlement, which has always been violent but which, under the current admin & in the current climate, is surging. A movie that lends support to the grievances of white entitlement -- that nurses "white guy gets violent revenge for not getting what he wants" narratives -- is dangerous, especially to black people in the US in 2019.)

I do think people regardless of skin color are entitled to not getting beaten up for twirling a sign but I don't think everyone is entitled to bone Zazie Beets

I mean, people took Natural Born Killers at face value; we've been in a post-satirical world for at least the entirety of my adult life

should have cast this guy as the joker:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmEwZWY2MzItYWQwZi00Nzg3LTg1MTYtMWZmZWM2MTNlMmI5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjI4OTE1MTA@._V1_.jpg

arent there celebrated graphic novels with joker origin stories just as described

no afaik btw

Surprised this is going to show in 70mm at my city’s main arthouse theater (the Music Box).

Good review:

From Venice: JOKER gives us the first incel folk hero. https://t.co/9wtCTKpS9a

— Stephanie Zacharek (@szacharek) August 31, 2019

not surprised that joaquin would be involved with a bad idea like this. he's the guy who spent 2 years pretending to be retarded because ben affleck's brother asked him to.

Aren't all the criticisms that are being leveled at this equally true of Taxi Driver? I mean maybe Taxi Driver deserves the same criticisms, IDK.

I'm p sure Taxi Driver at least has a better score/soundtrack

they should reuse the version of "Mad World" from Donnie Darko in this movie, ideally in every scene

there are like 8 donnie darko threads, I don't know which one to bump to shitpost in

Aren't all the criticisms that are being leveled at this equally true of Taxi Driver? I mean maybe Taxi Driver deserves the same criticisms, IDK.

I haven't seen Taxi Driver so I don't know. I just know what the Joker is like as a character and this version of him is fundamentally flawed in a way that a story about an original character wouldn't necessarily be.

Travis iirc is lauded as a hero at the end of the movie, but that's couched in some degree of irony. In this one, as I understand that, he becomes a hero to other like-mindeds, or so all the people with joker costumes and signs and stuff in the trailer will have me believe.

Travis iirc is lauded as a hero at the end of the movie

eh common reading is that the post-shootout scenes are all delusions/in Travis' head

I'm less concerned with fealty to the Joker character and more just with not starting to label art "irresponsible" when it may have ambiguities that could be perceived as feeding into some current problematic narrative, especially based on a trailer.

tbf most art is irresponsible

I think as far as moral seriousness is concerned the guy who made Road Trip should be given the benefit of the doubt

it is an interesting exercise to try and compile a list of films (altho I suppose other media could be included as well) that contain both an explicit political agenda and the potential to incite political or violent action. I don't think it's a super long list but there are various obvious candidates - Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind spring to mind. I don't think Taxi Driver qualifies. No idea about this movie, since it looks so unbelievably fucking stupid I have no interest in seeing it.

trailer gave me kind of a "what if the main character of red dragon was the red dragon" vibe

xp: I don't know, when we watched Gone With The Wind in high school it mostly incited extreme belly laughs

oh it looks dumb as shit now but the political context of its original release was p similar to Birth of a Nation: rehabilitate the reputation of the South and its "peculiar institution", its basically an ode to white supremacy.

it is an interesting exercise to try and compile a list of films (altho I suppose other media could be included as well) that contain both an explicit political agenda and the potential to incite political or violent action. I don't think it's a super long list but there are various obvious candidates - Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind spring to mind. I don't think Taxi Driver qualifies. No idea about this movie, since it looks so unbelievably fucking stupid I have no interest in seeing it.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 4 September 2019 17:56 (twelve minutes ago) link

I kind of feel this way about Death Wish, which just strikes me as pure racial revenge porn. That said, I think the actual "danger" posed by such movies is pretty limited.

as recently noted in a WaPo article about the recent lynching memorial/monument in DC:

“Gone with the Wind” repeated the story about carpetbagger misrule and black insubordination during the Reconstruction era, directing viewers to sympathize with Southern white “victims” like Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes. Even in its Hollywood form, the story had political consequences. “Whatever sentiment there was in the South for a federal anti-lynch law,” NAACP leader Walter White supposedly said, “evaporated during the ‘Gone with the Wind’ vogue.”

As long as Americans remained enamored with a “Gone with the Wind” version of history, the real history of racial brutality, including any awareness of the true extent of racial terror lynchings, will be buried beneath a myth about the “shackles of Reconstruction.”

White really hated the movie, went after Hattie McDaniel (not very successfully afaict) as well.

ooh Death Wish is def a good candidate imo. It doesn't have any of the ambiguity or discomfort of Taxi Driver.

xp

Inspired by JOKER, here is a complete list of movies that have actually caused tangible societal harm:

✓ Birth of a Nation (revived the KKK)
✓ A Better Tomorrow (inspired Hong Kong teenagers to wear trenchcoats in the sweltering heat)
✓ Avengers (led to the Disney monopoly)

— Will Sloan, the 6ix Dad (@WillSloanEsq) September 3, 2019

xpost Would the same go for any revenge exploitation movie? Or is the target of vengeance a key distinction?

Deer Hunter reportedly inspired a spate of copycat Russian Roulette (which the movie invented?).

idk if the need to play stupid suicidal games was really a broader social trend that one could accuse Deer Hunter of exploiting and perpetuating

you could maybe argue that about Jackass tho lol

Oh, you're looking for movies that exacerbate existing conditions?

I guess? seems like irresponsibility requires there to be something already extant to be irresponsible about.

like, exploiting a developing or already existing political trend/strain

idk I'm just spitballing here

Falling Down is pretty bad

I mean, did Bernie Goetz inspire copycats?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/2005/joe_blu-ray_/poster_joe_blu-ray01.jpg

Surely many pearls were clutched upon the release of A Clockwork Orange?

Gone With the Wind also purports to be somewhat historical, so the harm it did seems to have been in distorting history.

Joe (1970)
R | 1h 47min | Drama, Thriller | 15 July 1970 (USA)

Two men, Bill, a wealthy conservative, and Joe, a far-right factory worker, form a dangerous bond after Bill confesses to murdering his daughter's drug dealer boyfriend to Joe.

Jesus, this is literally right wing ideology in one sentence.

I haven't seen it in forever and can't remember if it's intended satirically but my instinct is no.