Joker killed at the box office.
Not literally, though there was no shortage of hand-wringing over the delusion that the film might stir up violence. One critic at Vogue wrote that she would not be seeing the film since, “In recent weeks the movie has become a rallying point for aggrieved white guys, both inside Hollywood and out.”
A “rallying cry” is an overstatement, though one supposedly established by months of overwrought concern. Long before the film came out, outrage grew over its supposed sympathy to the class of the aggrieved white guy. After the film was released, reviews largely fell along partisan lines.
One critic at the New Yorker likened the film to one of President Trump’s publicity stunts.
“I happen to dislike the film as heartily as anything I’ve seen in the past decade, but I realize, equally, that to vent any inordinate wrath toward it is to fall straight into its trap, for outrage merely proves that our attention has been snagged,” critic Anthony Lane wrote. “Just ask the President of the United States.”
A critic at National Review, on the other hand, called the film “spellbinding.”
Joker’s “trap,” as Lane puts it, whether laid intentionally or not, does seem to have worked. While mostly liberals were bemoaning how the film elevated the troubles of a disgruntled white guy, the film was busy raking in millions of dollars at the box office.
Thanks to its relatively small budget, Joker is now the most profitable comic book film of all time. And, beating out Deadpool 2, it became not only the highest-grossing R-rated film ever but also the first to earn $1 billion. Its popularity has spilled over into the streets of New York. So many fans have been swarming the “Joker Stairs” in the Bronx that locals have asked them to stop.
Was it a “trap” that secured the film’s success, or did director Todd Phillips somehow manage to capture the zeitgeist? Was it something else?
When Phillips first pitched the film about Batman’s nemesis to Warner Bros., he framed it as a serious endeavor. It was never meant to be funny.
The film is the Joker’s first stand-alone origin story; Heath Ledger’s iconic Joker wasn’t much of a laugh, though Jared Leto’s and Jack Nicholson’s renditions tried to find some humor in the murderous fiend.
For his part, Philips said he’s pretty much done with comedy. “Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” Phillips told Vanity Fair. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore — I’ll tell you why, because all the f—ing funny guys are like, ‘F— this shit, because I don’t want to offend you.’”
Woke culture: It kills comedy, and then it complains that drama is too dark.
I wrote in April that the film might not be such a good idea. Considering the darkly worrisome method acting of previous Jokers and the death of Ledger shortly after his performance, why subject Joaquin Phoenix to the same ordeal?
Phoenix, who played the role brilliantly, told Vanity Fair that he thought the film could teach the audience about empathy.
“I was going through [the script] and I realized, I said, ‘Well, why would we make something, like, where you sympathize or empathize with this villain?’ It’s like, because that’s what we have to do. It’s so easy for us to — we want the simple answers, we want to vilify people,” he said.
Though the idea of being emotionally disturbed for two straight hours is not appealing to me, I saw the film several weeks after it came out. I didn’t enjoy it, but I admired the Oscar-worthy score, the makeup, and the cinematography that made each shot look like a well-crafted photograph. Was that enough, I wondered, to attract so many moviegoers willing to pay $13 a pop to watch a man descend from madman to murderous fiend?
The film did many things right. It capitalized on the existing fan base for Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, with those viewers hoping Joker would be equally gritty and profound. The film also hits at a time where we’re obsessed with true crime and can’t get enough of podcasts, documentaries, and films about the homicidal and mentally deranged.
And Joker tries to comment on cultural flashpoints: social services, civil unrest, and mental health issues. “The worst part about having a mental illness,” the Joker scribbles on a piece of paper, “is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”
Whatever the reasons for its success, the film has reached all the way to the White House. Trump reportedly hosted a screening and enjoyed the film. People were quick to comment that the screening seemed in character for the commander in chief, and he probably identified with the main character. “You know the Joker, he was very very badly treated. And you hear that more and more,” someone quipped.
Because at least one writer tried to make It Chapter Two about Trump, the joke that “Trump is the real clown” is already banal. Joker has little to do with Trump or politics and more to do with a desire for nihilistic escapism.
When everything is woke and everything has to have a point, perhaps part of the appeal of Joker is that it has none. The film ends with the Joker standing atop a car, surveying the crowd of rioting rebels he has inadvertently inspired. He is now a leader for a movement, the only driving forces of which are death and destruction. He has no goal and, therefore, no real enemy.
You can argue against someone advancing the wrong narrative at the wrong time, but you can’t argue with Joker. There’s no battling a message that doesn’t exist.
