MovieChat Forums > Joker (2019) Discussion > But how much sympathy can we have for Jo...

But how much sympathy can we have for Joker types?


Well, I understand many get a bad hand in life - but - do these people have a right to exact revenge - at the level of the Joker (school shooters, the like etc..)?

I mean, aren't these people somewhat responsible for simply giving in to inappropriate behavior? Well, for instance, white supremacists may have had a bad lot in life - leading them into what they are - but does that excuse it? Does the fact incels can't get sex - excuse shootings from them?

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Who is excusing them? Who is saying they have a right to those actions?

You can have sympathy for their context without justifying what they wound up doing in these cases.

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Well, we do have a victimization culture - but I understand what you're saying and agree to a large extent.

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This! Well answered!

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white supremacists and incels--- there really are not many of them, but the media loves to tell you there is.

So they don't have tell you who really is causing chaos with crime. rape and murder........

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And who "would that be" - let me guess - LOL...

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Yeah, that's why we keep having weekly mass shooting performed by these types, right?

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there are no weekly mass shootings

but there are shootings and murders every day and night committed by your darlings

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Who are my darlings?

And you're right, we have more than 1 mass shootings per week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019

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Wiki: "mass shootings is three or more shot and killed in one incident at a public place"


so you are saying all these shootings are by incels and white suprematists?

Guess you are, since you showed us that map from wiki

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Never said that.

You said there are no weekly mass shootings. I said there are.

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Well he is, after all, a comic book "super"villain.

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Well, Batman felt no sympathy for him - cause ultimately, the Joker's way of dealing with his pain - was unacceptable - as in he murders people - LOL.

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Early on you could have sympathy for him, but -- eventually -- when he becomes a murderer and rashly kills people for whatever reason all sympathy is lost.

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This is nothing like the Joker of the Comics.

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Nothing?

The Joker's a psycho murderer in the comics, as well as in this movie. Both have green hair and clownish face paint. He's had various possible origin tales thru the decades and this movie theorizes one more. Bruce Wayne and his parents are in the movie, as well as the crime that inspired Bruce to become Batman.

Those are quite a few similarities to the comics.

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I don't get "incels". I was nerdy, shy, and not great looking when I was young, yet I managed to have relationships with some attractive women (and I didn't have much money, either). Just about anybody can get laid, if they really want to.

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A person has no right to vengeance, in my opinion. But they have every right to our sympathy. Who doesn't want revenge from time to time? Even in some minor way when a car splashes us as it drives past and we shake a fist?

But to take revenge is rarely good or justified.

Perhaps in an avenging capacity on behalf of others. Or in rare and extreme circumstances (along the lines of a Trail of Tears or Holocaust), perhaps vengeance is justified or admirable.

But when the slight is perceived (an incel) and isn't, in that sense, True, you cannot say "Oh, he deserved to run those people over with his car - no woman would have him, after all!"

Yet, again: sympathy is necessary. "How would I feel if no woman would have me?" We must say to ourselves, and then know their pain - not so we can wave away their faulty reactions, but to heal their hurts and prevent another such unjust vengeance from being visited upon yet more innocents.

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"Incels" have always existed. For crying out loud this isnt some new phenomenon. It wasn't until that elliot kid wrote his manifesto blaming his actions on is incelibacy that it became a worry. Thanks left wing media for that by the way.

Just what do you expect to happen here? Are all of the incels playing video games now a threat? Just by virtue of being an incel? How should we solve that then? Organize forced relations from sex workers to pop their cherries so they are no longer incels rendering them no longer a threat? Just what the hell is the problem here?

Does anyone think about that? What did you think guys that couldnt get laid were doing prior to elliot Rodger? They were just playing
D&D or Magic the gathering. They were nerds. Minding their own business. But now they're a threat?

Christ sake man people are so fucking stupid.

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I think somebody who is involuntarily celibate (the D&D playing nerd) is different from an incel (somebody who blames society for not getting them laid and then lashes out in some angry fashion); even though incel is a portmanteau of the two words, I think there's a difference here (particularly in what people are implying when they say "incel" as opposed to "nerd").

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There isnt. Incel means incel. The people blaming women for their incelibacy, and then lashing out at society, dont do it because they are incels, it's because they're fucked in the head and belong in a psyche ward. Plain and simple. You know what we USED to call people like that? Psychos. What ever happened to psychos? Can we PLEASE for the love of GOD get back to using words in their proper context? This is insane.

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What I was getting at was that people are using Incel to describe a flavour of psycho. There is a subset of the psychotic community that falls into this category.

I agree that people who are involuntarily celibate aren't psychotic. But psychotics who fit a similar grouping of criteria are "incels".

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Ah so just rearrange the english language to the lowest common denominator then? How would we describe someone that gets all the sex he wants and still kills all of his victims? How would we describe Ted Bundy?

How would we describe a man that only targets prostitutes like Jack the ripper? Do we have names for every varying degree of psycho?

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No, but language evolves as people use terms.

Incel is one of those terms. It has entered the lexicon.

Punk has changed meanings several times. Retarded used to be a medical term, but it changed to an insult thanks to bullying tactics and now it would be considered insensitive to use retarded in most contexts.

I don't know about you, but I've also never heard the term "incel" (NOT involuntarily celibate: incel) before it was used in this context. I think you could describe somebody as being "involuntarily celibate" without bringing this connotation on their head. Just as you could still talk about Isis (the goddess) and have people understand you didn't mean the Islamic State.

I think that we do have different terms for other types of killers and psychopaths. I think there are lots of them. Serial killers, for example.

Finally, yeah, we have to rearrange the English language to suit changing times. Not for the lowest common denominator, but just as a function of a living language. That's how we get words like computer, calculator, jet plane (both of those words mean something else until recontextualised in the modern age), and sitcom. Languages that don't change die. English is innovative.

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This isnt innovative, its regressive. Language only evolves according to the culture utilizing the language. If the culture is fucked, so is the language. So maybe we should work on trying not to dumb down the future generation by using words in their proper context.

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Incel - the combo word - is a new word. It wasn't in use. What was the original context for it?

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It was in use. It was coined in the 90s by some student in toronto to describe her sexual inactivity.

Is that fair to her that the culture just decided to lump her in with a bunch of mass murdering psychos? All because CNN decided to rewrite the meaning?

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I never saw that word used in common parlance until recently. Of course, I accept the word origin you've brought up.

Maybe it's not fair, but it's what happened. Words change their meanings.

I disagree that it's regressive because I'm not talking solely about incel here, but the ability of English to twist and adapt to new phenomena.

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It only happened because of stupid people that let it happen. Like I mentioned earlier. Language doesnt evolve out of nowhere.

Rape no longer means forced sex against a victim, it now means a man so much as glancing at a woman the wrong way

Nazi no longer means a german soldier working under Adolf Hitler, it now means anyone you disagree with politically.

Incel no longer means someone who is involuntarily celibate, it means someone who is involuntarily celibate AND a psycho.

Such is the innovative and progressive nature of english. Very revolutionary indeed.

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Only a small subset of the population uses rape and Nazi in those ways. Most people I know, most places I encounter those terms use them in the original vein.

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Only a small subset of the population uses the word incel in that manner as well. And yet here you are defending its use as a consequence of lingual evolution. Why shouldnt rape and nazi be used in the same manner? In fact, why shouldnt any word I choose to use, be compatible with anything I want it to be?

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Look, I'm not pretending like there's a study to prove this, but I think that most people use Nazi to mean somebody who subscribes to an agenda similar to Hitler's Third Reich and/or the neo-Nazi movement. Most people use rape to mean an aggravated sexual assault involving some kind of intercourse. And I think most people who use incel use it to mean somebody who harbours anger, resentment, and prejudice towards women, usually characterised by blaming women for the incel's problems and difficulties. Some of that group winds up acting in a physically dangerous way.

I don't think it's a small subset using incel in a different way. I don't have a study or anything, but that's my observation.

I think that the addition of incel to the common vocabulary is not a problem. I think it's a natural consequence of having an unnamed group. There is a group with characteristics as I stated above (harbouring anger, etc.) and they identify themselves as incels. For whatever reason, this made its way into common vocabulary. It's like colours. We need to describe certain wavelengths on the spectrum, so we came up with terms like "green". We needed a word for the group, and that word is "incel". This isn't a regression in my opinion anymore than using "punk" to mean a subset of the music scene is a regression from having a word for prostitute, homosexual, or troublemaker, especially because its original use (on a reddit thread) wasn't (to my knowledge) common in use.

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Everything you're saying in defense of the misuse of the word incel, can equally be applied to the words rape, sexist, racist and nazi. All words have had a definitive meaning to describe the actions and attribute of the past, and now they have been diluted to mean anything that we want.

I'm playing the devils advocate here when I say, this is a natural progression of societies desire to evolve the english language, and apply new meanings to these words. Surely you would agree gi en your stance.

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My stance has always been that language evolves and changes. That was always part of my view here. I'm not sure why you think otherwise, or why you think that's playing devil's advocate...?

I'm not sure how I can be clearer when I say that I don't think (or observe) the word incel being the same as Nazi or rape. I outlined above how my understanding of those words is different, in origin, history, progression, and common use (as far as I have seen or heard).

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Your personal understanding doesnt mean that it hasn't extended beyond what you've observed. Nor should that be a suitable excuse to defend the misuse of those words in the first place.

The fact of the matter is, it has become all too common to call someone a racist or a sexist or a nazi for simply disagreeing with an opinion. Don lemon has gone on to compare trump's detainment facilities as concentration camps. Fuck, even politicians have done the same. And as a result, people have started using that term to describe them. Which erodes the severity of what Jews went through during the holocaust

Now. As terrible as that is, this is just a natural evolutionary progression of the english language. Correct?

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I've said that, too: it's just my observation. But you're saying it's a fact is interesting. You have a study? Or is it just what you're observing, too?

I was speaking on Nazi and rape - the original examples you brought up - not on who is being called racist or sexist. Those are different examples and I was not commenting on those words, so bringing that in is...I mean, we can talk about that if you want, but I never said anything about those words.

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Have you been absent from the hashtag metoo movement? A movement that started out with good intentions by trying to get men with power held accountable for the rapes they've committed, and ultimately lost track with the goal by throwing innocent men who got the wrong idea under the bus. See aziz Ansari. Liam's Neeson made a quip about the issue as well calling it a witch hunt against men. Yes, it has has become embedded in our culture now to use these terms as frivolously as possible.

Ut that's besides the point. You seem very determined to keep rape and nazi specifically away from the conversation. Which is odd. Does it matter which words get diluted over time? It is acceptable if incel is improperly used but not rape? Why?

Which words are being used isnt the point here. The point is that words are being reapplied to meaning that has no relevance.

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I was around for the metoo movement. That's why I'm aware that when Ansari was accused by a small group I know that far more people piled on that group telling them what Ansari did was not the same thing.

That's why I think people are, by and large, still using rape "properly".

It has become embedded in a small part of our culture to use those words frivolously.

I have been speaking the whole time with you about the words "rape" and "Nazi". NOT the words "racism" and "sexism". Those last two were the ones I was talking about.

I'm not sure if I'm not being clear or you're being (deliberately?) obtuse, but it seems to me that somebody who is worried about the quality of conversation lapsing because of misinterpretation would be more concerned about accuracy in quoting somebody he is in dialogue with.

I'm getting really bored of needing to explain myself over and over and over again and having my statements changed time and again. It's like being interviewed by Cathy Bloody Newman.

My point is not that words are being reapplied - although that happens. Most of my point has been that "incel" has largely only meant one thing, used to apply in one context, and while the current meaning might have been altered, it has altered to describe a new group that we find ourselves (in society) discussing more and more. "Incel" is a convenience; it is a shorthand to prevent ourselves from needing to say, "You know that group of men these days who largely hang out on the internet and blame their problems on women, but who sometimes commit aggressive and sometimes fatal attacks in real life?" Instead, we can just say, "Hey, you know incels?" and save ourselves the time.

It is being used to further communication. So, yeah, that's why I think it's a good thing.

We can still describe people who can't get a date or who aren't having sex but still trying to with other words and other terms.

PS
Sorry if this is coming off as angry, but I'm feeling a little frustrated with the circular motion of the conversation.

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You made yourself clear as crystal. This whole time 8ve been pointing out why your argument doesnt hold water.

You know what would have been a better alternative to using the word incel? Misogynist. That accurately and clearly describes the motive behind a guy like elliot Rodger. A guy that hates women goes around killing women. What on earth does his inability to get laid have to do with anything when he shares the same hate toward women that a man like Ted bundy or Jack the ripper did? Its nonsense. And we've been using the word misogynist that way up until cnn decided hijack the word incel. A complete bastardization of an otherwise harmless group of people.

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Well, okay, again (and for the last time) I've been telling you that things you've been saying I said were not what I was saying. So, I feel like you've mischaracterised what I've been talking about. Thus, I do not feel like you have shown my arguments failing to hold water since I can't be certain that you even recognise them for what they are.

I feel like we've reached several layers of impasse here and I'm sorry that I couldn't understand your point and that I didn't come across properly to make myself understood. Anybody who decides to read this thread...I guess make up your mind.

I'm done trying. It's just become frustrating so...peace, man.

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Everything is a threat to the Sjw. This movie was bombard by article after article about how this movie was going start some violent Incel rebellion. Then it turns out the movie was mostly about how treating mental ill people like shit is maybe not a good idea.

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Kylo Ren is a joker type fell under that I'm happy he died

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Boy, I pity the person who came on here to talk about the Joker and got a whammy of a spoiler for Episode IX. Maybe disguise that plot twist a-bomb...?

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My favorite character survived IDGAF About Ren

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I don't know what IDGAF is...?

I was just saying that you might want to put a spoiler alert on your previous post out of courtesy for people who haven't seen Episode IX yet.

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EVAN PETERS CHARACTER ON AMERICAN HORROR STORY:CULT IS A VERY SIMILAR CHARACTER TO THIS "JOKER"....ODD PEOPLE WHO TURN ANGRY AND LEAD OTHERS...MY SYMPATHY TANK IS ON EMPTY FOR THESE SORT OF CHARACTERS...WATCHING A 36 HOUR MOVIE WHERE THE VILLAIN WAS THE HERO....I TRYED,I VIEWED THE ENTIRETY...I DID NOT ENJOY MYSELF THOUGH.

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