‘Joker’ Director Slams ‘Woke Culture,’ Says It’s Why He Stopped Making Comedies
By Amanda Prestigiacomo - The Daily Wire
“Joker” director Todd Phillips is not a fan of the social justice warriors policing comedy. During an interview for Vanity Fair’s November issue, Phillips fingered so-called “woke culture” for essentially ruining the genre and admitted that he stopped churning out well-liked comedies, such as “The Hangover,” “Road Trip,” and “Old School,” because of the PC-brigade.
Instead, the famed director focused his full attention on drama, such as “Joker,” which, ironically, has also been plagued with controversy largely from the “far-left,” the director recently complained.
“Phillips had found it increasingly difficult, he says, to make comedies in the new ‘woke’ Hollywood, and his brand of irreverent bro humor has lost favor,” the Vanity Fair profile outlined.
“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” Phillips told the magazine. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘F*** this s***, because I don’t want to offend you.’”
“It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter,” the director continued. “You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’”
And that’s exactly what Phillips did: he left comedy. “I’m out,” he said.
The director landed on “Joker” as his latest project because he wanted to make a non-comedic film that was “irreverent.” According to the director, generally speaking, all comedies are “irreverent.”
“So I go, ‘How do I do something irreverent, but f*** comedy? Oh I know, let’s take the comic book movie universe and turn it on its head with this.’ And so that’s really where that came from,” Phillips explained.
Unsurprisingly, some on the social justice Left were none too pleased with Phillips’ commentary on their “activism.”
For example, Rob Tannenbaum, who’s written for New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and other outlets, posted a screenshot of Phillips’ take on “woke culture” and whined, “Sad to learn that Todd Phillips is a jacka** who thinks [social justice warriors] are trying to ruin comedy. Also note use of the word ‘guys.’”
As reported by The Daily Wire earlier in the week, Phillips took a shot at the far-left for their criticism of the film. “Joker” has become a key focus for gun control groups, placing responsibility on Phillips and the film’s actors for potentially triggering a would-be shooter with their art.
“I’m surprised,” the director told The Warp of the gun-control criticism. “Isn’t it good to have these discussions? Isn’t it good to have these discussions about these movies, about violence? Why is that a bad thing if the movie does lead to a discourse about it?”
“I think it’s because outrage is a commodity, I think it’s something that has been a commodity for a while,” Phillips added. “What’s outstanding to me in this discourse in this movie is how easily the far-left can sound like the far-right when it suits their agenda. It’s really been eye-opening for me.”
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Originally Posted by Godfather
