I actually wasted the couple of minutes reading that ridiculous article.
I think you calling it a “reach” is about the most mild critique that it deserves. If you follow the thinking of that writer to it’s logical conclusion, there is almost no place in any story for circumstances that reflect reality if those circumstances portray some individual that is part of a broader group in a negative light.
Every story will be about Ned Flanders and how he mows his neighbors lawn every week out of the goodness of his heart.
I don’t think it’s that outlandish to say certain people in influential publications just had an axe to grind against Joker for no real reason besides the fact they thought the movie would be a “bad influence”. Type “Joker” into Vox.com search and Joker literally has six different articles devoted to it in a negative light pre-release, almost all penned by the same author.
As if the OPs question were a mirror. In this thread, we have MAGAs vociferously denying that Incels related to the Joker while simultaneously villainizing the “woke” media for misrepresenting it.
Hi, @Omniscient. I see that rather than directly communicating with those who have posted something you don’t agree with in this thread, or simply posting a link that might support a point, you’ve chosen to accuse everyone defending a movie (a movie you have not seen) as being a trump supporter (which I take exception to) while speaking to no one in particular. Would you care to participate in discussion like a normal person? Or should we just close this thread because Omniscient has spoken?
Batman is a Fascist hero. But at least in principle, Superman isn’t. Superman is the everyman, who, underneath, is what we need to save America from the Fascists (and their Communist cousins). And probably that’s why Clark Kent’s fascist boss hated Superman. Bruce Wayne isn’t just on good terms with the oligarchy: he’s part of it.
Also, Superman is recognizably part of an American literary tradition: a Horatio Alger hero like T. Tembarum, Boy of the Limberlost, or Tarzan.
Not sure if I’m included in that, but, when I’ve voted, I’ve only voted for Dem presidents (primarily related to possibility of supreme court appointments), I have a very low opinion of Trump etc. etc. and at the same time I think the article I previously posted about was one of the dumbest articles I’ve ever read.
And, based on my calculations, there is a 98.279% chance that it’s the dumbest article anyone in my extended family has read over the last 3 generations.
I don’t recall that Perry White, editor of The Daily Planet, hated Superman. Are you thinking of J. Jonah Jameson, editor of The Daily Bugle, who hated Spiderman?
Nope. I said I’d HEARD that the joker was presented as an incel-like figure, and everything I’ve heard about the movie supports the idea that he was, indeed, an isolated loser who developed axes to grind and proceed’s to carry out what amounts to an incel’s revenge fantasy.
If you think that’s an unfair assessment, fair enough. But the mere fact that I got that information from secondary sources doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Hell, I didn’t even say it’s an objectively bad movie. I just didn’t look to be to my tastes - and, like my understanding of the plot, I haven’t heard anything yet to change my mind about it.
I did exactly this and came upon multiple articles indicating how it wouldn’t lead to violence and what the whole controversy is about (including being critical of The Mary Sue):
Now another author didn’t like the film, but this author seems to almost agreeing with some of your points. So… perhaps claiming Vox had an axe to grind is… well an axe you are grinding against Vox?
Where did I say anything about anyone liking or disliking the movie?
The OP did not ask for a review and he did not ask whether the movie was good or not. He did not ask if anyone who saw it liked it or not. He asked what the media narrative around “woke” was and why it had anything to do with this movie. I explained it.
Subsequently a bunch of folks decided to cherry pick a bunch of articles that support their opinion that the criticisms were wrong. Which totally misses the point, and in fact reinforces it. The movie is divisive for reasons not related to it’s quality, you can argue whether that point is justified or not…but it’s a fact demonstrated clearly in this thread.
The movie is divisive because the authors of those articles decided it was divisive! And then others who had not seen the film believed those articles as truth.
Your secondary sources are wrong. He’s not an incel and he’s not incel-like. He doesn’t have a social media account or speak poorly of liberals. He doesn’t rail against feminism or is depicted as a victim of it. He doesn’t insist on playing video games produced exclusively by men for men with like-minded friends. He doesn’t have games, friends or philosophical notions, and no one in the movie has a mind like his own save for his mother. He’s not a representation of any person or ideology in the real world.
If you removed the word ‘incel’s’ before revenge fantasy, you’d be more correct, but you’d also be describing hundreds of other movies. Also, his revenge is not depicted as a good thing. His transformation into a serial murderer is unambiguously bad. It’s a tragedy, not a movie like Taken.
So why the empathy for this character? Because he’s desperate for human connection and, in the first half, capable of uncommon kindness. He’s childlike. In a city full of assholes, he just wants to make people happy. But he also has a condition (among other factors) that repels people and he’s developed a delusional disorder as a coping mechanism. That last bit is revealed to the viewer midway through the movie and it’s crucial to understanding his sense of betrayal.
I don’t think it’s the greatest movie in the world. I thought lesser of it any time the source material was mentioned…but the cinematography is very good and Joaquin Phoenix is a tremendous actor.
A narrative stemming from certain media has been presented as the reason for the controversy.
You and begbert2 described yourselves as mildly woke, disclosed you haven’t seen the movie and explained that - from what you’ve heard - Joker is about an incel.
So far, no evidence of the movie being Birth of a Nation for incels has been presented. What has? The concerns of bloggers and hearsay based on those concerns by posters who have not seen the movie. Posters who have seen the movie have objected to the characterization.
You threw this pearl before us swine:
And then:
A fact is a statement that can be proven true or false. An opinion is an expression of a person’s feelings that’s not necessarily based on facts.
Your explanation of the movie being about an incel is factually wrong. Your assertion that incels have rallied around the character in any meaningful way has so far been unsupported. I think your current position that the discussion was really about the existence of divisiveness is an example of evasion.
As for the opinions that you don’t like, the posters who hold them are entitled to them.
Haven’t seen the movie, haven’t read any articles about it, and don’t really care, but what you describe here is exactly the proto-incel mindset.
The idea that by being kind and wanting to make others happy, the world owes you something in return, and you feel betrayed when you don’t get it, that’s at the very heart and core of any incel belief.
I can certainly see how those who don’t think that it is their own fault that they are lacking in the human connection that they so desperately want would identify with the character, as you describe him. They usually do have some sort of mental disturbance, which they use to excuse their behavior.
Incels don’t start out as assholes, they become assholes as their “coping mechanism” to deal with a world that does not match their delusions as to how it should treat them.
No, that’s really where the ‘mental illness’ part comes in.
I still believe that ‘Joker’ isn’t any form of incel allegory. Instead, it’s a treatise on mental illness and how it warps people. Right from the get-go Arthur Fleck starts the movie out as mentally ill and barely under treatment.
What throws him over the edge is close to what k9bfriender mentions, above. We do owe things to each other. Kindness, compassion, help when you need it. Arthur is living in a world where he’s mentally ill but trying. But the world he’s in - which WOW is a 70s noir hellscape - just dumps abuse on him. And he doesn’t have the defenses to cope with that. That lack of support…the societal ‘fuck you, I’ve got mine’…that he can’t cope with is what pushes him over the edge into violent insanity.
It’s as much a critique of the culture in which Arthur is operating - I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s functioning - as it is a character study of mental illness. It does both very well.
And I maintain is would have never been made if it didn’t have the Batman connection. Him being the Joker we know of is entirely useless to the plot. But movie’s gotta movie and producers gotta get boners with batman tie ins, I guess.
Probably. Weakens the case a bit, doesn’t it …