Joker vs The Irishman: A Second Round in the Eternal Battle Between the Popular and the Artistic - Pt 2
Harry Penwell
Spoilers for Joker ahead:
So we’ve looked at how genre, and stepping out of genre, helped films such as Joker and Black Panther gain Oscar recognition, as well as how the 2020 Oscars affected the debate between the popular and the artistic. Now for part two. To keep up my metaphor from the beginning of the last article, the Joker is currently debating his own psychological condition with The Irishman’s De Niro. The streaming gods are still waiting for their time to shine.
Great Power and Great Responsibility – The Depiction of Violence in Films
And this leads onto my final point on the difference between genre films, particularly comic book ones, and other, more traditionally ‘artistic’ films. The pushback against violence in Joker, and the critical divide because of it. Now, of course violence, particularly gory violence and if it’s portrayed in a positive light, is always scrutinised in films, and films such as Taxi Driver and Pulp Fiction have had their critics over the years. However, I don’t remember seeing as much of an outcry as I did towards Joker. There were questions of whether it would cause mass shootings, or if it suggested that violence was, in fact, the answer. Now that I’ve seen the film, I don’t think that this is the case. I saw Arthur Fleck as a man who was a victim of society but, ultimately, chooses to do wrong by shooting Murray Franklin.
As Time says, however, some of the truisms in the film, such as the swiftly becoming iconic ‘what do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you f**kin' deserve!’ are much more the problem, as it’s an easily repeatable and manipulatable quote that needs the context of the film to downplay and explain. This is particularly important as comic book films often have these quotes that sum up their entire position in morality. I won’t explain this any more than just quoting Uncle Ben: ‘with great power, comes great responsibility’.
But the idea that Joker, and his violent path, is correct, is proved wrong because it’s a comic book film, particularly in the Batman-universe. Most of us who watch the film will know that Batman, with his rule of not killing, is correct, and the Joker is wrong. Therefore, because the film is part of this comic-book genre, the genre itself constrains the film from saying that the Joker is ultimately correct. This constraint allows for stories like Joker to be told with a greyer morality, while preventing them from veering off the ethical rails by the comic book genre’s belief in the inherent good of humanity.
However, the fact that Joker is a comic book film does cause some problems for its violence. While I think Joker was clearly marketed as a film not for children, with an R rating and some obvious warnings about violence, the character, is marketed towards children and so that has to be dealt with. Warner Bros, says Todd Phillips, was concerned about the film because they ‘sell Joker pajamas at Target’ and so was it right to take such a dark turn with the character? And this is where the problem of making films about the same set of characters over and over, as comic book films tend to do, can cause problems as well as the aforementioned benefits. Not that I think it’s unsolvable, and I think that most people can tell the difference between Joker and normal Batman films. Maybe just don’t sell any Arthur Fleck merchandise at Target.
And then there’s the usual bias against genre films. There’s shocking violence in The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but nowhere near the amount of criticism for it. I think this is primarily because they aren’t comic book films, although The Irishman also tries to explain that violence will have a negative impact on your life, in a much more obvious way than Joker in that it has the consequences of violence as a central point in the film. Overall, the criticism of Joker was valid, but much more biased and intense than it would have been if it wasn’t a comic book film.
A quick caveat – I know that there have been problems with life imitating art. For example, the case of John Hinkley Jr. who tried to impress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver, by imitating Travis Bickle’s mohawked look and attempting to assassinate President Ronald Regan in 1981. There’s also the shooting in a movie theatre in Colorado which was showing a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and caused fears due to the apparent links between the event and the character of the Joker. However, these links are less founded in reality than first believed, as Vanity Fair points out. In fact, the argument between whether art and entertainment can incite violence is as old, if not older, than the debate between the ‘popular’ and the ‘artistic’. And, while, I fall on the side of art not inciting violence, or certainly not being the cause of it, it’s important to remember this discussion.
The Rise of Streaming
But this is a discussion of the ‘popular’ and the ‘artistic’, not of art and violence (although I would be happy to write another article on that if it was requested), and more specifically, the battle between Joker and The Irishman at the 2020 Oscars. So my final point is that The Irishman had no chance with The Academy, even before Parasite came in with a surprise sweep. This is because it was released on Netflix, with only a small theatrical release to allow for nomination for the awards. Three Netflix produced films have been nominated for Best Picture (Roma, The Irishman and Marriage Story), and none have won. Granted, Netflix obviously hasn’t been producing films for as long as genre, or even comic book, films have been a thing, but, even with Laura Dern’s win for Best Supporting Actress in Marriage Story and Roma’s success in Best Directing, Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language film, comic book, and genre films have still had far more success, even just counting years they were in contention together. Amazon’s done well, with films such as Manchester by the Sea, but their model is slightly more complicated, and less controversial, than Netflix’s original content, in terms of distribution and theatrical release, so I’m leaving it out of the argument for now.
To keep it simple, The Academy appear to have a bias against films that ignore the traditional theatrical release. This is a bias that I’m not completely against, as I still prefer to see films in the cinema if at all possible, and it might aid in the survival of these rooms of magic. Of course, this may no longer be an argument that The Academy or I can win, thanks to the global lockdown encouraging the release of films direct-to-streaming. For example, Trolls World Tour was released straight to digital, and made an estimated $100m in North America alone, which prompted Universal to state that they plan on releasing their films both to cinemas and digital services, simultaneously.
This has led AMC Theatres to say that they ‘will not be showing movies that fail to respect the [theatrical] windows as it does not make any economic sense’. This window is the usual cinema release window during which films are not released on DVD or streaming. I agree with AMC that ‘the big screen is the best way to watch a movie’. Furthermore, I urge caution that all viewing figures during this global pandemic are, at least partially, artificial. This global lockdown has also caused the Academy to ‘allow films that debuted on a streaming service without a theatrical run to be eligible for nominations’. However, this is currently only in force this year, ‘in direct response to the coronavirus pandemic’ and cancellation of film festivals. So maybe this barrier to films such as The Irishman is about to come crashing down, at least for the 2021 Oscars.
I mention this whole topic for two reasons. To show that there are many, many reasons for a film to do well at the Oscars, such as genre and platform, as well as artistic merit. And to show that maybe some of these biases might soon fall. Once again, I bring Parasite to your attention. A film, not in English, that steamrolled the Oscars and, if I’m honest, kind of ruined my plan to use the Oscars to compare Joker and The Irishman. Not that I’m complaining. But I haven’t seen the film yet, so a full article on Parasite will come later.
Enjoy it all
In conclusion, the 2020 Oscars and release of Joker and The Irishman, and Parasite, have shown that there is a change in trends. A trend towards films being respected as films, and pieces of art, regardless of whether they’re ‘popular’ or ‘artistic’, or released on streaming services, or even films in languages other than English. Once again, it lets us appreciate the medium, and hope that even more inventive and entertaining films will be produced.
Now, I’m going to leave you with a quote from Best Picture winner and director of Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho, which, in turn, is a quote from Martin Scorsese, himself. ‘The most personal is the most creative’. So, go, go and make and enjoy films that mean something to you. No matter if it’s ‘artistic’ or ‘popular’, about people with powers, powerful people, people suffering under power, or stories where power is irrelevant. Make and watch what you like. Just enjoy it.