BY LINDSEY BAHR
After $1 billion at the box office, 11 Oscar nominations and two major wins, including for Joaquin Phoenix, it’s easy to forget the handwringing over “ Joker.”
In the lead up to its release in October 2019, the Todd Phillips film, a dark origin story about the mentally ill man who becomes the deranged Batman villain, hit a cultural inflection point that had divisions forming before most had even seen it. People worried “Joker” would glorify violence, that people would take the wrong message and there’d be incidents at movie theaters. Words like “dangerous,” “irresponsible” and “incel-friendly” were thrown around.
Even its inclusion in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival was enough to get people gossiping. (Its sequel, “ Joker: Folie à Deux,” will also be debuting in competition at Venice on Sept. 4.)
At the time, some assumed Phillips had called in a favor.
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