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Notes -
Joker was a remake of Scorsese's The King of Comedy, more than it was referencing Taxi Driver.
You are 'supposed' to be sympathetic to Arthur. With scant exception, you are 'supposed' to be sympathetic to any protagonist, good or bad, but they spend considerable time rationalising him as a character in Joker. The text as written does center typical anti-capitalist grievances more than it does incel ones. The intended message is more proximate to "the Joker is a product of underfunded social services", than sexlessness. The closest analogue to the film's denouement isn't found in Taxi Driver or Fight Club, it's in the (insufferable, imo) Sorry to Bother You.
I find this assumed audience in the quote a bit odd, accordingly: is the media wrong about the movie being a paean to downtrodden inceldom or does the audience for the film in fact consist of power-fantacising incels. I'd assumed a degree of consensus around the former, though I've been seeing some partisan inversion lately on the idea of stochastic terrorism more generally, so who knows.
I think the media is deliberately wrong. You aren't supposed to talk about class conflict in the US, it has to be gender, or race, or sexual orientation, or immigration status, or religion, or the color of your tribe.
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