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In the past week, I've given several dozen interviews about the book The Joker Psychology: Evil Clowns and the Women Who Love Them, mostly on radio. The majority have been fun, thought-provoking conversations. Some interviewers asked about controversy over the upcoming Joker movie directed by Todd Phillips. To a degree, that's natural enough because they are asking about a topic that is making news. But why is such a concern making news?
Families who lost loved ones in the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting of 2012 have expressed reasonable concern about the possibility that the film might present a mass murderer in sympathetic light. They did not make accusations. They did not ask Warner Bros. to pull the movie. They expressed concerns, and they called on the filmmakers and production company "to be a part of the growing chorus of corporate leaders who understand that they have a social responsibility to keep us all safe." They urged support for gun reform. "Since the federal government has failed to pass reforms that raise the standard for gun ownership in America, large companies like Warner Brothers have a responsibility to act,” their letter reads. "We certainly hope that you do." They expressed their concerns well. An expression of concern with a call to action, though, is not a sensationalistic accusation.
Some are hurling accusations at a film they have not seen. One person interviewing me about the Joker pondered whether the filmmakers might be stirring up controversy themselves and trying to provoke trouble in order to promote the film. Another interviewer related the film's depiction of media sensationalism to repercussions in our world in ways that concern me. Several others were interviewed for that particular article, so only a small part of my own interview was included and I understand that. It's how such articles have to be written. In the paragraph about me and my thoughts, I was specifically quoted twice.
- "Because Batman is defined by his personality, his enemies have to be as well. No other superhero has such a rich, well-known gallery of enemies, and the Joker is king of them all."
- "His behaviour does not neatly fit into any condition. The Joker is clearly a psychopath. He has no conscience. He has no empathy for anybody. He’s this agent of chaos and you’re just not sure, does he really know what he’s doing or not?"
When it later occurred to me that the headline appeared to include an abbreviated version of my quote about the Joker being a psychopath, I then read the full article and discovered the paragraph that followed the one on me. These are its writer's words, not mine:
- "The Joker’s real superpower is messing with other people’s heads: [Several examples followed.] In this light, it seems Joker the movie is being treated as another dastardly scheme to incite madness in the general populace."
As I did not follow the "in this light" connection of a fictional character's behavior pattern to somebody's real-world intent, I asked about it through Twitter.
- @steverose7: I just thought there’s intriguing parallel between Joker’s legacy as agent of psychological chaos and media fears movie will be the same. Movie also hinges on our knowledge of what J will become. Maybe that sense of foreboding feeds into offscreen “dangerous” perceptions?
- @Superherologist [me]: Thanks. Whose "dastardly scheme to incite madness" though? The filmmakers? The media's? Who's scheming and inciting? Sorry, I just did not follow that sentence.
If I find out the answer, I'll update this.
After I'd mentioned online that I'd been getting a lot of interview requests regarding Joker, the first response touched on this same issue.
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@SportyJosh6: You should slightly put the media to task and discuss how they have shaped a narrative that insists/tell potential shooters that it's ok to have a shooting at the Joker theatre, all because of they want to take some weird moral high ground and want to be proven right.
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@Superherologist: Interesting. If correct, ironic: A couple of the interviewers have insinuated or outright suggested that the filmmakers are the ones trying to provoke potential shooters in order to promote their movie. #JOKERpsych #JokerMovie
Others weighed in:
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RTKinc: and that’s why they were band from the carpet. because they think of stupid shit like this why would people need to be killed for promotion when this narrative of this movie is “dangerous” in someways killed some of its momentum after winning the golden lion.
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@parkesweb: That IS interesting. The only report I saw (in NZ media) was fairly anodyne & just mentioned a comparison with TDKR. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that the filmmakers were trying to provoke something that could (no pun intended) massively backfire.
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@575haiku: It's a movie! Trump has 'gone to far' and he's not a movie fictitious character.
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@Andie_June: Violent psychopaths are not created by movies, they are already sick. Movies don’t cause violence on their own. It’s just a movie with the villain’s point of view. Villains don’t see themselves as villains. Even good people have trouble accepting when they’re wrong.
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@ThatWilyOtter: It’s not really a stretch to say that the media likes to exacerbate news stories in order to get ratings and sell advertising. Every ding dong day.
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@SolidGoldCEO: I'm confused. Are we not allowed to have movies looking at the darker side of a character anymore? He's been part of pop culture for 80 years and has been to all the extremes of villainy and madness.
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@Batmancanseeyou: The Film Media and bloggers really worked hard to create unnecessary hysteria. It's irresponsible and dangerous. The media is the real Joker.
The film premiered in Los Angeles last night and is days away from wide release. At the moment, though, the number of people who have seen this movie remains relatively tiny. It has been hailed as a "dark, disturbing masterpiece," and in a few days, the rest of us will have opportunity to judge for ourselves. We shall see what happens. For all the talk about whether a movie can provoke violence, we might also wonder to what degree sensationalistic coverage can create a problem where none might otherwise have occurred. Could media expectation of trouble create a self-fulfilling prophecy?
More to follow....
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