JOKER (Todd Phillips, 2019)
Category: Cinema > Films
| Director: | Todd Phillips |
|---|---|
| Release date: | 2019 |
| Country of origin: | USA |
| Genre: | Drama | Thriller |
| IMDb: | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/ |
Censorship incidents
| 2019-10-19 | Police entry in theaters during the screening of the film JOKER (Todd Phillips, 2019)
|
Description
The film JOKER, as a cultural phenomenon, holds a unique position within the extensive catalogue of Marvel and DC-produced superhero films and TV programs that have dominated popular culture since the mid ‘00s and especially after 2008 –when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was launched. In the context of DC Comics attempting to produce a different kind of superhero films in order to gain a distinctive audience, the film’s director placed the most famous antagonist of Batman in a realistic New York 1980s setting, clearly influenced by the work of Martin Scorsese. Thus, the film deals –albeit in an ambivalent manner– with issues like social inequality, mental health and the role of mass media. The nature of the Joker character as a paranoid and chaotic “clown prince of crime”, whose point of view is the one we follow in the film, as well as the emergence of the alt-right and its boost after the election of Donald Trump as President of the USA, led to a preemptive moral panic around the film’s release. Apart from the film being the first in the Batman universe to receive an ‘adults only’ rating in the USA, the American Army and Police were set on high alert, following reports on violent incidents that were expected to happen during screenings. Theaters in major cities were guarded by police forces; others refused to screen the film after requests by mass shooting victims’ families; in some cases, viewers were forbidden to enter the theater if they were wearing the Joker’s outfit or makeup. According to official FBI reports, none of the suspected threats was plausible. On the other hand, the Joker was used during demonstrations by left-wing protesters around the world –the villain’s face functioning as the latest anti-systemic pop symbol after the V for Vendetta and La Casa de Papel masks.
In Greece, in an unprecedented incident, police forces stormed two theaters in Athens on the 19th and 20th of October 2019, in order to extract minors who were watching the film without the presence of an adult. This action was based on the complaints of two employees of the Ministry of Culture, but it was not justified by any Greek law. The police officers transferred the minors to police stations in order for their parents to pick them up, and made moral judgments to adults accompanying minors at the screening. The Minister of Culture condemned the incident, which had taken place without her knowing, and the Police argued that they were obligated to look into any such complaint –stressing that the police officers who stormed the theaters were not armed. The head of the opposition party argued that this incident brought the country back to the 1960s, and pundits generated a heated debate over the supposed harm that films like JOKER did to child psychology.
Christos Triantafyllou
Sources – Bibliography
- To Vima, 21/10/2019.
- Dell Cameron, “U.S. Military Issues Warning to Troops About Incel Violence at Joker Screenings”, Gizmodo, 24/9/2019.
- EJ Dickson, “Why Everyone Is Freaking Out About ‘Joker’”, Rolling Stone, 27/9/2019.
- Christos Triantafyllou, «Μετά τους Avengers, τι; Υπερβαίνοντας το υπερηρωικό τραύμα», ΣΚΡΑ-punk, 18/4/2021.
- Christos Triantafyllou, «Από τον Guy Fawkes στον Νταλί: Το Casa de Papel και το αίνιγμα της ριζοσπαστικής ποπ κουλτούρας», ΣΚΡΑ-punk, 25/11/2018.
- Stephanie Zacharek, “The Problem with Joker Isn't Its Brutal Violence. It's the Muddled Message It Sends About Our Times”, Time Magazine, 2/10/2019.
