That's like saying Falling Down's D-Fens being white had nothing to do with the story.
Joker Origin Story Announced
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That's like saying Falling Down's D-Fens being white had nothing to do with the story.
That's just plain wrong in several levels. Race isn't adressed at all in Joker, while Falling Down has its antihero explicitly oppose the bigotry of a white supremist who mitakes him for being of the same mindset.
If "angry white men" was a demo that could generate a billion dollars in business, the heroes of most Marvel movies would be angry white men.
Spolier: It doesn't work that way.
I'm not saying that your logic is flawed, mind you. What I am saying is that your post employed no logic of any consequence at all. Generally your posts go for angry, unsupported and defensive assertions.
What a load of crap.
Joker is, if anything, a story about a lunatic who falls through the considerable cracks in public services and eventually goes over the edge. Now, it's hard to take it that seriously, because it's really about how the destiny of a comic book villain overtakes him, it's all preordained. But labeling Fleck an " angry white man" is equally silly because as pointed out already he doesn't perceive the harms done to him as based on his gender, background or ethnicity - nor does the movie suggest that. The charge is just something pulled out of the air by people who resent the movie's success.
True across the board.
Except for the sole black character in the film being the woman he desired and reacted violently to when he realized it hadn't happened.
Plus feeling victimized by everyone and that society itself is against you is wholly in the "Angry White Man" archetype.
It's called having integrity as a moviemaker and not twisting pre-existing characters into a mold they weren't meant for just to make a few bucks. They make billions without that.
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*Arthur's therapist shakes her head, makes some notes that she's not going to share.*
This is neither new nor related to race.
Of yeah, now that you mention it she was also there...
...And also killed by Arthur because he resented her.
Lovely.
There's also the records guy at Arkham.
There's only one black actor playing a small part who either treats Fleck badly in passing (which would be indicative of the filmmaker's POV) and none toward whom Fleck holds any animus based upon their differing backgrounds.
I mean, okay, I get it: Joker blows away the box office performance of most Marvel movies at a fraction of their cost, but that's not an excuse for making up false claims about it.
All classic psychological tropes that have nothing to do with race.
Have we seen the same movie? Because that wasn't in the version of the movie I saw. Once he realized he was delusional, it cuts to him back in his apartment.
So it is left open whether he got violent or not. It's obvious how you interpreted that scene. I didn't, and thinking about it, I still don't.
Until he went to Arkham at the very end, he only got violent against people who were actually hurt him or threatened him. The three yuppie assholes, his mother, his co-worker who pushed that gun on him, Thomas Wayne, Robert DeNiro's character, ... he actually makes a point of not hurting his former co-worker who was never mean to him.
Based on that, and the realization being not that Sophie didn't like him anymore, but that their whole relationship was all in his own head, it is clear that she neither hurt nor threatened him. It therefore would be out-of-character if he actually had hurt her.
So, just like Arthur's relationship with Sophie was all in his head, him getting violent against her is all in yours.
Two different characters. There's the therapist/social worker, played by Sharon Washington, who has a substantial role in the movie, and does, presumably, survive, and then there's the Arkham therapist, played by April Grace, who was only in the one scene at the very end, by which time he's in full Joker mode. That violence also happens off-screen, so whether he killed her or just injured her is unclear.
There was also the mother with her kid on the bus. And Chris Redd's character at the Comedy Club. There was also a black clown at the agency. Should I go on?
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Leaving the viewer to speculate what happened. Many viewers have filled in the blank with violence, which is plausible, but it’s not confirmed in the actual film.
Well, when you're using the name a well known character who folks have only become MORE obsessed with in the last 10 years to tell a story about a wholly different character and THEN make sure it's marketed to a demographic who feels victimized...
IE, lazy film-making.
You're bound to make oodles of money.
And later it's implied he killed Sophie.
Who Arthur felt resentful of.
The mom who was portrayed negatively for telling Arthur to stop bugging her kid, and those other two are too insignificant and brief to count.
Like I said, movie for Angry White Men. Only without Falling Down's self-awareness.
There's no suggestion in the movie that Fleck commits any physical violence at all in the apartment of the woman he had fantasies about.
The director's pretty unflinching about his use of violent episodes to startle and to punctuate Fleck's descent into complete homicidal insanity. Making up nonsense about him for some reason eliding the violence from what would be a pivotal and uncompromisingly monstrous act by Fleck and instead leaving it to the audience's imagination just emphasizes that the viewer in question either didn't pay attention to or didn't understand the movie.
That's just more making-shit-up by people who are frustrated that the movie is so successful without bending its knee to the current run of bloated-budget, under-thought melodramas about people dressed up in armor and tights.
Who knows? When a movie can make this kind of money on a (these days) modest budget and without even playing in China, the studios might do a little rethinking of what they're willing to spend on those monstrosities for the return they receive. Can't have that, can we?
The director's pretty unflinching about his use of violent episodes to startle and to punctuate Fleck's descent into complete homicidal insanity. Making up nonsense about him for some reason eliding the violence from what would be a pivotal and uncompromisingly monstrous act by Fleck and instead leaving it to the audience's imagination just emphasizes that the viewer in question either didn't pay attention to or didn't understand the movie.
That's just more making-shit-up by people who are frustrated that the movie is so successful without bending its knee to the current run of bloated-budget, under-thought melodramas about people dressed up in armor and tights.
Who knows? When a movie can make this kind of money on a (these days) modest budget and without even playing in China, the studios might do a little rethinking of what they're willing to spend on those monstrosities for the return they receive. Can't have that, can we?
That could describe most slasher movie villains.
How?
But the movie makes it pretty clear that she is unable, not unwilling, to help Arthur.
Except, once she reads the card, she is being tolerant towards him. Not necessarily helpful, but tolerant. And even if she was portrayed purely negatively, how many characters in the whole movie are actually portrayed positively?
Again, race isn't even mentioned in the movie. The only privilege Arthur expresses is the need for help (which isn't unreasonable), which he doesn't get. You don't seem to grasp his situation in the movie. He is a seriously unhealthy person who was thrown out of a hospital before the movie (in his first session with the social worker he says he liked it better there), presumably a mental health institute, which is probably due to budgetary constraints, and later loses his access to the little therapy the social worker can offer, as well as the prescriptions for his meds, explicitly due to cutbacks. Just before killing DeNiro's character, he explicitly states that he is what happens with a person with mental health problems in a system that is unwilling to deal with them.
Not also.
The director has said he didn’t kill his neighbor. He only killed people who wronged him—which is clear in the movie. She didn’t wrong him.
Try again.
Yeah, right. The director saying that he didn't shows it wasn't shown well enough.
And further supports that Arthur was supposed to have been justified in everything he did. Murder and provoking riots and all that.
And tries to justify him in these acts as "People deserving it". Phillips and Phoenix were trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Yes yes yes, we all know how ashamed you are of comics. You'd rather the Asgardians be some insane LARPer cult and the Guardians be a Biker Gang on Earth instead of Aliens.
But silly attitudes like yours are headed for the tarpit, thankfully.
Who knows? When a movie can make this kind of money on a (these days) modest budget and without even playing in China, the studios might do a little rethinking of what they're willing to spend on those monstrosities for the return they receive. Can't have that, can we?
Studios will learn the wrong lessons, they always do. Doesn't change that Joker made its money from lazy film-making.
Kind of obvious.
That he hallucinates her saying she didn't care about him says it all.
Arthur is, when the movie keeps trying to say he was right to kill people.
It's shown, with how he's upset over Sophie. And his degrading relationship with his social worker.
And he also refuses to own up for his own failings and acts like it's everyone elses' fault.
Laziness.
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