In all the 25 years I’ve been covering the Oscars, I’ve never seen a beatdown quite like Joker Folie a Deux. I have to give the caveat that I have not seen the movie. Like many people out there, I won’t see it until it drops on streaming. For me, it’s more about my precious time than anything else. I can’t invest in a Hollywood that seems to overtly loathe its ticket buyers.
It was expected that the fans would hate the movie. If it’s meant to be a “fuck you” to the fans of the first Joker movie, or it’s intended as an apology or some internal and eternal struggle session, or perhaps it’s a way to absolve both Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix of their sins for having made the film in the first place or how superhero movies have ruined Hollywood. Maybe it’s all for the best if they end it.
Either way, whatever they decided to do to piss off their target audience (aka, not make a dime from a $200 million production), they have succeeded in that goal. So what was the purpose of making it at all? Why make a big-budget art movie that is a rumination on the plight of the comic book hero or perhaps a deconstruction of masculinity overall?
Ideally, Folie a Deux would have been a Charlie Chaplin-like ode to an antihero. The critics would have recognized this and heralded it as a masterpiece. Finally, it would have been a rebuke of the last twenty years of a film industry that makes obscene amounts of money on branded franchise IP junk. It would have landed with a 99% on RT while the fans tanked it with a low 30%.
But a funny thing happened on the way to appreciation from the film critics. Knives were out for Joaquin Phoenix because he walked off the set of a Todd Haynes movie that supposedly had “graphic gay sex” in it. His walking out meant the entire project collapsed. It was heartbreaking for producer Christine Vachon and director Todd Haynes, who were left holding the bag. There was zero chance that the people who might have appreciated Todd Phillips’ anti-hero redux and “fuck you” to Fanboy Nation would give this movie that kind of adoration.
Add to that, Todd Phillips is, himself, a white guy and there isn’t usually the rolling out of the red carpet for them THESE DAYS, as opposed to how it used to be where only white guys were lauded and elevated. I know the story, you know the story, but be that as it may, there was no investment or benefit in elevating Todd Phillips for subverting audiences’ expectations and making a movie like this.
However you slice it, no one seems to like Joker Folie a Deux, and it looks to be among the biggest bombs in recent history.
I’ve heard a few people say they admire Todd Phillips for having the audacity to sink the Titanic. But I don’t know. I feel like it’s yet another nail in the coffin for Hollywood. How many times can they lure audiences in with the promise of a good time only to throw a pie in their face?
We’re watching the collapse of an empire in real time. It isn’t just Hollywood; it’s all of culture aligned as one, which is what we’ve been living through. Hollywood, book publishing, journalism, politics – it’s all the same. It’s a monoculture. And in that mono-culture, it was decided that masculinity was “toxic.” So the answer? Just get rid of the male hero. And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of beautiful, sexy women because not only do men have to disappear but so does their gaze.
The problem is both men and women like looking at beautiful women, and they also like watching masculine male heroes. That’s why we have the big screen at all. We like to watch gods and goddesses. Otherwise, why bother? If you want reality, look out the window. It’s hard to understand how anyone thought this would work out for Hollywood. It hasn’t worked out. You can’t make people who drive up for a Happy Meal want raw broccoli and steamed tofu instead. You can’t.
So what did we get? Twisters made decent money, but they could have made a lot of money without giving audiences the bait and switch. Here, we have a masculine actor in Glen Powell who would have made a great male hero saving the day. Instead, because Hollywood is hellbent on destroying the fun, the male hero is sidelined while the smartest girl in the room also gets to vanquish the tornado. It’s so unrealistic. It’s so patronizing. It’s SUCH a drag.
The Fall Guy, another bomb, must invert the hierarchy by making Emily Blunt the director and Ryan Gosling the bumbling fool who cries in his car. Once you’ve fixed society, the dramatic tension is gone. We already know that they won’t betray the rules of the new religion. But what if, say, Emily Blunt was a “DEI hire” and was in over her head? What a story that would be. But no, they couldn’t ever do such a thing.
Furiosa, as good as some people might find the movie, is a Mad Max story without Mad Max. It’s exactly the thing audiences do not want. I’m sorry to be the one to say it, but it’s true. I’ve been saying it for years. Bring back the masculine men, and the box office will thrive once again. It’s not that hard. And anyway, no one is actually destroying the “white male patriarchy.” All the same people who were in power are still in control. They use this kind of casting to make themselves look good.
That is especially true on streaming platforms, which are under no pressure to deliver. Amazon, Netflix, and Apple are massive corporations that care about their image. But with box office pressure, we get a lot of movies that aren’t that great because they don’t have to be. Folie a Deux was a no-brainer. It was an easy way to bring people back. Instead, they learned one more time that the last people Hollywood cares about is them.
It isn’t rocket science to put out a movie like this. It doesn’t even have to be good to make back $200 mil. It could even be absolutely unwatchable, like Aquaman, and make money. Aiming for the prestige circuit appeared to be the mistake here.
Without even seeing it, I can promise you that Joker: Folie a Deux is better than Aquaman because there is no movie worse than Aquaman. It’s not even a movie. But what Aquaman has that Folie a Deux doesn’t have and that almost no movie in Hollywood has now: a masculine male hero. Or even anti-hero. The key word is masculine.
This is why I think Gladiator II will make a lot of money whether it’s good or bad. It’s filled with masculine men. It’s a sequel to a beloved film and it’s directed by Ridley Scott. If there is one director in Hollywood who is not going to sell us out with a reversed hiearchy, it’s him. So bring it on. If this one can’t bring them in then I think we’re in some serious trouble.
The truth is that we’re not that complicated of a species. We like to watch strong men fight and play football and grease up their muscles and peacock around. We like to watch beautiful women glammed up and looking better than everyone else in the world. If you want movies to make money, give the people what they want.
Joker Folie a Deux didn’t need a masculine hero but it did need to be something more than shaming audiences or fans for being loyal to the IP or for loving the original. Why punish the people who helped make you rich?
I understand what happened to Hollywood after Trump won. And I understand that mass hysteria and collective fear thought everything had to be upended and reformed as an overreaction to that. But sooner or later, Hollywood must stop trying to “fix” us. We don’t need Hollywood for that. We need Hollywood to tell us great stories and give us great characters. And yes, to also show us the beautiful people we don’t see in our everyday lives.
