Jul 23, 2020 02:51 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2020 02:55 PM by dskellyshrink.)
Hello all,
I was re-watching Joker with my son the other day, and I came to realize something I had missed the first time around.
It's an easy movie. It's clearly intended for a mainstream audience, which is absolutely fine, I love crowd-pleasers as much as the next gal. My problem comes with the level of sophistication that fans of the movie treat it with. People acted (and some still do) like it was a modern day Taxi Driver. Fine, I can see how most, if not all, of the thematic elements overlap. However, the approach taken by Phillips in his portrayal of the detrimental effects of loneliness and isolation is entirely different, and I would venture to say more mediocre, than the approach taken by Scorsese. Allow me to elaborate:
The main appeal of Taxi Driver, and the reason I believe it to be so frighteningly delicious, is that it is easy for the viewer to empathize with Bickle. He is implied to be a veteran, he tries his absolute best in his job, tries to form social connections, yet society continues to stomp on him until he is driven to madness. This is done in subtle ways (Scorsese's cameo, the casual racism of the other drivers, the horrific attitude people treat him with).
In Joker, this is done overtly, to an almost comedic level. Watch the scene where the kids beat the shit out of him with the board, and kick the hell out of him while he's down. It's almost funny how out-of-touch that scene is, I think I speak for most when I say I cannot imagine that happening to anyone, let alone myself. The gun in the classroom, the attack on the subway. The plot basically writes itself, its just too easy, which again, is fine, but it was crammed down my throat as some sort of philosophical masterpiece.
TLDR: People over-analyze Joker, thinking it as the next Taxi Driver, while in reality it's much more simple than that. In Taxi Driver, the viewer treats both Bickle and society as an evil force, while subconciously rooting for Bickle, which is the scary and fascinating part of the film. In Joker, it's difficult to describe Arthur as an anti-hero, he is pretty much just the hero of the story.
I was re-watching Joker with my son the other day, and I came to realize something I had missed the first time around.
It's an easy movie. It's clearly intended for a mainstream audience, which is absolutely fine, I love crowd-pleasers as much as the next gal. My problem comes with the level of sophistication that fans of the movie treat it with. People acted (and some still do) like it was a modern day Taxi Driver. Fine, I can see how most, if not all, of the thematic elements overlap. However, the approach taken by Phillips in his portrayal of the detrimental effects of loneliness and isolation is entirely different, and I would venture to say more mediocre, than the approach taken by Scorsese. Allow me to elaborate:
The main appeal of Taxi Driver, and the reason I believe it to be so frighteningly delicious, is that it is easy for the viewer to empathize with Bickle. He is implied to be a veteran, he tries his absolute best in his job, tries to form social connections, yet society continues to stomp on him until he is driven to madness. This is done in subtle ways (Scorsese's cameo, the casual racism of the other drivers, the horrific attitude people treat him with).
In Joker, this is done overtly, to an almost comedic level. Watch the scene where the kids beat the shit out of him with the board, and kick the hell out of him while he's down. It's almost funny how out-of-touch that scene is, I think I speak for most when I say I cannot imagine that happening to anyone, let alone myself. The gun in the classroom, the attack on the subway. The plot basically writes itself, its just too easy, which again, is fine, but it was crammed down my throat as some sort of philosophical masterpiece.
TLDR: People over-analyze Joker, thinking it as the next Taxi Driver, while in reality it's much more simple than that. In Taxi Driver, the viewer treats both Bickle and society as an evil force, while subconciously rooting for Bickle, which is the scary and fascinating part of the film. In Joker, it's difficult to describe Arthur as an anti-hero, he is pretty much just the hero of the story.
