Quote Originally Posted by Tommy View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Still Servant View Post
I haven't seen Joker yet, but I've of course been following all this ridiculous controversy surrounding the film.

As we all know, there have been tons of ultra-violent films with similar subject matter. Funny Games, A Clockwork Orange and Man Bites Dog come to mind. Yes, many films of this nature are relegated to artsy theaters. Joker is one of the more high profile films to deal with this kind of subject matter that is aimed for a mass audience.

I guess I'm kind of annoyed right now hearing that the film is getting so much backlash that its chances of garnering Oscar attention is now in doubt.
I go back and forth on this topic. On the one hand, one can never know what is going to trigger someone to violence.
However, I think it is a little naive to think that art has no effect on real life.

Catholic zealots set a movie theater on fire in Paris during a screening of The Last Temptation of Christ injuring 13 people. At another theater, a man rammed his car into the box office of a theater showing the same movie. Scorsese still gets death threats over that film.

The Birth of a Nation is widely credited with bringing back to life a nearly non-existent KKK.

Propaganda film is used during wartime to make the enemy even more hated and easily killable, less human and it works pretty well.

And you mentioned A Clockwork Orange which I believe Kubrick himself took out of of circulation in the UK due to copycat gang violence.

Art imitates life but art is a lie that helps us better understand the truth we've been given at least. We get our ideas of what love and friendship, family and conflict resolution could/should be like from films.

It's a bit of a problem in my brain because I don't believe in artistic censorship but at the same time, I can clearly see how films and TV can affect real life in both positive and negative ways. And it's difficult to say that said art has no responsibility in those effects.

And not for nothing but we live in a generation with people like the incels and laundry-detergeant eaters and kids that join ISIS through YouTube recruitment videos. To be an "influencer" is an actual thing now.

Film and TV as both media and art forms is a relatively new thing and I don't think we fully understand it's power.

Just as a stupid example, how many girls got the Rachel haircut because of Friends and how many boys had that Justin Bieber haircut?

Film and TV definitely can influence things to happen, does that make them responsible for those actions though? I really don't know.
I totally agree. My main issue is that people are acting like this is the first film to have subject material like this. It's not. Its impact on society is debatable, the fact that there have been hundreds of more violent films is not.