On October 4th, 2019, “JOKER” was released to theaters and with it several controversies over the film. Directed by Todd Philip, and starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck a.k.a The Joker. This nearly billion dollar movie has become the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time, and has hit the box office and its audience like a taxi cab. 

The Reasoning behind the film’s  hard R-rating is it’s main focus, being Arthur’s Slow descent into madness and insanity. This one-off film is different from most of the other DC films as it takes the famous darkness of their films up twelve notches. It is also important to take note that “JOKER” is said to not be connected to the DCEU, or Ben Affleck’s Batman at all. Keeping this in mind, with its R-rating came both an absolutely beautiful story shining some light on the dark moments of Arthur’s childhood. However, the film has also inspired lots of controversy on if the film is a sort of political symbol, or push for violent acts.

The weeks leading up to the film’s debut brought dozens of threats of attacks during showings The controversies have had viewers questioning the validity of the claims.

“JOKER doesn’t inspire violence or violent acts, it’s telling a story. A dark one at that, but it definitely doesn’t inspire violence.” freshman Garett Henderson said. 

Henderson watched it opening weekend, despite knowing of the shooting threats for showings of the film.

“The darkness of the film is really important to telling the story though,” Henderson said, “it isn’t like a kid’s show or something, it’s a mature movie about a guy deserted by society.”

A major moment from the film is when Arthur, the protagonist, dances and jumps down a long flight of concrete stairs while the song “Rock and Roll part II” plays. The major controversy about this scene though is the song, more specifically the artist behind it. Gary Glitter was a musician and convicted pedophile. He is the mind behind the “anthem of insanity” that plays during this beautiful movie, but is not being paid royalties for the song.

  “It’s just a song, and not one with “pedophilic” lyrics,” freshmanPalmer Herd said, “I wouldn’t replace it either, it just fits the scene. The song fits the character as a whole.”

One of the actors, Josh Pais, talked about Phoenix’s one rule on set . That one rule being, “just make sure everybody is a really good actor – and no a**holes.”

“I think it’s a fair rule. One I’d actually use in everyday life,” Henderson said.

With all the controversies and threats of attacks, teens and adults have gone out of their way to see this masterpiece of film. Earning millions of dollars, thousands of people are calling Phoenix’s performance “Oscar worthy”, Joker is for sure a film that will not soon be forgotten.