‘Joker’ Director Makes A Bold Statement: ‘You Can’t Blame Movies For A World So F***ed Up’

Oooof. Currently swaying back and forth while pondering how to sum this up…

WE *CLAP*LIVE *CLAP*IN*CLAP* THE *CLAP*REAL *CLAP*WORLD*CLAP*

All together now… *cue the cheeky, but punch-able, grin*

‘Joker’ is a beautiful fictional movie that takes place in a fictional world.

Now, MAJOR KUDOS to the director of the movie, Todd Phillips, for clapping back so eloquently to those suggesting his movie will influence and amplify violent behavior.

“It’s so easy for us to — we want the simple answers, we want to vilify people. It allows us to feel good if we can identify that as evil,” he said. “Whatever issues you may have. It’s too easy for us and I felt like, yeah, we should explore this villain. This malevolent person. There’s no real communication, and to me that’s the value of this. I think that we are capable as an audience to see both of those things simultaneously and experience them and value them.”

Typically this is where we would all move on with our lives with the knowledge that fictional and non-fictional are entirely unlike one another, regardless of mirrored concepts.

Correlation does not equate to causation – basic logical reasoning (LSAT training in full force, y’all!).

Last week, “Joker” director Todd Phillips told The Wrap that the bulk of the film’s criticism has come from the far-left, which he said has hijacked the conversation to “suit their agenda.”

Phillips added, “What’s outstanding to me in this discourse in this movie is how easily the far-left can sound like the far-right when it suits their agenda. It’s really been eye-opening for me.”

If you think this movie is somehow providing permission for you to be villainous, then I question if you could find your own ass with a compass and a map (a saying that is very near and dear amongst my co-workers to identify sheer stupidity).

Movies are often a reflection of the society of which they reside, not the other way around. Also, let’s be completely honest with ourselves with the understanding that the ability to delineate good and evil starts AT HOME.

Critics of the movie have pointed to the film’s intense empathy for the title character as evidence of its danger, saying it will lead some to believe that violence is a form of self-expression. Joaquin Phoenix, however, feels that simply viewing a character through a distant lens is counterproductive to communication.

It would obviously be a disservice to generalize a sample set of violent cases to accurately pinpoint where the violence originated within a particular individual. I wouldn’t want to marginalize anybody. However, bottom line – violence stems from a cultural problem.

Anyone with a brain stem can understand that someone dying in a movie (where the audience member assumes the role of the killer, in this case), and someone dying in real life (again, audience member sharing some degree of closeness to their victim) ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS.

Children are balls-deep in their screens and then get attitude from parents (who are also balls-deep in their screens) when they want genuine connection… and we’re wondering why violence is on the rise???

Heavy sigh, y’all. Let’s just take all the warning labels off of everything and let natural selection take its course.