The temporary discourse around a certain film release and then watching the film itself, and all I can say is "wow".
I'd never thought I'd see a studio/director burn through at least $200 million to burn down a billion dollar franchise solely because it didn't like a specific demographic of the audience.
It's obviously a little deeper than that, but not by much. There's at least a couple of ways to look at this film.
The film itself is well-made, well-shot, well-acted, I can't find many faults in this regard. The musical aspect isn't too bad in a certain light. And if the story was actually leading to something meaningful, the first 2/3rd seems decent if a little overlong. It's essentially a court room drama to see if Fleck/Joker is culpable for the murders he committed in the last film.
However once it gets to the pivotal scene where Fleck
is raped by the prison guards and consequently takes full responsibility for the murders and renounces his Joker persona, it's clear that there's no deeper meaning beyond "fuck you virgins/outcasts/crabs/etc you are inherently bad" and all the prior scenes *were* just a setup drive that point home, every character that was still alive or had sympathy for the Joker in the original was brought back to rescind that sympathy. Literally at one point they highlight that Fleck
may be a virgin as if it was a cardinal sin. Fleck
gets stabbed to death at the end for "doing the right thing".
I honestly think it's to perpetuate the idea of the would-be nerd as an inherently malevolent being to be used as a scapegoat for all of society's ills. And I honestly think that the would-be nerds have revolutionary potential too that they needed to negate.
The other way to look at this which isn't too different from the first way, is that the joker accidentally became a symbol of the downtrodden, that the idea that maybe our superiors won't come to save us or actually have our best interests at heart. I remember when both wings of the mainstream media started attacking the original film before it came out, as a "dangerous" movie, "crab" movie, that shouldn't be seen by anyone. Watching the original film you understand why that probably was the case, it's not a particularly subtle movie and has themes of class warfare running through it and a sympathetic view of why a person would become a "villain" in our dogshit system and
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