Joker

[Ennio]

The below article compares the Joker makeup to the 'V for Vendetta' mask and although I can see where he's coming from, I don't think the parallels are entirely accurate. To me, the difference is that the Joker represents protesting masses mistaking a disturbed character for a leader of a revolution. The dark forces that penetrate genuinely dissatisfied crowds that don't recognise the true nature of the evil influences (mentally disturbed Joker and his murders). V for Vendetta was about the time being ripe for people to see the manipulations and empowering the masses to raise up. With a leader like the Joker people aren't encouraged to raise up but to create mess and mindless violence.

Coincidentally or not, I was thinking about and comparing these two films earlier today myself, and I agree with your assessment. There seem to be a number of key differences between what these movies are actually saying. So why has the Joker clown mask been appropriated in a similar way as the Guy Fawkes mask?

For a loose analogy we can look at the New Testament for which there will always be a number of people who, whether from upbringing, moral tastebuds (or a lack thereof), knowledge base, etc. - who will derive and act on the most pathologizing meaning, that it is possible to, of that given text. And then there will also be folks whose focus and derivation of meaning of that same text will influence them quite differently. I'm sure there are other variables, too, in what informs the wide spectrum of perspectives that exist out there.

I guess the question that I have, which can now only be tested by time is: will the Joker mask, consistent with the reading of Joker as an agent of chaos, become a cultural phenomenon and inspire the same by those who wear it? The anon groups and others who don the V For Vendetta mask have been, on the whole, fairly well organized and on point about what they stand for and how they're going about their business. Will the clown makeup come to symbolize a full fledged societal movement through acts of violence and rioting as a reaction to bad governance, the 1%, etc.? It remains to be seen.

 

[mkrnhr]

The creepy clown image has been around for some time. There was a few years ago the strange phenomenon of wearing clown costumes to scare people, and than there is the child eater creepy clown "It" and now the Joker. It's maybe a sign of the times that people would identify more with a psychopathic character (haven't seen the movie though) than let's say a heroic one.

 

[JEEP]

FWIW - I posted excerpts of this study in the Session 18 May 2019 thread which may be relevant here as well:

Exploring Entrainment Patterns of Human Emotion in Social Media

Introduction
Humans are emotional social beings from birth [1,2]. We transmit various emotional signals to communicate to and influence others. For instance, we usually unify our emotions to resist potential threats (e.g., unauthentic vaccination [3,4], illegal immigration [5], and bad customer experiences [6,7]) or to promote beneficial incidents (e.g., pro-social policies [8] and tobacco cessation [9]). In these scenarios, we always adjust our emotion states according to those of our friends via social interactions. These phenomena are typically conceptualized as entrainment, which was firstly identified by Huygens in 1665, and is generally defined as a tendency for two or more independent rhythmic processes to synchronize with each other [10–12].

Entrainment has been found to be particularly relevant to human emotions, and performs many important social functions. Firstly, emotion entrainment can promote more effective social communications by helping people “feel themselves into” another’s emotional episodes [13–15]. Through this communication process, humans both consciously and unconsciously transmit emotional signals that are essential for fostering social bonds and for maintaining good interpersonal relationships [16–18]. Secondly, emotion entrainment can help cultivate a kind of emotional culture [19]. This functions as a social regulator that calibrates our practical comportment in socialization, and consequently leads to strong group commitments and solidarity. Furthermore, researchers recently uncover that empathy is often connected to entrainment in interpersonal interactions [20–22]. Therefore, the implications of emotion entrainment may promote a nuanced understanding of the processes underlying empathy.

Despite its importance, the principles or patterns of emotion entrainment, to date, are still poorly understood. Most of the existing studies merely explore the entrainment phenomenon in face-to-face interactions based on small-scale or controlled laboratory experiments [18,23,24]. How collective emotion entrains outside of in-person interactions in a large-scale, real world data setting is still unknown. Recently, the proliferation of various online social media platforms has provided entrainment investigation with huge amount of emotion-rich data. In addition, it has been uncovered that emotion cues can also be transferred through these avenues [25–27]. These two facts, together, have laid the groundwork for studying massive emotion entrainment beyond dyads.

However, there are still several other challenges for us to understand the principles of emotion entrainment. Firstly, emotion entrainment on a large scale involves a complex interplay, and often entails dealing with non-linear systems [14]. Existing approaches, both in modeling and analysis, cannot deal with this problem well. Traditional approaches based on various entrainment models are usually computational complex, and the underlying assumptions often violate actual, real-world scenarios [28,29]. While, on the other hand, the more recent network analysis approaches inevitably lack enough detail about entrainment processes [30,31], and often do not distinguish entrainment directions. Secondly, though entrainment phenomena have been investigated from various dimensions (i.e., in-person interactions [32,33], cross-modality communication [23], and social norm calibration [34]), there lacks an effective model that can learn the principles governing entrainment processes well, and predict the future emotions of the targeting individuals or groups effectively.

To deal with the challenges presented above, in this paper, we elaborate a pragmatic framework that can characterize entrainment phenomenon and quantify its patterns on a large scale efficiently. Based on the datasets from large popular social media platforms, we primarily investigate (1) the rules and patterns of emotion entrainment outside of in-person interactions, and then evaluate (2) how different entrainment patterns benefit the prediction of individuals' future emotions. This work can provide significant insights into understanding the underlying dynamic process of large-scale online interactions and make more reasonable decisions regarding emergency situations, epidemic diseases, and political campaigns in cyberspace.

Results
Community level entrainment
Previous research has uncovered that massive-scale emotional contagion occurs in online social networks [25]. In this section we further attempt to clarify whether human emotions entrain in social media communities.
[...]
Fig 1 suggests that emotion entrainment occurs (drops in cross-entropy value) as the communities develop.
[...]
As entrainment promotes rapport and social closeness [45], we subsequently turn to examine how emotions evolve as entrainment strength enhances. Specifically, we consider the emotional distance 〈CE〉T as a function of the minor value of reciprocal entrainment strength (Fig 2).
[...]
We observe that as entrainment strengthens, the average emotional distance decreases (blue regression lines in Fig 2). This tendency indicates that users are more emotionally similar to each other under stronger entrainment process. [...] This observation is inline with previous contention that moderately rhythmic social interactions generally promote social closeness and positive experience [46].

[...]
Discussion
In this paper, we explore emotion entrainment in the context of two large social media platforms, including Livejournal and Sina Weibo. We study the emotion entrainment phenomenon at both the community level and the peer level. When examining the evolution of massive emotions on the two platforms, we find that collective emotions entrain with the evolution of communities. Especially, users' emotions in Sina Weibo roughly undergoes two entrainment cycles. During this process, entrainment strength vibrates rhythmically, making the entrainment phenomenon transient without entering a stable state. Additionally, we find that users become emotionally similar as entrainment enhances. This tendency indicates that users are more emotionally similar to each other under stronger entrainment process.

Read more:
Exploring Entrainment Patterns of Human Emotion in Social Media

"A: We warned strongly about electronic devices years ago!"
Well, not just the danger of getting injured/killed while taking a selfie or the radiation being conducted into the body/brain, but emotion entrainment via social media platforms. Another factor for the Joker contagion?

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

The creepy clown image has been around for some time. There was a few years ago the strange phenomenon of wearing clown costumes to scare people, and than there is the child eater creepy clown "It" and now the Joker. It's maybe a sign of the times that people would identify more with a psychopathic character (haven't seen the movie though) than let's say a heroic one.

Reading this I began to think about kids sometimes preferring or rooting for the villain over the hero. I considered the "cool" and overpowered factors as it makes sense in the context of my own memories and what I've heard from my older nephew. Some villains are just made to look much more likeable than others, one may be inclined to root for the underdog etc, many reasons one can came up with that will also depend on the specific characters at play. Then I read this:

It is quite natural for little kids to root for the bad guys instead of the good ones especially during fight scenes. They do this not because they want to provoke you or to tell you that they would rather choose the bad over the good. It’s just that they are not fully aware that hurting people is bad. They just know that what the villains are doing is somehow similar to the strong emotions that continue to build up inside of them. When they watch the villains fight, they are somehow glad that what they feel inside can actually be expressed just the way the villains are doing it in the movies.

Children are often clueless as to what actions really mean. They have practically no idea that actions can either be good or bad. What they are aware of, are the strong emotions inside of them that they can't seem to control. So when they see Orochimaru trying to beat Naruto in a fight, their emotions start to build up and they unconsciously feel happy that someone is actually doing what they only feel inside of themselves.

Why Does My Child Only Root For The Bad Guy When Watching TV? | theAsianparent Malaysia

When kids end up rooting for villains, parents start to question why this happens and if this is a healthy process for their growing child

my.theasianparent.com

Which reminded me of misattribution of arousal (also Damasio's work):

Misattribution of arousal is a term in psychology which describes the process whereby people make a mistake in assuming what is causing them to feel aroused. For example, when actually experiencing physiological responses related to fear, people mislabel those responses as romantic arousal. The reason physiological symptoms may be attributed to incorrect stimuli is because many stimuli have similar physiological symptoms such as increased blood pressure or shortness of breath.

One of the initial studies looking into this phenomenon conducted by Schachter and Singer (1962)[1] was based on the idea that the experience of arousal could be ambiguous and therefore misattributed to an incorrect stimulus. Operating under this assumption, the researchers developed the two factor theory of emotion. Misattribution of arousal, which is an influence on emotion processing, can be found in multiple situations, such as romantic situations and physiological responses from exercise.

An example of the possible effects of misattribution of arousal is perceiving a potential partner as more attractive because of a heightened state of physiological stress. A study done by White et al. (1981)[2] investigated this phenomenon and found that those in an unrelated aroused state will rate an attractive confederate more highly than a rater without arousal. The researchers also found that aroused raters would dislike an unattractive confederate more than those without arousal.

Misattribution of arousal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So I'm led to consider that people's identification with the Joker (as far as I can tell there's no hero in this movie, Joker's arc comes closest in an anti-hero fashion) may be in large part unconscious because the movie is effective in producing arousal and emotional build up. Then people's prefrontal cortex produce whatever narrative is more aligned with their current state of mind to explain or justify such arousal.

 

[JEEP]

Is it possible, that despite Arthur Fleck being a complete mental defective, that as the Joker, he became disturbingly masculinitized? Is that the fear factor?

OK - not sure if anybody's ready for this, but here goes (very intense/adult content) and perhaps perfect for Halloween (damn scary):

CLOWN WORLD ORDER by PJW - "I used to think 2019 was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy."

I'll never think of 'back to nature' the same way ever again . . .

 

[ApotheosisMMC.]

The creepy clown image has been around for some time. There was a few years ago the strange phenomenon of wearing clown costumes to scare people, and than there is the child eater creepy clown "It" and now the Joker. It's maybe a sign of the times that people would identify more with a psychopathic character (haven't seen the movie though) than let's say a heroic one.

well without denying a connection, the antihero is always acclaimed by a good part of the public since it is somewhat closer I have identified that a hero whose values and level are difficult to reach and something "hypocritical" ... if we add the plot of this film where he is trampled by society and his rebellion can not be more identifying for the common people ... does not look at how things are in our country.

 

[JEEP]

This incident took place at Paris's Grand Rex theater on Sunday:

'Joker' screening evacuated after audience member reportedly screams 'Allahu akbar!' during possible robbery attempt

A Paris theater evacuated a room full of "Joker" moviegoers after an audience member reportedly shouted "Allahu akbar" during the film. The incident took place at Paris's Grand Rex theater on Sunday.

What are the details?
According to Le Parisien, a 34-year-old male from nearby Paris suburb Boulogne-Billlancourt allegedly shouted the Arabic phrase (which is translated to "God is great") during the film, prompting theater management to issue an evacuation order.
The man's shout also prompted at least 25 moviegoers to rush out of their seats and head for the exits.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that the man grumbled throughout the film, often insisting "it's political." Other people in the theater reportedly told the man to keep quiet, but about halfway through the film, the man began shouting and muttering in the Arabic language.
During the rush to exit, the man was able to evacuate along with other patrons, but authorities were able to track the suspect down and arrest him.

The theater's director told The Hollywood Reporter that the suspect reportedly staged the disturbing incident in order to serve as a decoy for his accomplice, a thief.

"They were two thieves looking for a way to take people's phones and bags," the director told the outlet. "Apparently, they had already used the same tactic once on a train."

What else?
"It was total panic," one filmgoer said.

Another added, "It was [a] riot! ... The guy, who was sitting in the 10th row, started screaming and muttering in Arabic. Someone said ... that he had a weapon, there was total panic, these are images that I will not forget, people have climbed their seats. ... [There were] women on the floor and others who were stepping over them."

The director added that some viewers remained to watch the end of the film. Upon conclusion, Paris police sent in the bomb squad to search for explosives. None were recovered at the scene.

"The movie attracts a specific kind of viewer, notably people who are against the system," the director told Le Parisien. "There have been minor incidents in other theaters."

'Joker' screening evacuated after audience member reportedly screams 'Allahu akbar!' during possible robbery attempt

 

[Carl]

This incident took place at Paris's Grand Rex theater on Sunday:

I laughed a little at that but it just goes to show how traumatised people are now. Actually it's quite a catch 22. If someone screams that phrase in a public place you don't wanna be hysterical, but certainly you wanna get the hell out of there.

 

[AzarHyun]

DUGIN - THE FILM “JOKER” IS AN APOLOGY FOR UGLINESS

Together, a man and a woman produce a human-being. A woman on her own, without a man, gives birth to a monster. According to Aristotle, it is the seed which grants a child Eidos, whereas the maternal principle grants it matter - weak seed and strong matter is the genealogy of a monster.

Essentially the same thing is true when it comes to parenting. Two people are required to bring up a child - a father and a mother. The father provides a child with purpose, while the mother provides material and moral upkeep. If a family is dominated by the material side, the child should be given to it’s godparents - that is, if they are able to provide it with both a mother and father. The father is first in all matters.

The film “Joker” is an apology for ugliness. It was sponsored by Soros and the Open Society Foundation as instructions for color revolution. This degenerate who grew up on pills with his lonely crazy mommy is a symbol of a degeneration.

A disgusting film, a disgusting actor, as disgusting as those who admire it... watching it is like being trapped in Hillary Clinton’s guts. This is the ultimate degeneration of humanism, a decisive shift toward object-oriented ontology. The “Joker” is too weak to be called a man, this is a sketch of an object that has become crazy.

Dugin - The film “Joker” is an apology for ugliness

Together, a man and a woman produce a human-being. A woman on her own, without a man, gives birth to a monster.

www.geopolitica.ru

 

[JEEP]

Social justice thinking now being cast upon the superhero genre?

‘Watchmen’ Creator Alan Moore Issues Scathing Takedown Of Superhero Movies: ‘Today’s Franchised Ubermenschen’

If you found Martin Scorsese’s rip on Marvel movies triggering, wait until you get a load of what “Watchmen” creator Alan Moore had to say of them.

Speaking with Raphael Sassalki, Moore pulled no punches in his critique of modern superhero movies, which he described as infantile at best and Nietzschean at worst.

“I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying,” said Moore, as reported by Bleeding Cool. “While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen-year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs.”

Moore went on to describe superhero movie audiences as adults clinging to their childhoods while seeking reassurance about the 20th century.

“Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century,” said Moore. “The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with a numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.”

Moore, who himself has a history of disavowing film and television adaptations of his own work, then directed his criticisms at the comic book creators for being complicit in this culture.

“The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster — would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand,” he continued.

However, Moore saved his most blistering criticism for last when he likened the superhero genre to none other than the racist, white supremacist movie “Birth of a Nation,” arguing that it may have been the first superhero movie ever made.

“I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race,” said Moore. “In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.”

Moore’s criticism of superhero movies as some kind of a Nietzschean ode to the Übermensch echoes a similar statement made by director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who said superhero movies send the message that a strongman, and only a strongman, can solve the world’s problems.

“Superheroes … just the word hero bothers me,” said the director in 2014. “What the f*** does that mean? It’s a false, misleading conception, the superhero. Then, the way they apply violence to it, it’s absolutely right wing. If you observe the mentality of most of those films, it’s really about people who are rich, who have power, who will do the good, who will kill the bad. Philosophically, I just don’t like them.”

White men doing good very bad.

 

[seek10]

I don't like gory movies, so I thought of skipping the movie 'Joker'. But, my son showed interest, so we went. The wild difference in reviews between viewers and MSM is very clear. I partly listened to SOTT show that helped me to know the plot in advance. I think it is appropriate for the times. It has a very good message at a time when people are going deep ends in the name of victims ( of bullying, whiteness, masculinity, climate change etc) . Snapping of the main character to utter madness at the end is a clear message. We liked the movie as a whole. After reading the review of "Ford vs Ferrari", I wondered, whether the tide is turning against the 3D STS agenda makers.

'Ford v Ferrari': The return of masculine cinema

 

[Niall]

Joaquin Phoenix attended a 'climate protest' in DC today and suggested people 'save the planet' by going vegan and flying less - like himself, presumably.

I'm pretty sure then that, whatever he was putting into Joker, caricaturing the harm caused by the Left was not uppermost on his mind.

 

[Agron]

I think stem cells have gotten to these hollywood personas. If you saw the faces during Gervaise's speech and after when they started to accept the awards you could see some freaky stuff. Much much more is obvious when you understand how the world really functions and what controls those people. Now when they are "re-juvenated" these poor egomaniacs really think they are the chosen ones and maybe immortality is not just a dream!
Phoenix is obviously ill and has whole lot of mental issues, on the gg acceptance speech he looked like he has trouble exiting the charachter of joker, maybe he likes that reality better or hes stuck in it.

For some time now Ive seen mental illness becoming a trend that has to be implemented into society same as un-necessary perversion of sexuality. Its "cool" if you have mental issues, youre beyond reproach and everybody must accomodate for your "feelings". Ive also seen re-definitioning and adding of mental illnesses that are allowing for nothing else than a better manipulation of mankind. Better believe that now a lot of weakminded people will try to act as if they have mental issues just to get attention and their way.
You heard that anyone who drinks black coffee with no sugar or milk is a certified psychopat now? And you dont have to wonder why "the tools" to find out real psychos would be played with in that manner and why would it be harder and harder to discern who are the real psychos in our society.

 

[Agron]

That's why I didn't like the idea of this new one being an origin story. It was too likely they'd go full Hollywood and give him a cliched psychohistory blaming his upbringing and how society made him that way. Not that that can't work in fiction, but it's overdone and it's nice to see something a bit more original. So not having seen this one, and just going on a few of the things I've read about its ambiguity, it MAY be the case that the fact that most viewers are interpreting it as "society made me do it" says more about the viewers than filmmakers' intent. Maybe they're like one of Joker's victims in Dark Knight, believing one of his 'pity me' stories without skepticism. Of course, can't say for sure without having seen it.

Cheers @Approaching Infinity
Ofcourse it would have been better if this Joker origin story was made to be a FUN watch. Just like all other Batman movies. Sure they were dark and sometimes focused on macabre but they were fun to watch. You know that trilling action adventure stuff. But then we wouldnt have this trance-like quality to it that is hooking young people into taking on these behaviours and views and what is being sold. Maybe if in a movie like this, if Joker was played by someone who has some integrity, then it would have merrit as a social commentary.
You said it yourself. I only had to bolden it up

Personally I couldnt watch it past 15minutes (and that was with skiping) and I was a fan of Batman movies long ago. I would have been angry if I payed for it but I dont go to movie-theaters for quite some time now.

 

[SummerLite]

Good article on Sott about Joaquin and his speech at the Oscars!

Oscars 2020: Joaquin Phoenix wins Best Actor as 'The Woker', Brad Pitt Best Supporting Actor with edgy quip about Bolton & impeachment

Comment: Warning: this article will make you cringe, hard! 'Joker' star Joaquin Phoenix used his time on the Oscars stage to preach to people about eating cereal, drinking milk and even cancel culture in one of the most wide-ranging, strangest...

www.sott.net

This is a VERY insightful comment, I wonder who wrote it.

Comment: People wonder how some actors manage to pull off 'acting' roles as Phoenix did in 'The Joker', a movie about a criminally-minded Lefty looney who goes on a bloody rampage to incite chaos and revolution because 'society hurt me', and then consider, seriously, that Phoenix and the movie's creators may have consciously done such in order to 'caricaturize the Left and make a statement about current events'!

What if it's simpler than that; what if they're so well suited to their roles because they are just giving vivid expression to what's already inside them? Consider Kevin Spacey and the ease with which he plays devious, scheming characters...

Granted, there's difference between Phoenix's violently unhinged movie character and his real-life soft-spoken pleas to 'save the planet by not eating meat and asking for forgiveness from cows', but as he said himself during his rambling speech, no matter the lefty cause one espouses, they're all connected by one thing: "the fight for justice."

His movie character is mirroring his own real life descent into madness. And just as the character he played, Arthur Fleck/The Joker, sought to attract others to his 'cause' and join him in madness, so too is the actor in real life.

As for Brad Pitt, he's a complete airhead who appears to have merely read out a line his PR team suggested would go over well with woke Hollywood.

On NBC news tonight, Brad Pitt's comment was aired and I thought he sounded like a complete idiot, doesn't know anything apparently. Maybe thats why things didn't work out between him and Angelina who seems to have more of a clue. But then again maybe his only concern was pleasing the Hollywood crowd as was said in the comment.