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JOKER: THE MOVIE spoilers thread (anything goes)
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243 posts in this topic

8 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

Do you always tell people who are already relaxed to "relax"...?

Only when they appear to be acting unrelaxed.

Murderers are certainly heroes. "Hero" is really just subjective, isn't it?

In a war, heroes from one side are certainly not to those on the other side.

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18 minutes ago, I like pie said:

Only when they appear to be acting unrelaxed.

Murderers are certainly heroes. "Hero" is really just subjective, isn't it?

In a war, heroes from one side are certainly not to those on the other side.

I think you're reading too far into my post if that's what you're inferring.

"Hero" isn't a subjective term, other than when you post it as such (as you did), "my hero". Cold-blooded murderers are quite the opposite of heroes.

There are no heroes in war as there are no winners - everyone loses.

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12 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

Cap come on. It’s a movie spoiler discussion board. It’s supposed to be fun, not some sort of battle. 

Painting Joker as some sort of hero is just flat-out wrong, though.

I'm not a fan of misinformation. I've made that much evident.

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Fleck is the protagonist of the film.  Protagonists don't have to be heros, just the central character.  Merriam-Webster is the oldest and most widely-accepted dictionary, and it doesn't use heroism as a part of any of its connotations of the word:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/protagonist

He's certainly not heroic, but a fringe of people will look at him that way.  Many mass killers consider previous mass killers heroes.  I find it difficult to imagine anyone thinking of him as anything approaching heroic; he seemed mostly pathetic to me.  But I'm sure a small minority will find him appealing.  Ledger's Joker probably has a wider appeal as a hero since he's a far more polished and capable version of the character than Phoenix's Joker is.

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So I guess there are a few ways to take Todd Phillips's comments about the final scene of the film:

  • You could discount his comments and take the film at face value.  Given that it was demonstrated several times that on-screen events were told from his perspective and not true such as his relationship with Zazie Beetz or that scene where Robert DeNiro's character brought him up on stage from the audience, this likely isn't the way to think of the film.
  • You could take his comments to mean that EVERYTHING in the film was a product of the Joker's imagination.  That's the kind of film that pisses everyone off, however, so I doubt that this is it.
  • You could take his comments to mean that most things in the film happened somewhat like they're shown on-screen, but that the Joker has warped most or all of them to paint his past in some semi-random way that amuses him.

If it's the third possibility I'm not sure there's much value in talking about how likely it is that his mother could have adopted him, whether or not Thomas Wayne is his father, or anything else, really, because we can't take anything the film showed at face value.  Maybe he never did murder that clown colleague or the talk show host, or maybe he never saw Bruce Wayne as a pre-teen and just completely inserted that memory into his tale of himself, who knows.  Phillips specifically referred to these panels from Moore's "Killing Joke" in that interview, so this is probably the way to interpret the film:

4a1a24be035e56c31b8c80a76a7ad2a9.jpg

Edited by fantastic_four
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I remembered those panels as well when Ledger's Joker kept making up different stories about his scars -- the nature of the truth, and of memory, is suspect with the Joker.  I feel like this movie tries to emphasize the same point about how he makes meaning and interprets the world around him.

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3 hours ago, the blob said:

Do we think he killed his neighbor?

IGN makes some good points how it could go either way.

Joker: Did Arthur Fleck Kill His Neighbor?

Quote

Did Joker Kill His Neighbor Sophie?

The late realization that Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) had imagined his entire romantic relationship with his neighbor Sophie Dumond (played by Zazie Beetz) is a shocker for the audience and apparently also for Arthur, as he points a finger gun to his temple as she pleads with him to leave her apartment. The camera holds on Arthur for an intense moment before cutting to him leaving her apartment and returning to his own where he laughs in pain on his couch. It should be noted that sirens can be heard outside his window.

So what happened to Sophie? That depends. Does Arthur fully understand that Sophie’s reaction was a result of fear and self-preservation? Does he fully realize he fantasized their whole relationship?

 

Why Joker Probably Didn’t Kill Sophie

The simplest reason would be the viewer would lose any and all empathy they had built up for Arthur during the previous hour and change if he snapped and murdered a woman and her child. All the other characters had been established as having wronged Arthur in some perceptible way -- though of course that’s not an excuse or justification for him killing them! -- whereas Sophie is simply an innocent who was largely a figment of his deranged mind.

With the film then heading into its full-on Joker climax, where Arthur has finally fully embraced his Joker persona and that his life is a comedy not a tragedy, the audience simply couldn’t be along for the ride had they known or seen him killing Sophie. The fact that we are uncertain of her fate is perhaps bad enough but the safest bet is that Arthur didn’t kill her.

For me, I think with the child in the house and the violence he experienced as a child leading to his situation, I'd like to think he left them alone. But I guess it is how you viewed his development in becoming villain known to comic book fans.

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@Comicopolis @Ken Aldred @@therealsilvermane

Remember that Gary Glitter soundtrack controversy? Yeah. Not so much. Los Angeles Times looked into this just recently.

Will a convicted pedophile make a fortune from a ‘Joker’ song?

Quote

For “Joker,” much of the criticism is centered on assumptions that Glitter was personally profiting from its use in the film, but Glitter sold away all his rights to the recording and publishing of “Rock and Roll Part 2,” co-written by the late Mike Leander, as well as his other songs more than two decades ago, according to Snapper Music, the London-based label that now owns Glitter’s master recordings.

Of course you won't see any retractions from sources like The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Times or CNN.

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2 hours ago, Bosco685 said:

@Comicopolis @Ken Aldred @@therealsilvermane

Remember that Gary Glitter soundtrack controversy? Yeah. Not so much. Los Angeles Times looked into this just recently.

Will a convicted pedophile make a fortune from a ‘Joker’ song?

Of course you won't see any retractions from sources like The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Times or CNN.

It's in the movie for less than 30 seconds and is utterly pointless. Whether he makes any money from it is irrelevant.

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2 minutes ago, Comicopolis said:

It's in the movie for less than 30 seconds and is utterly pointless. Whether he makes any money from it is irrelevant.

Agreed. Yet many news outlets made this a point of focus in an attempt to stir the next outrage towards Joker when other concerns didn't work. Crazy!

CNN_Joker2.thumb.PNG.3358d94a14db5d11123de6c5f086161f.PNG

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13 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

Agreed. Yet many news outlets made this a point of focus in an attempt to stir the next outrage towards Joker when other concerns didn't work. Crazy!

CNN_Joker2.thumb.PNG.3358d94a14db5d11123de6c5f086161f.PNG

For some reason, parts of the media had it in for this film and tried anything and everything they could to castigate it. I'm not a fan but most of the negative things written about it, the incel nonsense and comments about it glorifying and promoting violence, are beyond stupid.

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5 minutes ago, Comicopolis said:

Though you do have to wonder if the film makers added that tune to cause controversy since it's so short and adds nothing to the scene.

Now that is hard to say. But I am sure it will be in the next The Guardian or CNN article? :insane:

TheGuardian_Joker.PNG.2db194b4be9b907a363a9ab9b8c781a6.PNG

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On 10/9/2019 at 3:30 PM, zhamlau said:

The odds that a mentally unstable 20 year old single low income woman with apparently no external family to help support her, would be allowed to adopt a child in the 1940s would be exceptionally low...like approaching zero type low.

Most social services and church organizations back then actively worked to encourage young single women like Penny to give up their children for the welfare of both mother and child...why Than would they let this poor mentally unstable 20ish single woman then come around to adopt one back?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Scoop_Era

 

I mean honestly this is all just speculation of an unknown based on a work of fiction that could go either way if there is a sequel. But if this occurred in the real world and she lived in say NYC 1948 not Gotham 1948, she just would not have been allowed to adopt the child on her own. 
 

I disagree regarding income requirements.

My parents adopted 2 kids in 1973 when I was 8, at the time my Mother did not work but my Dad did but we were certainly far from well off. Heck the home we lived in did not have an "in home" toilet but an outhouse.

I would even go as far to say we were poor. Powdered milk with bulk packaged puffed wheat cereal for breakfast certainly supports that. Ever ate puffed wheat with powdered milk? I certainly won't ever again in my life. :sick:

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10 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

I disagree regarding income requirements.

My parents adopted 2 kids in 1973 when I was 8, at the time my Mother did not work but my Dad did but we were certainly far from well off. Heck the home we lived in did not have an "in home" toilet but an outhouse.

It wasn't just income requirements; it was also societal expectations for women.  And those expectations were better by the 1970s than they were in the 1940s when the film version of the character would have adopted Arthur.  If you a women back then and you weren't married, you hadn't fulfilled your supposed function in society.  Most people at that time would have wondered why she wasn't married yet was still looking to adopt and would be far more likely to judge her unworthy in some way if she hadn't landed a man yet.

This societal norm changed drastically in the 1960s.  Not sure how long it took to filter through to bias against single women looking to adopt.

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23 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

It wasn't just income requirements; it was also societal expectations for women.  And those expectations were better by the 1970s than they were in the 1940s when the film version of the character would have adopted Arthur.  If you a women back then and you weren't married, you hadn't fulfilled your supposed function in society.  Most people at that time would have wondered why she wasn't married yet was still looking to adopt and would be far more likely to judge her unworthy in some way if she hadn't landed a man yet.

This societal norm changed drastically in the 1960s.  Not sure how long it took to filter through to bias against single women looking to adopt.

definitely agree that it is unlikely a single woman could adopt in the 1940's. However in her specific circumstance could she have asked her employer for assistance in making the adoption happen? A man as influential as Thomas Wayne could certainly help in that regard.

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4 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

definitely agree that it is unlikely a single woman could adopt in the 1940's. However in her specific circumstance could she have asked her employer for assistance in making the adoption happen? A man as influential as Thomas Wayne could certainly help in that regard.

It'd be a stretch that he'd want to, but if he wanted to, yes, money can make most things happen.  But Wayne himself likely would've judged her unfavorably as being fit to be a single mother.

His adoption by a single mother idea is far more likely within the film to be a plot hole created in his own personal narrative.

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