Todd Phillips: Everyone says that about [Heath Ledger's] Joker. "Joker's nihilistic." I'm like, okay, "No, Joker's cool." He gets to go to mafia meetings and blow up hospitals. Okay? I want to do that. But he doesn't, like, get raped in prison. That could happen in my movie. If you want to talk about dark, that's how that would go.
Edited by FOFD on Oct 8th 2024 at 2:20:13 PM
Was that an actual quote from Todd Philips?
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.Speaking honestly here though, words cannot do justice to my sheer level of disappointment that they felt the need to throw in a rape scene at all. That is the kind of fucked-up territory that needs to be earned, something this film clearly didn't do, and it makes me wonder why the fuck they thought this was a good idea. To be EDGY? Hell if I fucking know.
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.
To be fair and honest with you, from what I heard about Phillips when I was on Reddit about five years ago, that wouldn’t surprise me one little bit.
I honestly have trouble interpreting that scene. There's evidence for and against
- We see the guards emotionally and physically abusing Arthur earlier, and he's clearly dazed/or in shock when they throw him in the cell. He's very clearly injured/upset when they strip him and the energy of this scene is that the abuse he's receiving is going a step beyond the norm. His jacket's still on but his pants are removed which I think is, well, a common metaphor specifically for male rape. His sudden change in demeanor occurs in the very next scene, and assault would explain that, certainly. For the first time in the movie Arthur seems utterly defeated.
- The one guard who participated in this did seem genuinely concerned about Arthur's behavior, they established earlier that the guards clean/shave him. There's nothing explicitly shown and they appear to be angry that he's talking crap about them, and we're not led to believe any of them are molesters/rapists prior to this.
- I was more focused on the inmate being strangled in that scene, so did the rape happen before he was dragged to his cell, or was the slow close-up supposed to be a metaphor for this happening and, if so, why have the inmate be strangled at all. The movie never discusses or elaborates on it because the courtroom explodes. None of the guards face comeuppance.
The most I want to say is that it was very very clumsily handled if it did happen, and the movie's weirdest most uncomfortable moment if it didn't.
This makes two comic book adaptions this year where male rape was glossed over.
Edited by FOFD on Oct 8th 2024 at 3:20:06 PM
Severe Spoilers For Invincible's Animated Adaptation: I swear to god, they better not fumble the ball a fucking third time with Mark. They need to treat that scene seriously.
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.I know last page there was the whole "Finding memes about Joker 2 Bombing" but I wanted to throw my hat in the ring in what is probably my new favorite template for a movie bombing (like last years Wish):
While the movie wasn't good, that Harley Quinn's “love” was a case of Loving a Shadow where she "loves" the Joker as a concept but not the person he really is, is something I like as a concept, and could have been developed better.
> Idea came to Joaquin Phoenix in a dream
so what you're saying is that a dream demon gave him a bad idea for a movie
have a listen and have a link to my discord server…But there is one thing I'm thankful for, regarding this movie. It gave me a whole new bit I get to use~! I get to use this movie as a PUNCHLINE now~!
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.…You know what kills me? Even as is, even with the film we ended up getting, you know, bridge-burning mess and all, this in and of itself still could have been genuinely compelling. If there's anything that Tropes Are Tools has taught me, it's that you're going to have to accept the fact that it isn't the ideas that are inherently bad, but rather how people execute them. There is a timeline where this film has damn near close to this plot, yet this film instead has folks exploding in cheers and praise at this being a pinnacle, shining example of everything that can be GREAT about sequels unafraid to deconstruct the core themes of the original.
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.If it means anything, the Wikipedia page keeps shifting between describing the critical reception as 'mixed' and describing them as 'negative' (it's now settled at the more neutral "Although various reviewers praised the performances of Phoenix and Gaga, the film was poorly received by critics"), so it has a decent amount of average to positive reviews. Of course critics don't equal audiences, though I have heard (second hand, mind) some people enjoying this. It does sound like, for whatever this film's faults, it isn't just a by the numbers sequel (even though that likely would have been much better), so that likely buys it some fans, and some people might enjoy how the deconstruction is handled. I've yet to see it (will probably wait till it releases on streaming) so can't say how I'd feel.
But yeah, reception overall has not been pretty (even Joker, which was divisive with critics, found a lot of love from audiences and built a big fanbase).

Morbius got the last laugh.
I'd assume the De Niro "You think this is funny?" Bit from the first one is getting a lot of mileage.