NS: Joker died for our sins

[cyberghostface]

Zack Snyder released a new image of Jared Leto's Joker from the Justice League and it's an... interesting take on the character.

Edit: The image is a picture of Joker dressed up as Jesus. it wasn’t my intention to offend Christians here and I apologize if posting it was insensitive.



That's right, it's the Joker as Jesus Christ. No, I have no idea what the context is.

It's part of a lengthy Vanity Fair article about the film and Zack Snyder that can be read here. 

Comments

[lordultimus]

Putting that photo right between talking about Snyder's daughter seems in really bad taste to me.

[cyberghostface]

I doubt any connection was intended.

[lordultimus]

To be clear, I do too, I'm just baffled as to how that wasn't caught in the editing process.

[donnblake]

Huh. Three possibilities occur.

This is the punchlne, and with the proper set-up we'll all be going "Wow, that really worked. Heh."

OR

Snyder is for some reason actually trying to thematically compare Jared Leto's Joker to Jesus Christ.

OR

This is edginess for its own sake.

I'll leave it to those more familiar with Snyder's work to judge the relative probabilities there.

[icon_uk]

It mostly makes me think of Frank N Furter in theatre scrubs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show..



it just needs the pearls.

[deh_tommy]

A fascinating and insightful read, but... that picture’s certainly, um... uh...

For the sake of anyone who’s looking forward to this and especially for Snyder himself, I really, really, really hope this turns out decent (or at the very least better than the Whedon cut). Even if that isn’t, though, that’ll be fascinating to finally see what might have been.

[filthysize]

Don't care about these photos and not looking forward to watching the thing, but I do recommend people read the profile because it's a pretty interesting story of WB lying to fans about both him and Joss Whedon, which is really gross. And you know what, I still think WB caving to toxic demands by completing this thing sets a bad precedent, but at the end of the day, it's good that there's some artistic closure. If I'd never seen either cut and I'm asked to choose one to watch, there's no question I'd always pick the original vision no matter how much I'd hate it, over some salvage job that's just okay*.

*Of course I'd seen the salvage job and it was nowhere near "okay."

[cyberghostface]

WB didn’t cave to anything. They deduced they could make money for HBO Max by releasing the Snyder Cut on the service.

And in terms of toxicity I think the Snyder fans donating to $500,000 to a suicide prevention charity is preferable to something like Star Wars fans bullying Kelly Marie Tran off social media.

[thezmage]

Snyder even mentions in the article that the Snydercut people were toxic enough that he was able to leverage them to get $70 million more to shoot more scenes for the film. "You get the internet off your back" being how he phrased it.

[cyberghostface]

I doubt Snyder used the words toxic given what he’s said here.

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/02/zack-snyder-justice-league-fandom-toxic-bullshit-1234614430

[thezmage]

From the Vanity Fair article referenced above, after several paragraphs talking about the toxicity of the Snydercut people:
“I 100 percent think it’s wrong,” he says. “I don’t think that anyone should be calling anyone anything. I’ve always tried to give people in the fandom attention who do good things.”

He also thought it would be worth $70 million of Warner Brothers to get these people off of their backs, so whether he specifically used the word "toxic": or not is irrelevant.

[cyberghostface]

And now you're taking quotes out of context. The article compares the people he's referring to as people disrupting a peaceful protest. Not the movement as a whole.

[thezmage]

And now you're strawmanning a position you can't refute. Regardless of whether it was "the movement as a whole" or not, he still felt that the toxic people were worth leveraging against Warner Brothers to the tune of $70 million.

Not "You please the fans," but "You get them off your back." That's not how you describe a bunch of peaceful people that are disrupted by a few bad eggs.

[cyberghostface]

There's nothing to refute. You're comparing two different things because you're trying to find the worst possible interpretation of something to the point of being taking Snyder out of context.

Of course there was a continual demand for the Snyder cut from fans. No one's denying that. But the overwhelming majority of the movement was peaceful. If it was some truly awful toxic movement the actors themselves wouldn't have been endorsing it before Warner Bros finally agreed to release it.

This is 'Joker' all over again with people here acting like the fans were going to shoot up theaters and all that happened was they danced on the stairs.

[thezmage]

Wow, you got called on your strawmanning and decided to double down. Cool

I don't recall anybody here saying that fans of Joker, a movie that looked like a thinly-veiled paean to incel violence, were going to shoot up theaters. I mostly remember people saying that it looked like a shitty and thinly-veiled paean to incel violence. IIRC you were refusing to acknowledged the substance of what people were saying then, too, in favor of refuting their imaginary argument then, too.

[cyberghostface]

Lmao. There was no substance to Joker being a paen to incel violence. That was always a ridiculous and absurd argument based on nothing. That you are suggesting that there was even after the film came out just proves my point even further. (I mean, did you even see the film? The character lashed out against rich elites, not women who wouldn’t date him. Talk about completely missing the entire point of the film.)

And yes people here DID suggest that Joker would be responsible for violence (but I can see why you would try to downplay that when all that happened was people danced on the stairs). One person even suggested that even if no one did die at a movie theater Joker would still be to blame for attacks on women or minorities.

[filthysize]

1. I don't see how those two things are different. They figured out that having the Snyder Cut on HBO Max is beneficial because there was literally years of fervor. Snyder and WB both specifically credited the fans for making this happen.

2. That's a disingenuously strange comparison. The Snyder fans did their share of bullying and chasing people off social media, and the anti-Rian Johnson Star Wars group also organized a charity drive for domestic abuse survivors. Why bother saying either is preferable instead of just highlighting the parts of it that are toxic?

[cyberghostface]

Crediting the fans and realizing there’s enough of an audience to make them money is not the same as caving to toxicity.

Who did the Snyder fans bully off social media?

[bravest_spinja]

I don't think it's that> unprecedented, as I've mentioned before, the Donner cut. And in many ways, suits will bow to vocal demand, (Literally any time a TV show, which the audience does not even pay for, is un-cancelled.) and when they don't they are seen as counterintuitively obtuse (See Joe Quesada). It's probably on a larger scale than ever before, but I think this is due to things like technology, people's personal affinity for Snyder, and the desparation of the streaming wars. It should also be said that this is sort of a byproduct of stamping out toxic behavior within the industry, as there is probably no larger Snyder cut activist than Ray Fisher. (At least nobody with that high a profile)

I think he notoriety of the Snyder base was the image of being conspiracy theorists, with some even believing there was a whole movie there, which as evidence shows, there wasn't. (And that at this point, Snyder is adding so many elements that I'm pretty sure were never originally intended, making this largely a very expensive X-Men Forever)

[alicemacher]

For me, it brings to mind Amadeus Arkham's death in Morrison's Arkham Asylum. It's similarly, deliberately provocative, but at least makes more sense in context as an allusion to Jesus on the cross. The insane Amadeus believes he's saving the world by sacrificing himself in order to contain the primal, evil Bat safely within the asylum.

[beyondthefringe]

I hate this version of the Joker much less than I did the way he was depicted in Suicide Squad, so... 5 points for that?

[tripodeca113]

Batman ruins the Arkham Asylum Passion Play.

[bruinsfan]

At least if all the Jesus symbolism is being concentrated on the Joker, hopefully it won't be as evident in the treatment of Superman as it was in Man of Steel.

[magicrubbish]

Am I only one who feels ... offended at this image ?? Why drag religious connotations in the portrayal of a psychopath killer in a fictional comic verse character subtext ??

[thezmage]

I'm not offended, exactly, but that is a close word to the indignation I feel at this faux-deep pseudo-intellectual image

[angelophile]

I'm not offended by the image, I am offended that Leto still has a career after numerous allegations about grooming teenagers though.

[thezmage]

Definitely this

[cyberghostface]

From where?

[angelophile]

At least two people I know personally, but I believe there's have been dozens, if not hundreds who have come foreard. Even James Gunn mentioned it at one point. A simple google search throws up dozens of links to articles about his grooming of minors.

[cyberghostface]

Googling it most of it’s been anonymous gossip on forums and Reddit posts as opposed to anyone actually coming forward and publicly accusing him which is probably why it hasn’t affected his career.

[angelophile]

That and people dismissing it in the way you did, yes.

[cyberghostface]

I'm not dismissing anything. There is just no situation where an actor is going to be blacklisted over anonymous message board posts.

[icon_uk]

That might be the only place you've read about it, but that's not necessarily the case with regards to the studios and other actors around him.

[magicrubbish]

Forget Jesus the Son of the God , there are actual people who rever and worship him and they are real people and their feelings and sensitivities are legit and valid , why hurt us just to be Kewl or propaganda driven agendas or whatever ??
Just because they lack brain cells to come up with some thing half way creative that is witty , poignant yet NOT hurting other people's sentiments in the process ??
Oh right ! That'd take some talent.

[icon_uk]

I do agree it's a delberately provocative and tasteless comparison to draw. I'm not sure I care enough to feel offended by it so much as tired by the "Aren't I being clever?" vibe it gives off.

Perhaps the context of the movie will make it relevant and powerful, but I'm not optimistic about that based on previous expsoure to Snyder's work.

[cyberghostface]

In the future where this is taking place Joker is apparently heroic in that he’s helping out Batman so maybe this is supposed to indicate some kind of redemptive aspect. Just a guess.

[magicrubbish]

Tasteless is the first , last and middle word of it.

Powerful and Snyder ?? Yeah , right ! Like , he has the chops that takes to do that.

[cyberghostface]

I’m just guessing but in the film Joker is apparently heroic in the future (helping out Batman) so I don’t think Snyder is intended to denigrate Jesus or Christianity.

[magicrubbish]

That better be the scenerio. I hope you're right.

[cyberghostface]

I haven’t seen the other DC Snyder films yet but from what I’ve seen he uses heavy handed religious imagery I.e. Superman as a Christ figure but not in a mocking way.

[donnblake]

I mean, look, I'm not Christian. If someone wants to mock or outright denigrate Christianity, it's no real skin off my nose. That said, using Christ imagery, and specifically crucifixion imagery, to indicate general heroism just seems like sloppy symbolism. It's a semiotically dense subject, and if you're going to use those symbols you ought to go in with a fairly specific idea of what you're doing with them.

[zachbeacon]

Pretty sure this isn't who people meant when they asked that he stop trying to force Christ imagery on Superman.

Though Snyder is hardly alone there.

[leahandillyana]

Nah, Christ!Joker is still better than making Superman, a Jewish-coded character modeled closely on Moses, being some Jesus 2.0.

[leahandillyana]

Pffffff that's so funny. I LOVE how offensive it is XD

[deh_tommy]

Meh, I’m used to this sort of thing.

[cyberghostface]

Most people aren’t offended by this. If it had been Joker as Muhammad on the other hand Zack Snyder would have to be in hiding. That being said I wasn't trying to be offensive with the post and I added a warning.

[themajesticmoose]

Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil for we live in a society....

[cyberghostface]

As a general statement I made this post because I'm a Joker fan and I thought the image was funny but I wasn't trying to offend anyone. I apologize if it came off as insensitive or offensive it wasn't my intent.