A heap of people have seen Joaquin Phoenix go full crazy in Joker and word on the street is that the movie is pretty damn good, so much so that the lack of Batman is a positive.
Having said that, many have noted how violent this Clown Prince of Crime origin story is and some folk are worried about Joker potentially inspiring white dudes of the incel kind to commit similar acts of violence in real-life due to the film’s sympathetic treatment towards the protagonist (antagonist?).
This led to some friends and family members of the 2012 Aurora theatre massacre – where Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises was playing – to write an open letter to Warner Bros. expressing their concern over Joker and asking the studio to support gun reform.
In response to the aforementioned open letter and the buzz surrounding the film, Warner Bros. has issued out an official response stating it will join “other business leaders to call on policymakers to enact bi-partisan legislation to address [gun violence].”
And just to make sure people don’t get the wrong idea, the studio also made sure to explicitly state that Joker isn’t an endorsement of violence or incel behaviour of any kind.
“Make no mistake: neither the fictional character Joker, nor the film, is an endorsement of real-world violence of any kind. It is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.”
It’s pretty rare that a studio has to come out and tell people “hey this isn’t what you think it is and we’re not endorsing anything by it” so credit to them for standing by the filmmakers on Joker, even if Joaquin Phoenix wasn’t too particularly pleased when someone asked him about the film’s violence.
So there you go. A movie is a movie and just because Joker is violent doesn’t mean it’s an endorsement of violence or incel behaviour, so please stop worrying. But maybe keep this one away from the kids.