Joker director Todd Phillips says he stepped away from comedy flicks like The Hangover because audiences are now too “woke” to appreciate the humour, according to a new profile of Joker star Joaquin Phoenix.
[jwplayer sZprJbcq]
Speaking to Vanity Fair for the piece, Phillips said his journey towards heavier character studies was propelled by an apparent distaste for “irreverence” in the current pop culture climate.
“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” Phillips told the mag, arguing that genuinely funny comedians are abandoning the form for fear of being scolded online.
“It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter. You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out,’” he said.
Joker has garnered critical acclaim, including a top gong at Venice Film Festival, but some viewers have interpreted Phoenix’s role as a celebration of isolated men who resort to violence.
Phillips inferred the film’s uncomfortable reflection of contemporary society was partially fuelled by his anti-“woke” stance.
“So I go, ‘How do I do something irreverent, but fuck comedy? Oh I know, let’s take the comic book movie universe and turn it on its head with this,’” he said.
“And so that’s really where that came from.”
It’s a bold claim from a director whose latest movie appears to be making bold moves: such was the feeling of danger about the film that extra police resources were supplied for its Los Angeles premiere, under apparent fears that its incel-adjacent protagonist could inspire copycat violence.
There is certainly a space in cinema to interrogate the toxicity festering within corners of the population, but whether this particular film inspires widespread hysteria is yet to be seen. So to is the idea that comedy is dead and buried.
But let’s be real here: if an edgy Batman movie is what finally tears this fractious society apart, it probably wasn’t a good society to begin with.
