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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   31845 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) ahead

Time for some low-stakes culture war. The sequel to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie is out. The first movie was essentially a remake of Scorsese's Taxi Driver with a little bit of supervillain flavour that resulted in a moral panic about how its empathetic portrayal of a mentally ill loner might spark an incel shooting. In the end, no shooting happened and the movie made bank.

The sequel now takes a different approach and turned out to be a musical featuring gay icon Lady Gaga. A bold choice that critics describe as

Moviegoers, particularly the comic-book inclined, loved “Joker,” although I do wonder what they’ll make of the sequel, which seems to extend a middle finger to anyone who reveled in the title character’s anarchy the first time around.

The Critical Drinker, a, uh, heterodox critic went a step further and had the following to say

[The protagonist] reverted to the same weak, timid Arthur that he was at the start of the first movie. And I can't shake the feeling that there is something almost mean-spirited in that kind of deconstruction. As if they're taking a swipe at the audience themselves for liking someone they weren't supposed to.

Internet randos floated memes to the same effect. First, a plot summary:

joker kisses a dude, gets raped in the ass by the cops and then he gets stabbed and dies at the end of the movie. not even a joke.

And now for some red hot culture war schizophrenia:

JOKER 2 is a humiliation ritual. You reacted to the first movie WRONG, and they're punishing you for that. You weren't supposed to sympathize with him. He was supposed to be a WHITE INCEL LOSER. Hence this 2hr snuff film. They thought doing this to Joel Miller, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Willow, Picard, and John Connor was enough for you to GET THE MESSAGE.

And while I think the above conspiracy theory gets the motivations and machinations of the ominous they hilariously wrong, there is something to be said about a Zeitgeist that sees anything enjoyed by (white) men as something in dire need of female supervision.

A small kink in that explanation: The second movie was written and directed by the same people. So, what happened?

Posted this in the Friday Fun Thread, but seeing as how you've made a post about it here, I'll paste it here as well.

--

[Referring to the first film,] I feel like they could have gone a different route with the talk show character Murray. They made him too much like Johnny Carson. A show and character resembling Dick Cavett would have been able to navigate the complex emotional aspects of what Arthur did on the subway. I thought that was the weakest point of the film. Murray didn't give Arthur what he wanted, IMO, which was understanding. Instead he got ridicule.

Joker (the 2019 film) always reminds me of Christine (2016), which is about the on-air suicide of Christine Chubbuck, and anecdotally, I heard that she is somewhat of a martyr for the incel community, as well. I sympathize with her more than I do Arthur from Joker because she wrestled with her interpersonal and intrapersonal struggles for as long as she could before they became too burdensome.

From the Wiki page for the film, in the Themes and Analysis section:

Themes and analysis

Critics noted that the film was a work of metafiction, designed to intentionally antagonise audiences who were fans of the first film. Rather than capitulating to expectations of the predecessor's fanbase, the film serves to rebuke those who idolized the character of the Joker after the original movie. As a deliberate anti-audience effort, the film pushes against the notion of fan service, instead creating a self-aware narrative that is a commentary on its own existence.[111][112][113][114][115] The film features off-key musical sequences that contrast with fan expectations following the original film, during one such scene Joker acknowledges, “I don’t think we’re giving the people what they want”.[111] Gaga's portrayal of Lee Quinzel can be viewed as a stand-in for audiences who were fans of the first film, with her comments about becoming obsessed with Arthur after having seen a TV movie based on his life reflecting the audience.[114][115] The finale where Arthur's crimes are trialed and he is made to seem sad and pathetic represents an effort by Phillips to subvert and undermine audiences who saw Arthur as heroic in the first film.

Admittedly this entire section could be edited differently within the hour.

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