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Movies & TV

01st Oct 2019

“Woke culture” has ruined comedy movies, says Joker director Todd Phillips

Dave Hanratty

Joker Todd Phillips comedy woke culture

“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture.”

Joker arrives into Irish cinemas this Friday and you can pretty much guarantee that it’s going to be one of the most talked-about films of the year.

The discourse is already raging, following a rake of critical praise – read JOE’s official verdict right here – and the argument that the movie is potentially extremely toxic and could well provoke some ugly societal behaviour.

That last bit remains to be seen, and hopefully the release will pass without any kind of distressing incidents occurring.

One thing you can reasonably anticipate is a big box office taking and likely awards buzz. This thing did scoop the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, after all.

As for release week, star Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips are doing the media rounds, and the latter has made some provocative comments regarding the state of comedy in 2019.

Phillips, of course, came to prominence by helming the likes of Road Trip, Old School and the Hangover series, so he’s perfectly entitled to weigh in on such a subject.

Speaking as part of a lengthy profile piece on Phoenix in Vanity Fair, Phillips decried modern comedy films, positing that “woke culture” is to blame for an apparent visible decline.

The 49-year-old writer and director noted that he himself had been finding it increasingly difficult to make comedies prior to pitching Joker as a sort of anti-superhero picture.

“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” he said.

“There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore — I’ll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘Fuck this shit, because I don’t want to offend you.’

“It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter,” Phillips continued.

“You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’ I’m out, and you know what? With all my comedies — I think that what comedies in general all have in common — is they’re irreverent.

“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.’ And so that’s really where that came from.”

So there you have it, folks. Comedies aren’t good anymore because whiny social justice warriors don’t appreciate Todd Phillips’ razor-sharp irreverence, or something.

You can read the full Vanity Fair profile here.

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