I'm hoping its the gotham populace (or its criminal factions) that are sharing in the Joker's "psychosis".
Because a movie about how they got together as a couple, or just more focused on Quinn and her origins, is just not interesting to me (and we share professions lol). Unless they do perhaps a *twisted* spin on the Rom-Com genre movie - that would be interesting and entertaining.
Though I will say I don't see this being a movie focused /more/ on Quinn - as "Folix a deux" wouldn't be /her/ descent into insanity. This medical/psych diagnosis refers to SHARED psychosis (hallucinations/delusional beliefs) between someone who is psychotic and their partner/friend/etc. who is NOT psychotic, but, through the relationship with the psychotic person, comes to believe/share that SAME psychosis - or same disconnect with reality/same delusional belief.
So IF the title reflects a more direct/accurate reference to the condition then we're talking how Quinn descends into JOKER's psychosis. How Quinn (or the gotham populace/criminals) come to follow/believe in what Joker is espousing as 'truth' and not 'just another crazy nutjob.'
I see the first Joker movie basically a "If this guy exists in real life - this is the logical/real world/realistic way a regular person would turn into a comic book level villian." Using real life mental health issues from realistic/real world trauma experiences to explain how this type of character, or personality, could go from 'mild mannered human' to 'comic book level crazy/villian.' The Joker character as given in this universe has an ACTUAL mental illness affecting his beliefs and behaviors. He experiences actual hallucinations, on top of his trauma history, that help to drive the birth and evolution of his delusional belief system that ultimately places himself as the center/savior/righteous leader. And its a pretty 'true to life' example of it as well - as I work in this profession and this field - I can truly say Joker is an entirely accurate theory/presentation of how a person's life can cause them to develop personality disorders, develop into psychopath/sociopathic behaviors, and/or delusional belief systems.
If they are staying with the 'real world' parallels and 'real world events/circumstances' then this movie could get VERY controversial (or divisive) in how they decide to portray the way Joker's psychosis is adopted and "shared" by those around him. I can certainly see how this sort of movie could turn into (or be seen as, even if it doesn't mean to) a commentary on how individuals with extreme positions/extreme views persuade others to follow them/give them millions of dollars/etc as well as how people get tricked/brainwashed/persuaded - starting with their own logical biases and fears and hopes - into following extremists. Depending on how the movie illustrates the way Joker's behavior/words convince otherwise 'regular people' to buy into a SHARED psychotic DELUSION could sink or swim its reception overall. Because portraying the 'charismatic hero' as a delusional psychotic certainly puts a 'spin' on what that says about the people who are choosing psychotic beliefs.
And "extremists" here (with their followers) COULD be seen or misinterpreted (Or not, just have to wait and see the movie) as being commentary on anyone and everyone - from Trump/MAGA to Heard/Depp and their fans to Scientology and its believers...on down.
Just an interesting thought - I'm curious to see which way the writer/director decides to go with this and how much backlash they may get from how the populace then interprets that commentary. Course, they may do none of them above at all in any way that is 'controversial' in parallels to real world groups and politics. But that isn't what they avoided with their first movie and its stark realism.
And all of this brings to mind a quote from one of my graduate psych professors that applies back to my point about Joker's psychosis (and the real world parallels). "True crazy people don't think they're crazy. They think they are Chosen." --Dr. Yesu.
Last edited by Koriani; 2022-06-09 at 06:55 PM.
Koriani - Guardians of Forever - BM Huntard on TB; Kharmic - Worgen Druid - TB
Koriani - none - Dragon of Secret World
Karmic - Moirae - SWTOR
inactive: Frith-Rae - Horizons/Istaria; Koriani in multiple old MMOs. I been around a long time.
It was a superbly good film. It had nothing to do with superhero films beyond the last scene that could be entirely cut and you wouldn't lose anything.
That said I hope they dont make a sequel... the story has been told and I don't want this joker to become a over the top crime villian movie.
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This series was the opposite of that though...
This movie was so well acted but it was really hard to watch. It also absolutely does not need a sequel.
Put in another way - it's fine to make a movie about an incel and violence issues. If you're glorifying this character - which you partially do when you suggest he's not an incel but simply misunderstood or aggrieved - then that's a problem with you (and not the movie).
The same issue happened with Walter White in Breaking Bad, who was definitively a bad, evil man, but people bent over backwards to suggest he was a good guy desperate to solve his financial crisis (which he could have done in s1e3 by swallowing his pride when he was offered a well-paying job with great health insurance with no strings attached). It says something about the viewer when they're willing to condone the actions of an utterly depraved main character.
...he was "misunderstood and aggrieved." Misunderstood by the therapist whose job it was to try and understand him, but who didn't give a shit. And aggrieved because of the abuse he suffered both as a child and as an adult with mental health issues. Like...this shit was literally in the movie. The implication that being an incel is mutually exclusive with a person legitimately needing help and empathy is pretty disgusting, though.
I'm really not sure how showing Joker make a smile out of his own blood as caricatural rioters cheer for him and having the final scene be him murder some psychiatrist in cold blood for no reason after laughing at the notion of a kid getting his parent killed in front of his eyes counts as "celebrating" him. The film didn't make him grow devil horns and announce how evil he was, but I'd hardly say there was any celebration to his mindset or deeds, they were just presented raw and without filter.
If some people think he's a hero, then it's their problem, I really don't think the movie encouraged that interpretation at all if someone thinks about it for more than a second. Much like some people think the Empire in Star Wars are the good guys despite being portrayed incompetent space Nazis who destroy planets for the sheer lulz of it. At some point there's only so many things a filmmaker can do to save the stupid part of the audience from themselves.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
Those aren't exactly great and righteous people celebrating him, as shown by one of them shooting a man and his wife dead in front of their kids. Why would I confuse the in-universe celebration of his deeds with a real-life celebration by the movie itself? By the same logic GoT S8 "celebrates" Dany razing a city and killing half a million people because she's mad, since there are people in-universe who cheer her for it.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
Yes, a city that's so absolutely fucked that it gave birth to a guy who puts on an animal costume to beat street thugs to deal with the trauma of losing his parents...instead of spending his billions to try to tackle the systemic issues he's one of the few in a position to actually be able to meaningfully address. "Glorify" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, especially in the context of that being one of the most recognizable and celebrated fictional characters in our culture.
Last edited by s_bushido; 2022-06-12 at 03:18 PM.
To say that the film glorifies Joker's actions is to fundamentally misunderstand the film. And it's not exactly an intellectual film.
I don't think anyone is saying the movie is trying to glorify it. I think what's being said is that people, in real life, "glorify" it (not exactly my word) by shunting off all his personal responsibility to being misunderstood and aggrieved......instead of what the movie shows: a psychopathic incel who believes something is owed to him.
Edit: Just like how, in my previous post, I used the example of Walter White where people literally excuse his drug empire and murderous psychopathy because of "he's doing it for his family!" when the show explicitly says at some point Walter is doing it purely for himself, because such evil gives him joy and a sense of purpose.
Last edited by eschatological; 2022-06-12 at 05:44 PM.
No, they're very much saying that the movie was intended as a nod to that crowd, and that such movies shouldn't be made.
Which is ridiculous, and why the whole world laughs at the US and their way of finding every possible solution to their problems, except for the obvious ones. But by all means, ban movies, videogames and books, that'll fix it.
I thought the movie was pretty decent overall, didn’t deserve all the negativity leading up to it, and doesn’t really need a sequel.
I guess different people see different things? I saw it as dramatic tragedy of an utterly broken man abused and crippled utterly abandoned by society until he breaks.
Nothing is glorifying about the joker hes not made out to be anything but hurt and abandoned.
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It is... the idea that getting some pussy is the issue of the joker is so disgusting it sounds like parody...