New Yorker: 'Joker' is the comic book 'Green Book', Scorsese parodies (Spoilers)

[Pikelet]

Some of the comparisons in this review seem like a stretch, but I agree with the general argument that this movie touches on a lot of sensitive topics but has nothing really interesting to say about any of them them.

Everything that happens in Joker just serves to be surface-level critiques/observations of society: exploiting the lower class will turn into class warfare, class warfare can get ugly, blah blah blah.

The comparisons to Black Panther are useful because that movie had more relevant social commentary in that Kilmonger introduction scene than Joker had in its entire runtime.

 

[Kalmakov]

....what

 

[Jarmel]

i definitely got Bernie Goetz vibes from that scene and the following folk-herodom. those are, uh, quite some extrapolations though. i'm not sure what this guy thinks "parody" means

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Goetz feels like a maybe but even then there are a significant number of differences, for starters it wasn't a robbery in the movie. Also the subway as a setting for crime isn't particularly unique, especially when depicting 70's era NYC.

 

[wenis]

I yawned when I read the title and continued to yawn as I finished the article.

stop trying to make fetch happen

 

[Maxim726x]

Man this movie has truly made people losing their goddamn minds, hasn't it?

 

[Gwenpoolshark]

Looks like people in this thread are just discovering who Richard Brody is.

The central park 5 thing is a ridiculous comparison, but the Bernie Goetz thing is absolutely intentional (also mimicking death wish). As dumb as some of his smaller complaints are, I actually agree with him on the larger one: the film is totally playing with fire when it comes to depictions of black women and ends with a joyless offing of a random black woman for style points.

 

[Prine]

Talk about manufacturing outrage, that is an absolutely absurd take. Having watched the movie a few hours ago it was fairly balanced and neutral with its portrayal of society around Joker, it was his depravity and perception of personal injustice by white elites, not yobs of colour that act as a stimulus for retribution.

 

[Deleted member 21339]

Equating the sign scene to the Central Park five. Lmfao

 

[Deleted member 32679]

That is a big stretch lmao.

 

[Shy]

 

[Aftervirtue]

Elitism rears it's ugly head. I say this as a subscriber of both New Yorker and The Economist. They work well within their own established framework, but outside that, their criticisms miss the mark far more likely than they would ever admit.

 

[JaggedSac]

Just watched the movie. I didn't get any of this from it.

 

[Deleted member 51691]

Looks like people in this thread are just discovering who Richard Brody is.

The central park 5 thing is a ridiculous comparison, but the Bernie Goetz thing is absolutely intentional (also mimicking death wish). As dumb as some of his smaller complaints are, I actually agree with him on the larger one: the film is totally playing with fire when it comes to depictions of black women and ends with a joyless offing of a random black woman for style points.

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The race of the psychiatrist didn't matter, just so happened to be a person of color.

 

[subpar spatula]

Someone should really compile all these reviews. They've become a second entertainment to this movie.

 

[Gwenpoolshark]

The race of the psychiatrist didn't matter, just so happened to be a person of color.

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It's a deliberate casting choice. Black women are put at a bizarre and illegible position in this film, alternately stalked, scorned, or murdered.

 

[Mona]

this film is breaking people

 

[jokingbird]

this film is breaking people

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The fact that it is successful is probably going to continue to spawn stranger articles in the future.

 

[subpar spatula]

It's a deliberate casting choice. Black women are put at a bizarre and illegible position in this film, alternately stalked, scorned, or murdered.

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So you think the crew behind this film purposely put black women in these positions? Like, there are talks and meetings of how to min/max what happens to black women? Or is it possible that the Joker basically fucks up everyone's life regardless of race, status, etc?

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

Then the whole group swarms him, pummels him, kicks him, and leaves him bruised and bleeding and sobbing, alone, in the filthy alley. The crime alluded to is the attack wrongly attributed to five young men mislabelled as the Central Park Five—an attack on an isolated and vulnerable white person by a group of young people of color. The scene waves away history and says, in effect, that it may not have been those five, but there was another group out there wreaking havoc; they're not figments of a demagogue's hate-filled imagination—here they are, and they're the spark of all the gory action that follows.

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Wow...what a gross stretch to make an extremely bad point.

 

[Gwenpoolshark]

So you think the crew behind this film purposely put black women in these positions? Like, there are talks and meetings of how to min/max what happens to black women? Or is it possible that the Joker basically fucks up everyone's life regardless of race, status, etc?

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No, I think black women routinely get shafted by white people who don't think about it one way or the other and this film participates in that. I don't accept the "equal opportunity hate everybody equally" defense. Ending the movie with the murder of a black woman which signifies pretty much nothing is a choice this movie actively made.

 

[subpar spatula]

No, I think black women routinely get shafted by white people who don't think about it one way or the other and this film participates in that. I don't accept the "equal opportunity hate everybody equally" defense. Ending the movie with the murder of a black woman which signifies pretty much nothing is a choice this movie actively made.

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Then your mind is already made up.

 

[Dremorak]

Those two historical comparisons honestly seem like massive reaches, to the point of absurdity. I agree there is something unsatisfying about the film's weird fixation on black side characters combined with its total lack of interrogation of race, though.

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This was my reaction to reading this too.

 

[denx]

This ain't it chief.

 

[Gwenpoolshark]

Then your mind is already made up.

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And yours isn't?

I mean look, Richard Brody is a foppish oaf who spits out overdetermined bad takes for a living, and everyone in this thread is right to point out what a stretch he's making in places in this article, but I think we're kidding ourselves here if we think that this film's racial and sexual politics are well-thought-through.

 

[Deleted member 21339]

No, I think black women routinely get shafted by white people who don't think about it one way or the other and this film participates in that. I don't accept the "equal opportunity hate everybody equally" defense. Ending the movie with the murder of a black woman which signifies pretty much nothing is a choice this movie actively made.

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We see Arthur gun down three white male Wall St pieces of shit, kill another manipulative white piece of shit co-worker and confront a business tycoon Trump stand-in white piece of crap in Thomas Wayne and put a bullet in the head of a white talk show host.

All the onscreen murders involve white people and 3/4 of them were portrayed as not great people

 

[subpar spatula]

And yours isn't?

I mean look, Richard Brody is a foppish oaf who spits out overdetermined bad takes for a living, and everyone in this thread is right to point out what a stretch he's making in places in this article, but I think we're kidding ourselves here if we think that this film's racial and sexual politics are well-thought-through.

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You just haven't made a convincing argument. Like, he kills the therapist who is black. Does that really mean much more than he literally kills and attempts to escape Arkham every chance he gets in the comics? All it is saying is that the institution can't help him anymore.

 

[Deleted member 19218]

The biggest controversy of this movie I think is that it uses the music of Gary Glitter who is a pedophile.

 

[Baccus]

The biggest controversy of this movie I think is that it uses the music of Gary Glitter who is a pedophile.

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It might be intentional.

 

[Dennis8K]

Is this a joke? Joker, is that you?

 

[The Boat]

Dafuck...

 

[DevilMayGuy]

I thought the movie was about the Joker, not Mr Fantastic

 

[Middleman]

Good job not knowing what parody means.

 

[Azzanadra]

Joker has made some film critics really lose their shit.

Truly a skill of the clown prince of crime.

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JOKER has shown us who the real Jokers are.

 

[Cpt-GargameL]

this movie broke a segment of the internet. it's kind of hilarious

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Co-signed

 

[Dennis8K]

Joker has made some film critics really lose their shit.

Truly a skill of the clown prince of crime.

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Absolutely. And you can tell they really feel the humiliation.

It is like they can't back down from their initial "incel" nonsense and now have to go ever more absurd lengths.

 

[subpar spatula]

Absolutely. And you can tell they really feel the humiliation.

It is like they can't back down from their initial "incel" nonsense and now have to go ever more absurd lengths.

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The Joker film really brought out the crazy in people... ;)

 

[Azzanadra]

Absolutely. And you can tell they really feel the humiliation.

It is like they can't back down from their initial "incel" nonsense and now have to go ever more absurd lengths.

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Isn't it happening here as well? I remember there was a lot of moral panic about the movie before it released, though so far the Era impressions I've seen seem to be pretty positive.

 

[Forearm_Star]

That's some Stretch Armstrong type reach

 

[brochiller]

Wow this seems very clickbaity.

 

[Cpt-GargameL]

Isn't it happening here as well? I remember there was a lot of moral panic about the movie before it released, though so far the Era impressions I've seen seem to be pretty positive.

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It sure is. Take a loot at the OT.

 

[metalslimer]

Um there is definitely some racial elements in the film that feel like they go examined but the central park 5? What?

 

[Froyo Love]

Surprised at the hostility here. Any film that taps into the racist mythology of feral black youth assaulting people in lawless cityscapes deserves some interrogation.

Don't know how close to the mark the author is because I haven't seen the film, but this thread has way more eye-rolling than it does counter-arguments. I would be very curious to see someone explain how the Goetz incident in particular is not being deliberately alluded to. And if the film is deliberately invoking Goetz, Brody is right that it's weird and a little suspicious to reimagine it without the racial component involved.

 

[Baccus]

Don't know how close to the mark the author is because I haven't seen the film

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....

 

[jviggy43]

It's a deliberate casting choice. Black women are put at a bizarre and illegible position in this film, alternately stalked, scorned, or murdered.

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Yeah and its one of those things thats really easy to not think about either but there is a conversation that deserves to be had about the intentional choices to do the above mentioned and having it all focused on black women of color.

 

[subpar spatula]

Surprised at the hostility here. Any film that taps into the racist mythology of feral black youth assaulting people in lawless cityscapes deserves some interrogation.

Don't know how close to the mark the author is because I haven't seen the film, but this thread has way more eye-rolling than it does counter-arguments. I would be very curious to see someone explain how the Goetz incident in particular is not being deliberately alluded to. And if the film is deliberately invoking Goetz, Brody is right that it's weird and a little suspicious to reimagine it without the racial component involved.

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So because the Joker guns down 3 white men on a subway, it somehow is an allusion to Goetz because the Joker was beaten by 3 black people before? No one needs to defend or argue why Joker isn't alluding to Goetz because the argument that it is, is so dumb.

 

[rusty chrome]

I'm happy this movie is triggering so many people. It's also one of the best movies I've ever seen.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

can we have an internet-wide moratorium on joker thinkpieces? it's just embarrassing at this point.

 

[Aftervirtue]

Surprised at the hostility here. Any film that taps into the racist mythology of feral black youth assaulting people in lawless cityscapes deserves some interrogation.

Don't know how close to the mark the author is because I haven't seen the film, but this thread has way more eye-rolling than it does counter-arguments. I would be very curious to see someone explain how the Goetz incident in particular is not being deliberately alluded to. And if the film is deliberately invoking Goetz, Brody is right that it's weird and a little suspicious to reimagine it without the racial component involved.

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I'd wager it's because those of us who have seen it can ascertain the amount navel gazing going on in this article.

 

[RestEerie]

A reach even Dhalsim will be proud.

Still, no biggie. One man's medicine is another man's poison, so that to speak.

 

[Middleman]

Surprised at the hostility here. Any film that taps into the racist mythology of feral black youth assaulting people in lawless cityscapes deserves some interrogation.

Don't know how close to the mark the author is because I haven't seen the film

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I mean...