The Four Color Media Monitor

While reading this recent fluff-coated item on Sauk Valley commenting on new comics-based movies like the Joker, I couldn't help notice the following:

Of course, there’s controversy, too. For one thing, it’s completely unconnected to other DC movies – because the director doesn’t want them dragging down his film.

“The time (period) for me … one reason was to separate it, quite frankly, from the DC universe,” director Todd Phillips said to CinemaBlend. “This is like a separate universe. So much so, it takes place in the past, before everything else.”

Ouch.

And there’s some concern over the movie’s violence, and the fear it could inspire copycats. Which every study in the world says doesn’t happen, and is a charge that if taken seriously would mean all entertainment, from “Casablanca” to “The Godfather,” should be neutered into inoffensive pabulum.

Sigh. People sure like to find things to complain about.

Including the propagandist who wrote this, Andrew Smith, who, about 4 years earlier, threw William Marston and Wonder Woman under the bus along with artists like J. Scott Campbell. I'm sure some of these "concerns" are blown out of proportion, but anybody who's got a double-standard on sex, IMHO, is unfit to comment. There have been studies showing that sex in games, for example, doesn't have a corrosive effect, and if not, then comics don't either, but the press is far less interested in that angle than in violence and whether or not to defend it.

People who love finding things to complain about like sex have no business complaining when it happens with violence, because they're bound to have some double-standards on it. Ironically, there may be a valid reason to be let down by the Joker movie, because it uses a song by a convicted UK child molestor named Gary Glitter, and he looks to profit from the proceedings. Honestly, that is disturbing, and one can only wonder why that hasn't made news, and this reminds me that Smith defended filmmaker James Gunn over a year ago, even after the discovery the Guardians of the Galaxy director made repellent statements about sexual abuse. That's why I don't think his comments about reactions to the film's violence are altruistic, and one more reason he's not fit to argue about violence in films, if he can't recognize the seriousness of people who downplay violence in real life, both sexual and physical.

Labels: Batman, censorship issues, dc comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, violence