2. This thing has Martin Scorsese all over it. Scorsese is someone who thinks violence is deep. In his own cameo in Taxi Driver he wanted to shove a big pistol up his wife’s pussy and blow her up from the inside. Arguably, his character is who got Robert DeNiro rolling.
Violence is only profound compared to numbness. That it is so common in our media, though, bespeaks muted emotionality, muted authentic empathy (versus the ubiquitous sentimentality which is SO easy to manipulate.)
3. We don’t live in the early 70’s anymore, when Clockwork Orange—to which I’m seeing many compare Joker—came out. We did not have the pervasive conditioning then which will cause many to cheer Joker in his own ultraviolence. I read today some theaters are banning cosplay, since many of them are assuming many of us will see the a Joker as a role model worth emulating.
Back in 1971 (or whatever) we didn’t have grotesque horror films with very realistic violence on every corner. If memory serves Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out in 1974, Halloween and Friday the 13th later in the decade.
Now we have a whole genre called torture porn. We have I think 3 Hostel movies and 7 Saw movies. Hannibal Lector has been made into a hero of sorts.
I continue to wonder how wonderful things would be if, to take example, the resources and energy put into developing the iPhone had been dedicated to building a comprehensive, effective and replicable mental and emotional health program. IPhones don’t make people more emotionally intelligent, and I would argue they sap memory: why memorize anything when you can just look it up?
I do t know where all this is going. Obviously. But it does seem that many useful and needed taboos are being consciously destroyed, by people who can’t see beyond destruction, who have no truly positive vision for anything.