Tenth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

I TAKE IT BACK, GO BACK TO FUCKING THE HOUSE!

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/2511.html?thread=3560655#cmt3560655)

Welcome back! Chat fandom, weird internet stuff, creative work, games, books, anything! Meme listens, and sometimes even replies!

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Comments

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Just seen new Joker film. It’s like they were so furious at the misaimed fandom of the first one, they spent two hours putting together a complete “fuck you” to everyone who thought he was cool, or wanted to emulate him, or thought he was justified or rebellious, or even who wanted to claim he had multiple personality disorder or was the Joker. Hilarious stuff.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Oh and also, to anyone who thought the problem was that he was lonely.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

AND ALSO they have a random guy on the radio explicitly describe what the *actual* point is supposed to be, while our guy is sat in a car listening, just as a “for God’s sake, pay attention”.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't even like Joker and this sounds awful xD

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

See, I did like Joker, but I seem to have watched a different film completely from the one its fans watched!

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

AND ALSO the original film exists in-universe as an awful TV movie.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I've already seen the seething fanboys and it seems kind of silly to me. Why piss off your fanbase? It feels very auteur but with extra SocJus juice. If you don't need the profits, sure, but then later we go back to the "why didn't those racist Nazi transphobe fucks watch?!" which seems to me like going so tsundere on your target audience that dere no longer applies.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Tell yourself it's performance art, I guess, but yeah there's a strange phenomenon of studios making things that express contempt for an audience and then being all butthurt when the audience doesn't like them. Feels like a personality disorder writ large. Make whatever, but if you say you hate a demographic in your press materials, don't cry when they say they don't like your film lol. tbf don't know what the press was like for this one. didn't even know it was a thing. I live under a rock.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I guess because they actually *did* have a message they wanted people to understand, and also maybe they feel responsible for all the Joker wannabes and “I’m so crazy I totally have DPD” people?

Made me laugh, though.

And I guess, there’s an element that our main character is vulnerable and easily led, as well as being dangerously violent, but he takes the fantasy stuff seriously, and he rejects the people who genuinely have his best interests at heart (even if they’re *also* trying to lead him into wrong ideas), insulting them, in order to go along with people who either want him as a figurehead for horrific violence against innocents, or who never believed the fantasy and just wanted him to stay in the fantasy with them until it killed him and they would go back to their normal life.

So you could definitly take it as being *about* some stuff that the target audience really should be paying attention to.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I go back to the thing TRAs screech about everything anyone mentions Rowling and which they've abused to death: death of the author. I don’t really believe a second film spelling it out is going to be a come to Jesus moment. If you want to make message fic, great. If you are really invested in Damascusing the heretics, maybe get ready for Joker 10 because it won't end.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I’m with the filmmakers here. If I make a film and you misread it that badly, I am definitely making fun of you in the sequel. I mean, these are people who thought the main character was cool and powerful!

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think you can't do that but I do think you then shouldn't be asking why you aren't making a profit because people aren't really stupid enough to buy something that isn't for them.

If you can afford to be an auteur, great. If you need to sell tickets, then that's more perplexing.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

SD

The parallel to me are the fans who write incredibly specific message fic but also want to pass the 1k review mark. The two generally don't go together and I'm cynical enough to expect studio performance discourse to recur.

I also dislike Joker and Harley Quinn so I was never going to be interested in either. Too much toxicity for me.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

> I also dislike Joker and Harley Quinn so I was never going to be interested in either. Too much toxicity for me.

Oh boy, is this a film that agrees with you, then!

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

It agrees with me in theory but I care so little for them I'm not inclined to buy tickets or spend time watching it, which is why it feels like an audience mismatch.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Is anyone asking why they aren’t making a profit? Are they making a profit?

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Currently underperforming with negative word of mouth so unless there's something that draws people in, that's probably going to stay. Non-fan reviews just end up in the territory of it being flat or people bouncing off the music.

Will it trigger profit questions? If you're right and that discourse doesn't trigger yet again when it's been fan journalism's thing this Q, great. I'm sick of the stupidity of that discourse.

I'm fine with people making message fic and I actually respect auteurs in that they don't give a fuck, they just ride on the strength of their convictions and their own artistic vision and die by it or rise by it. It's getting the "bUt wHY dId iT fAIl" discourse that I'm sick to the back teeth of, especially if the answer is simple: you had no demo and the demo you didn't care about was the one you were relying on.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

The only reason I was even slightly interested in this movie was the promise of Lady Gaga in a musical and from what I'm hearing, they didn't even manage to deliver on that.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

It’s got a lot of musical references, and bits of singing, because the main character is really into musicals and because Harley is manipulating him, but it isn’t really a musical itself.

I think it works really well as a sequel to what the first film actually was, but a lot of people seem to have watched a version of that from a parallel reality. So if you enjoyed the first film for what it actually was, you’ll probably laugh along with me at the second one. If you didn’t enjoy the first film, or enjoyed the version of it that makes you think the Joker is super cool, then you won’t.