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DCEU: Killer Clowns from Gotham City


GallowKnight

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Ok: I lay out an example from the movie, the clip, that I found as problematic messaging to troubled individuals  

You respond by fixating on from whom I got the clip, a middle eastern poster on twitter [when the clip is the content of the example] and try to spin that as an invalidation of my 'white incel narrative'

I then, patiently I might add, actually transcribe the language from the clip to bring it forefront to your errant attention, and yet you continue conflating and misrepresenting the argument as illustrated by the example. 

Then I ask what your beef actually is, because absent your logical ability to parse and respond accordingly, the conclusion I arrive at is this opposition is more instinctive for you. Which begged the question that you've since deflected, twice, and revert to equivocation.

So I gave up and laughed, which judging by your response, you've taken as some sort of win with your projection. 

[chuckles]

The argument as to whether or not Joker is a problematic of portrayal of mental illness isn't as simple as whether or not. It's not a false dilemma. And while the offshoot discussion has been an interesting if sometimes frustrating conversation [narrows eyes at Jace] you, Ice, don't seem equipped to meaningfully participate.  

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I've got to say I've heard things both good and bad about this film but HeartofIce arguing so vehemently that it shouldn't be considered problematic has convinced me that it must be admiringly presenting traits of both racism and mysoginy very strongly, for him to find it so damn admirable.

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1 hour ago, JEORDHl said:

Mystery Machine just pulled up in here and solved some shit. 

Appreciated. Thanks you two.

 

Regarding the specific example you showed earlier, Joker's speech and actions at the end, would you say that the movie screwed up by having Joker say that exact thing you brought up, and if that hadn't been included, the movie would have been better? I could see how that would be construed as deeply problematic, the movie saying out loud something that shouldn't be automatically applied to every mentally ill person.

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1 hour ago, JEORDHl said:

Mystery Machine just pulled up in here and solved some shit. 

Appreciated. Thanks you two.

Lol - I feel bad for not posting earlier that this is essentially what Heartofice does in multiple threads. The intellectual vacuum that usually accompanies his posts is quite something.

*Anyway* - I saw the movie last night and I think Phoenix kinda saved this movie. There are things I liked about it, the first being phoenix's performance. It's a little spell binding the stuff he does with the joker & especially the laughing or crying bits where you're never quite sure if he's laughing or crying. He's easily the best part of the movie for me and saves it from being fairly tedious. The cinematography was also very good and I feel like the movie really made 'Gotham' come alive in a way that I'd say Batman Begins never could. 

As for the stuff I didn't like - I think this tweet sums it up fairly well

I think the movie is quite desperate to be taken seriously but it is a pretty facile exercise in exploring the issues it puts up on the screen. Income inequality, a broken system, mental health - these issues are front and center in the movie, but it doesn't have anything new to say about any of these and ends with the main character explicitly telling us what the movie is about - there is no subtlety, none of these issues are explored beyond a surface level that at times can feel a bit irresponsible ( the depiction of mental health is a bit ( maybe more than a bit) questionable for me, especially as someone who is a health professional, it's just..not great and a stereotype that we would do well to move away from). It's just so thin & has such a lack of ideas about the things it is trying to say. I honestly think I would have been bored out of my mind had Phoenix not turned in such a good performance.

And yet..even though I've got huge issues with the movie ( And I think the discussion Relic, Jace et al had earlier in the thread is something to consider), I still think it's something different from the MCU stuff we've been getting & will be getting over the next decade or so - I'm admittedly not a superhero guy at all, but besides Black Panther & Spiderverse, I haven't really seen superhero movies that I want to even think about after leaving the cinema, but the Joker is at least a movie that is different from the rote MCU stuff.

Imo, the movie would have been *far* better with a decent writer, it's why I'm excited about The Batman because Reeves made three very decent films with memorable characters, so the Batman has the potential to be good. I think Reeves could do an excellent job if he's allowed to direct both Pattinson & Phoenix together.

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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Regarding the specific example you showed earlier, Joker's speech and actions at the end, would you say that the movie screwed up by having Joker say that exact thing you brought up, and if that hadn't been included, the movie would have been better? I could see how that would be construed as deeply problematic, the movie saying out loud something that shouldn't be automatically applied to every mentally ill person.

It would've helped if they'd changed that particular bit of dialogue, sure. But the sentiment is woven throughout the subtext of the movie. For clarity, a lot of people liked this movie just fine. 

I don't.

 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

*Anyway* - I saw the movie last night and I think Phoenix kinda saved this movie. There are things I liked about it, the first being phoenix's performance. It's a little spell binding the stuff he does with the joker & especially the laughing or crying bits where you're never quite sure if he's laughing or crying. He's easily the best part of the movie for me and saves it from being fairly tedious. The cinematography was also very good and I feel like the movie really made 'Gotham' come alive in a way that I'd say Batman Begins never could. 

As for the stuff I didn't like - I think this tweet sums it up fairly well

I think the movie is quite desperate to be taken seriously but it is a pretty facile exercise in exploring the issues it puts up on the screen. Income inequality, a broken system, mental health - these issues are front and center in the movie, but it doesn't have anything new to say about any of these and ends with the main character explicitly telling us what the movie is about - there is no subtlety, none of these issues are explored beyond a surface level that at times can feel a bit irresponsible ( the depiction of mental health is a bit ( maybe more than a bit) questionable for me, especially as someone who is a health professional, it's just..not great and a stereotype that we would do well to move away from). It's just so thin & has such a lack of ideas about the things it is trying to say. I honestly think I would have been bored out of my mind had Phoenix not turned in such a good performance.

And yet..even though I've got huge issues with the movie ( And I think the discussion Relic, Jace et al had earlier in the thread is something to consider), I still think it's something different from the MCU stuff we've been getting & will be getting over the next decade or so - I'm admittedly not a superhero guy at all, but besides Black Panther & Spiderverse, I haven't really seen superhero movies that I want to even think about after leaving the cinema, but the Joker is at least a movie that is different from the rote MCU stuff.

Imo, the movie would have been *far* better with a decent writer, it's why I'm excited about The Batman because Reeves made three very decent films with memorable characters, so the Batman has the potential to be good. I think Reeves could do an excellent job if he's allowed to direct both Pattinson & Phoenix together.

 

Well put.

Thing is, the purist in me kept arguing with his take on this role. The idea that Joker, a misogynistic, masochistic, absolute psychopath that delights in chaos, in inflicting crippling pain [psychological/emotional et otherwise] that he ever cared about what his momma thought? How other people treated him? I'm not sure psycho/sociopaths are wired like that, but I'll defer to you. And I'll get over the comic purist thing. Someday, I swear. Moving on, another bit that got to me was the inference that his new clarity and direction started when he was off his meds. A trite and oft repeated axiom in film, belied by the last sequence in the mental institution, where he'd surely have been medicated. Yet... [spreads hands]

Oddly enough, his performance kept pulling me out of the film because that's what I was really absorbing. It was like I, as a member of the audience had broken the fourth wall instead. Look at Phoenix go. A little jarring. 

---

Fanboying now, I can't same the same about the DCEU but I'd say I've enjoyed most of the MCU movies as entertainment. The only one I loved though was Winter Soldier. A fantastic film, all on it's own, imo.  

    

 

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9 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Ok: I lay out an example from the movie, the clip, that I found as problematic messaging to troubled individuals  

You respond by fixating on from whom I got the clip, a middle eastern poster on twitter [when the clip is the content of the example] and try to spin that as an invalidation of my 'white incel narrative'

What you actually did was post that tweet and also say that "Scroll through the joker hashtags if you're on twitter. Plenty of people identifying with Arthur's plight. ". Now if there is some evidence that there are mentally unwell people out there using the Joker hashtags and identifying with his plight then yeah I would be interested to see that, but all I saw was fans of the movie posting up stuff they thought was cool, or people talking about the movie critically or in some other fashion. Certainly not what you described.

It was unclear whether it was a problem that someone had posted up that clip from the movie or that that bit of the movie was a problem for you. If you were really just talking about the content of the movie itself then fair enough, you tried to clarify later but I'm still doubting your intentions here. For my part if you take that line on its own then it sounds much worse. But the movie is generally pretty unsympathetic to Arthur, and never asks you to side with him, he's actually almost entirely unlikable. His line there isn't the motto of the movie or anything, it does portray Arthurs state of mind at the time and his sense of victimisation, as well as him saying things to play up to the crowd. It shouldn't be taken literally.

But again you have not said what it is you find problematic, you just repeated  that horrible 'problematic' word again. What are you suggesting is going to happen as a consequence of this movie existing? I'm guessing you think it will cause some crazed loner to go out and commit some random act of violence? Correct me if that isn't what you are suggesting. But is there any evidence that a movie would be the cause of such an incident? We've had others in the thread throw that out there baselessly, or that video games cause violence (totally forgetting the millions of people who watch movies and play video games who DON'T go around killing people) 

So if a movie is problematic in this way then what do you do about it? Surely the only healthy outcome for society would be to ban it right? But then what else do we ban? Surely the movies that Joker has ripped off, superior movies such as King of Comedy or Taxi Driver? Yet those movies don't appear to have damaged society in the same way despite being about crazed loners who go off and kill people. 


For me, I don't think Joker is a very clever movie, it portrays most of its issues at about the level you'd expect of a comic book movie, but tries to take itself seriously. It doesn't do a great job at portraying mental health either, but then Joker as a character has always been a strange caricature of someone with mental health problems. Its also a mostly ambiguous movie, maybe by accident or by design, it doesn't really appear to have any real message or theme because it's kind of all over the place. 

I'm really not defending this movie in fact, because I don't think I would ever want to watch it again. What I'm more interested in, in the level of hand wringing and moral panic surrounding the movie, which seems to be entirely unjustified but also seems to have been on display by many people in this thread.  

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6 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Mystery Machine just pulled up in here and solved some shit. 

Appreciated. Thanks you two.

 

Basically you can bet your bottom dollar that as time gets closer to the Birds of Prey coming out, as vehement as he is now about how we shouldn't be wringing our hands about a film about an angry white man, he's going to be equally so insisting that people shouldn't be getting excited for that because we've had strong female action heroes beffffffffore guuuuuys how dare you get excited for this one, probably with a hefty side order of 'Joker was violent and you didn't like that how dare you like this completely different violent movie!' as if violence was the only problem people had had here. Potentially with a sprinkle of pissing his pants that no-one cares that Black Canary isn't white when we'd all get mad if they cast Brad Pitt as Black Panther.

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12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Basically you can bet your bottom dollar that as time gets closer to the Birds of Prey coming out, as vehement as he is now about how we shouldn't be wringing our hands about a film about an angry white man, he's going to be equally so insisting that people shouldn't be getting excited for that because we've had strong female action heroes beffffffffore guuuuuys how dare you get excited for this one, probably with a hefty side order of 'Joker was violent and you didn't like that how dare you like this completely different violent movie!' as if violence was the only problem people had had here. Potentially with a sprinkle of pissing his pants that no-one cares that Black Canary isn't white when we'd all get mad if they cast Brad Pitt as Black Panther.

Well if you started praising Birds of Prey for its 'empowering violence' then hell yeah I'll be coming back in and talking about it. I'm quite sure the same gaggle of people will start using phrases like 'punching up, not punching down' etc and I'll be rolling my eyes at that as well, don't worry. 

It'll be interesting the movies you give a pass to, because they are 'on the correct side' but rail against because the wrong type of people like them. 

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16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

using phrases like 'punching up, not punching down' etc and I'll be rolling my eyes at that as well,

 

 

See there you are straight away trying to dismiss the notion that not all struggle and violence is of equal weight. You fucking hate having to consider that other people might have it harder than you just coz of who you are.

But even that's to ignore that the way things are delivered are what people's problem is. Nothing about Birds of Prey so far suggests that anything about it could be seen as mirroring or applying to any specific real-world case, there's no attempt to realism there. Joker is going for a real-world relevant sort of vibe so if it fails at that it's just gonna be different. 

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15 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

See there you are straight away trying to dismiss the notion that not all struggle and violence is of equal weight. You fucking hate having to consider that other people might have it harder than you just coz of who you are.

But even that's to ignore that the way things are delivered are what people's problem is. Nothing about Birds of Prey so far suggests that anything about it could be seen as mirroring or applying to any specific real-world case, there's no attempt to realism there. Joker is going for a real-world relevant sort of vibe so if it fails at that it's just gonna be different. 

Nope. Haven’t seen Birds of Prey and am unlikely to, purely because I haven’t bothered to watch most DC movies after BvS due to them being awful. Joker looked more interesting so checked that out.

But if Birds of Prey is some lame ‘women get all empowered by killing men’ movie and that gets celebrated for reasons then yeah I’d have a problem with it. You can acknowledge inequalities whilst still thinking it’s not cool to celebrate vengeful violence or paint groups as victims who’s only answer is murder. But then that movie might well be nothing like that so I can’t comment.

Again I haven’t seen anything in the Joker that encourages violence or says anything about race, and anyone who tries to paint it as such deserves rebuke 

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12 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Thing is, the purist in me kept arguing with his take on this role. The idea that Joker, a misogynistic, masochistic, absolute psychopath that delights in chaos, in inflicting crippling pain [psychological/emotional et otherwise] that he ever cared about what his momma thought? How other people treated him? I'm not sure psycho/sociopaths are wired like that, but I'll defer to you. And I'll get over the comic purist thing. Someday, I swear. Moving on, another bit that got to me was the inference that his new clarity and direction started when he was off his meds. A trite and oft repeated axiom in film, belied by the last sequence in the mental institution, where he'd surely have been medicated. Yet... [spreads hands] 

Oddly enough, his performance kept pulling me out of the film because that's what I was really absorbing. It was like I, as a member of the audience had broken the fourth wall instead. Look at Phoenix go. A little jarring. 

---

Fanboying now, I can't same the same about the DCEU but I'd say I've enjoyed most of the MCU movies as entertainment. The only one I loved though was Winter Soldier. A fantastic film, all on it's own, imo.  

 

I'm not an expert in mental health, which is why I'm not too harsh on my criticisms from that front but I would love to read from the perspective of patients & professionals in that field. I need to go re-read some of the stuff earlier in this thread because I think karradin touched on some of those points but I didn't read too closely.

I totally get if you're taken out of it by his performance, he's certainly Acting with a capital A and I was listening to a podcast that kinda had the same criticism. But I feel like most of the stuff that will stay with me from the movie is things from his performance, such as the dance down the steps & his sessions with his counselor or the scene at his apartment with his two other co-workers. Though I suppose that one is more than just his performance.

Re: MCU - See, I think I liked Civil War a bit more than Winter Soldier, I didn't mind the latter, but the former having two people we know so well square off against each other made it feel like it had some form of stakes. My biggest complaints with the MCU stuff is essentially how forgettable and by committee they sometimes feel, which is why I always look forward to a non-mcu superhero film.

As a complete aside, I thought all the thomas wayne stuff was so bad. It was like some slapstick sub-plot that was pretty terrible. I think all the Wayne cross over was not really needed an didn't add much to the movie.

Edit: I thought the soundtrack was quite decent too

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21 minutes ago, Raja said:

I'm not an expert in mental health, which is why I'm not too harsh on my criticisms from that front but I would love to read from the perspective of patients & professionals in that field. I need to go re-read some of the stuff earlier in this thread because I think karradin touched on some of those points but I didn't read too closely.

I totally get if you're taken out of it by his performance, he's certainly Acting with a capital A and I was listening to a podcast that kinda had the same criticism. But I feel like most of the stuff that will stay with me from the movie is things from his performance, such as the dance down the steps & his sessions with his counselor or the scene at his apartment with his two other co-workers. Though I suppose that one is more than just his performance.

Re: MCU - See, I think I liked Civil War a bit more than Winter Soldier, I didn't mind the latter, but the former having two people we know so well square off against each other made it feel like it had some form of stakes. My biggest complaints with the MCU stuff is essentially how forgettable and by committee they sometimes feel, which is why I always look forward to a non-mcu superhero film.

As a complete aside, I thought all the thomas wayne stuff was so bad. It was like some slapstick sub-plot that was pretty terrible. I think all the Wayne cross over was not really needed an didn't add much to the movie.

I don't know, I mostly quit seeing Phoenix while watching and saw the character he was playing. Even the little things he did, like just sitting on his couch in his pajamas had me buying into it. Which is more than I can say about DeNiro in his role; he was just DeNiro.

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Actually, can we talk about Birds of Prey for a second? I mean, if you want to make a female fronted comics film, maybe don't have the main characters completely overshadowed by a serial killer in lover with her rapist? Also maybe don't replace the actual leader of the team who was shot and abused by said rapist with some girl in short shorts? I mean, trailers are often misleading and I hope I'm wrong but the whole thing looks like a Spice Girls ad.

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