What The Backlash About Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’ Is Really About

The first trailer of Warner Bros. film “Joker” was intriguing and compelling enough for fans to root for it. However, there has been a major controversy revolving around the main character played by Joaquin Phoenix.

As much as critics are in awe of Phoenix, who is one of the finest actors around, there’s much concern about how the story of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) might trigger the crime rate in America as the story of Arthur is pretty tragic.

Phoenix’s Arthur has severe mental health issues. He is an aspiring comedian who is rejected by society, which eventually leads him to walk the path of crime. He has also had a dreadful past as he’s also rejected sexually by his own mother.

Joker’s character is such that he has always been oppressed and ill-treated. And that’s what unleashes the darkness inside him.

It was during the Venice and Toronto Film Festival when “Joker” was screened. And critics claimed it to be “dangerous” and “deeply troubling.”

“In America, there’s a mass shooting or attempted act of violence by a guy like Arthur practically every other week,” TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote in her review. “And yet we’re supposed to feel some sympathy for Arthur, the troubled lamb; he just hasn’t had enough love.”

Director Todd Phillips has, however, denied all claims and suggestions regarding his film rationalizing white male violence. “We didn’t make the movie to push buttons,” he told the Wrap last week.

“I literally described to Joaquin at one point in those three months as like, ‘Look at this as a way to sneak a real movie in the studio system under the guise of a comic book film’. It wasn’t, ‘We want to glorify this behavior,’” he added.

“I don’t think it’s the filmmaker’s responsibility to teach morality,” said Phoenix in an interview with IGN. “And if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, then there’s all sorts of things that you are going to interpret in the way that you want,” he added.

“Make no mistake: neither the fictional character Joker, nor the film, is an endorsement of real-world violence of any kind,” said Warner Bros., issuing yet another clarification about the main character in Joker. “It is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.”