‘Don’t go see it’: Fans outraged over controversial Joker 2 scene
Joker 2 has opened to near-universal disdain from audiences and critics — but one scene in particular has sparked a furious reaction online. WARNING: Spoilers
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WARNING: Spoilers, disturbing content
The sequel to Joker has opened to near-universal disdain from audiences and critics — but one scene in particular has sparked a furious reaction online.
Joker: Folie A Deux, director Todd Phillips’ highly anticipated follow-up to his $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) grossing, Oscar-winning 2019 smash hit — loosely based on the DC Comics characters — sees Joaquin Phoenix reprise his titular role as Arthur Fleck, this time joined by Lady Gaga as the Joker’s singing love interest, Harley Quinn.
But the film has been critically mauled since opening on Friday and is on track to be a box-office bomb, with many fans flocking to social media over the weekend to express their disgust and numerous reports of people walking out of screenings.
The film reportedly grossed an estimated $US40 million ($60 million) at the box office on opening weekend, less than half what the original movie grossed in its 2019 debut.
While critics have blasted the excessive musical numbers and the “excruciatingly dull” courtroom drama, fans of the first film have taken particular issue with a scene in which it is heavily implied the Joker is raped by prison guards.
“They made the Joker get gay gang raped then killed him,” Cassandra MacDonald from Timcast News wrote in a post on X with 13.5 million views. “No spoiler warning because f**k Todd Phillips. Don’t go see it.”
The disturbing scene comes after Fleck, on trial for his crimes in the first film, refers negatively to the guards at Arkham Asylum in court. That night he is taken to the showers by head guard Jackie Sullivan and two others.
“Jackie, aren’t you gonna buy me a drink first?” Fleck says, before being violently thrown to the ground and stripped of his clothing as he pleads for the guards to stop.
“Get that f**king jacket off!” Sullivan says. “Get his f**king rags off!”
In the next scene he is shown being dragged back to his cell, badly beaten with his pants removed.
In court the next day, Fleck renounces his Joker persona and takes full responsibility for his actions.
The film ends with Fleck being stabbed to death by another inmate.
Social media has since been flooded with memes and posts about the brutal treatment of the iconic Batman villain.
“Batman spent years fighting and attempting to rehabilitate Joker, but even the world’s greatest detective failed to realise that all he had to do was rape him for him to completely drop the act,” one X user wrote in a post with 1.4 million views.
Another post read, “So it WAS possible for Batman to stop the Joker this whole time without killing him.”
Several commentators suggested that Phillips appeared to have intentionally sought to antagonise fans of the first film, which sparked criticism for its nihilistic violence and saw Phoenix’s Joker character gain popularity among the incel community.
“Todd Phillips got pissy that people like the first Joker too much so he made the second one s**t lmao,” one X user wrote.
But some welcomed the subversion of the Joker character.
“I thought Joker 2 was bad … but the fact that so many chuds who thought Arthur was their people’s champion in the first movie have to face that Joker 2 frames him as actually just a nobody loser with main character syndrome is a pretty funny silver lining tbh lol,” another said.
Rolling Stone noted that Joker: Folie A Deux “has a message for fans — go f**k yourselves”.
“You couldn’t call what they’re doing fan service, given its general stance that elevating and emulating disturbed, anti-social individuals just because they’ve tapped into inchoate rage is a bad idea,” Rolling Stone senior editor David Fear wrote.
“In fact, this sequel is whatever the exact opposite of fan service is — during its rare moments of clarity, you’d swear this is actually an indictment of those who flocked to Joker in the first place … The closest thing it has to a message of any kind is, ‘Hey, fanatics? Go f**k yourselves.’”
Jackson Weaver of CBC News described the film as a “correcting of the record that exists more for its creator than its audience”.
“This movie is in every respect a meta-commentary on what Joker was supposed to mean,” he wrote.
“In nearly every respect, this Joker undercuts the hero worship, leading to a finale reinterpreting the man posturing as some sort of eternally wronged martyr into something much sadder, more realistic and impossible to misinterpret. It’s a fearless spitting-in-the-face of Phillips’ fans, who turned the original into the then-highest grossing R-rated movie of all time.”
The ABC’s Angus Truskett concurred, writing that Joker: Folie A Deux “hates the Joker more than you” and was a “meta response to its divisive predecessor — with the ultimate goal of potentially alienating its entire fanbase”.
“Instead of yet another serving of continuity-laden CGI slop, we’re treated to a genuinely weird musical/legal drama that kind of hates its audience — all dressed up in homicidal clown face paint,” Truskett wrote. “And that’s a pretty funny joke.”
Originally published as ‘Don’t go see it’: Fans outraged over controversial Joker 2 scene
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