Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Sure seems to have been overblown:

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/1185213565860503553

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

During the Satanic Panic I had a lot of car problems and someone had to get me a Satanic Mechanic!

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Terrible.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

The media is a fickle mistress.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

One of my favourite recurring criticisms about Joker is how it's ultimately too dull to inspire any anti-social acts of violence. I guess people just assumed that anyone who would openly relate to a popular character whose main purpose in life is to cause often-lethal chaos might actually pose a threat, especially if given a movie that even remotely threatened to vindicate that particular worldview.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Indeed. Incels: so dangerous that if you're capable of having basic human empathy for them, you might be dangerous, too.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Didn't most of this start, though, because of some threat somewhere? Some group or other stating they were going to pull another mass shooting at a theater on opening day? Or am I misremembering? A threat like that would definitely give the media the stepping stone they'd need to create an ongoing sensationalistic news story.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

I don't think so. IIRC families of victims from past shootings kinda kicked things off by sending an open letter (preemptively upset about a deranged individual being presented sympathetically, having not yet seen the film, naturally), and then the army issued a warning. It seems to have come out of nothing but fear and speculation.

There was also the allegation that the Aurora shooter referred to himself as the Joker during his arrest, but that has apparently since been debunked. Still, something like that leaking into the public consciousness would leave an impact.

It doesn't help that the term was coined in good faith because hey who hasn't felt deprived of intimacy at one point or another but has since been co-opted by people who wanted to rationalise said deprivation as being someone else's fault and that's why it's considered emblematic of antisocial behaviour.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

After having watched it, it wasn’t any more violent then any similar film from the 70’s.
Anyone ever see Joe (1970)?
Heck, even Deathwish came to mind.
The commentary is on mental illness and how society at large views them and even abandons them, and the ending that suggests something I’d like to discuss further but it would probably spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it.

Yeah, I "fell" for this, too, in that I briefly thought I "remembered" that. Which really goes to show how dangerous this stuff is. I thought I remembered something that was just kind of floated as a plausible-sounding theory at one point. Stands to reason a lot of us are remembering things that never happened that are factoring into a lot of our judgments about what the world is like, right now. The running thing on Twitter is always that the rumor gets 5,000 RTs and the correction the next day gets 200. So it's both a) anecdotal evidence and b) not even actual anecdotes, but the way people think means that it can literally form the foundation of major planks of someone's worldview.

I tend to think that's kind of like saying the OK sign is a symbol of white supremacy, in the same way some small subset of a group gets the most attention simply by virtue of being the most extreme. Regardless, it's clearly being co-opted again as a semi-slur to demonize or otherize people who are mostly just lonely and desperate.

If nothing else, let's come together and marvel at how easily everyone switches sides: generalizing, we've got the incels saying their problems are the result of systemic cultural effects and imbalances, and progressives telling them to buck up and take individual responsibility for their situation. It'd be hysterical if it weren't profoundly sad.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

In the end, it’s another example of Moral Panic. We’ve seen this before over the decades, and the media plays a big part of it with mis information.
AIDS crisis, video game violence and D&D immediately come to mind.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Garnered a lot of publicity for the movie so controversy worked for the producers.

...
Giant mutant alligators that had been flushed as babies, living in the sewers,
The Satan cults roaming the country sacrificing babies to their demon lord (already mentioned),
Killer bees (real, but never manifested into the clouds of mass-murdering insect swarms that would decimate humanity in North America),
Snuff films,
Organ bandits,
Razor blades in Halloween candy,
Y2K,
Global Warming! ;)

So the question is when do we see movies about movie inspired mass killings (there's Demons by Bava of course but it's a bit different)? Everything else in your list has already been done at least to some degree so it should be only a matter of time :D

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

See Joe (1970)
Fun fact: it was nominated for an academy award for best screenplay

I thought I remembered he was dressed as the joker, yeah everything. He wouldn't have nneded to refer to himself as the joker because it was plain to see he was the joker.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

Oh my God YES!!! I mean, it's a good film that depends a little too much on Phoenix' perfomance but come on... I've seen huge psychological analysis as if we were talking about Shakespeare. It's not a frekaing masterpiece, and the fact that is looked at as one says a lot about the state of cinema today.

Never heard of incels until yesterday on Twitter (murder in Canada). Was Arthur an incel? Now I’m confused.

Agreed. Saw it yesterday. Bravura performance from Joaquin, but I think I expected much more considering the huge acclaim. Worldwide too, I think.

Re: Unnecessary hysteria about Joker?
 

I'm confused as to how a character study can rely too much on the lead performance.