The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 344 - National Cowards Association

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

The NBA is groveling to communist China in one of the most striking displays of corporate cowardice ever witnessed. Also, women are failing the Army's combat fitness test. Is there something wrong with the test or are men and women just built differently? And I give my thoughts on "Joker," a movie the media can't stop panicking over. Date: 10-08-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, I'm back. It's good to be back. As you know, I now have one more kid than I had the last time we spoke. We've experienced child inflation, which I guess makes it sound like our kids are getting fat. What I mean is that we had a baby. So another one, that's the fourth one. And I want to thank everyone, first of all, have sent nice emails and messages over the last few days. And there were a lot of people sending things, well wishes and prayers and prayers. congratulations and everything. And it does mean a lot to me and I really appreciate it. My wife appreciates it too. So I thank you for that. To those who have been asking, yeah, the delivery went very well. At least from my perspective, it went well. I, you know, I was more in a spectator role. So I didn't have quite as much to do. So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, I thought it was actually pretty easy, to be honest. But and the baby's healthy. My wife is healthy at the end of it. That's the main thing. I will say, you know, we went in on Wednesday for an induction because the doctor said they needed to induce for a few medical and health reasons they were going to induce the birth.

And but that process took about 12 hours. It was a 12 hour thing. It was actually so long that I left halfway through. I was sent by my wife, I should say. She sent me to go buy a board game. I went to a bookstore. actually I left the hospital. So this was technically during labor. I left the hospital during labor to go by a board game that we could play while this whole process was happening. And I got Stratigo, by the way, great game.

I'll tell you, there was there was just one little sort of hiccup, I guess, one dicey moment that I'll tell you about. And that happened actually on the way to the hospital because we were driving there and my wife was talking about the difficulties of labor, you know, how hard it is and everything. And so I was trying to be sympathetic and I'm listening, but I'm trying to listen and be sympathetic, but also respond, right?

It's a two-way conversation. So I observed very helpfully, I think, that the reason why labor is hard for women is that human females are unique, among the large mammals in that they have very small, relatively small birth canals, and the baby's heads are relatively large. And that's sort of a unique thing. That's the point I was trying to make. It's really just sort of a biological observation. But the only thing that my wife latched on to is she paused for a minute and she said, wait, so you're telling me I'm a large mammal. Is that what you're saying? And I said, no. I mean,

Well, yes, I'm saying that, but that's not, it's, I mean, not, you're not the largest, not like a hippo or something. I didn't mean, but not like that. I'm saying that it's just, it's, it's, I'm saying technically humans are large mammals, okay? That's all I'm trying to say. Anyway, she took me out of context. It was a total fake news moment. And so we went, everything else turned out, okay. And the baby's here now, and we're just enjoying, you know, the opportunity to not sleep. because the baby's on a fun schedule where she sleeps the entire day and then she wakes up at about 1115 and then stays awake the entire night. And so that's been a lot of fun.

And that's the thing about infants is that I've had four of them now. And I can say from experience, infants are really easy to deal with from about 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. they're extremely easy in that time frame because they just lie around. They don't do anything. They just lie there. They aren't going to literally climb the walls like my six-year-old son. And they're not going to scream because they can't find their Paul Patrol pajama pants like my three-year-old son.

And they're not going to talk back like my six-year-old daughter. They're not going to do any of that. They just lie there thinking about whatever babies think about. But then at night, that's when they sort of clock in. So at nighttime, there's a transition where my older kids clock out and they kind of pass the baton to the infant. And they say, okay, we've been annoying mom and dad all day. Now it's your turn. And then that's when the infant comes to life.

And she says, all right, I'm ready to do this. Let's do it. And so then we don't sleep all night. Which is why, and this is the last thing I'll say, this is what it's really leading to. When people come to me and they ask for parenting advice, which for some, god-awful reason happens a lot. This is what I always say. Here's my advice. And it's a really important tip. You're not going to hear this a lot of places.

Be rich. That's my advice. Just be rich. As rich as possible. I mean, a multimillionaire at the least. Because if you're rich, then you can hire a night nurse to take care of the kid at night and then you can sleep. And then even during the day, you can hire a nanny. And so you don't really have anything to do. That's what makes parenting the easiest. You might not expect that, but if you can hire someone to do everything, then you don't have to do anything. So just be rich. That's my advice. I admit that I have not taken my own advice in that regard. But if you can do it, I would say definitely be rich. Choosing between the two options, not rich are rich, just be rich. That's my slogan in life.

All right, let's get into the news. I want to talk first about corporate cowardice, because there's a lot of it these days. But this thing with the NBA and China is just, it's such a perfect encapsulation of corporate cowardice in so many ways. Now, let's back up for a moment. If you haven't been paying attention to this story, over the weekend, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Darrell Mori tweeted out, well, he tweeted out support for the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. It was just a little graphic. And the graphic said, fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.

That's it. That's all he said. Pretty simple message. And most people in this country agree with it because we're all fans of freedom, at least in theory. In practice, many of us are not quite so much. But in theory, we all think that freedom's a great thing. Well, China is, of course, a communist country, and they're run by a regime that is not a fan of freedom in theory or practice. They're just really not into the whole freedom thing.

And the other thing about China is that they love the NBA. And they especially love the Houston Rockets because Yao Ming, a great Houston Rocket, is Chinese. He retired a while ago, of course, but his time on the Rockets made that team. one of the favorites in China. So they still love, they still love the NBA and they love the rockets. As it happens, Ming is now the president of the Chinese Basketball Association, and he came out with the Chinese government to express their hurt feelings over this little tweet that just said support, what it was a fight for freedom. China got their feelings hurt because you don't, the F word just is not, you can't say that in China.

They didn't like it at all. And neither did the NBA because they make a lot of money from China. So the NBA immediately issued a statement hoping to patch things up by prostrating themselves in front of the communist regime of China and licking their boots. And here's what the NBA said. Just a remarkable display of cowardice. The NBA said, we recognize. We recognize. that the views expressed by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable. While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them. We have a great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports in the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge

cultural divides and bring people together. And then Mori himself, don't make the mistake of thinking that he stuck to his guns and held the line. He didn't do that at all. He dropped his guns, and he fled from the line at the speed of light, essentially. And he issued his own statement. This is what he said. He said, I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to rocket fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought based on one interpretation of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunities since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided, and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was

not my intention. My tweets are my own, and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA. Remember what the initial thing was? He just said fight for freedom. That's all it was. So now he has apparently heard other perspectives about freedom. He's heard from the anti-freedom crowd. And I guess they made some really good points about how freedom actually isn't that good. And so now he's reconsidering. And he's saying, listen, I thought freedom was good. I thought I was in favor of it.

But I've listened to, you know, totalitarian Chinese communists. And they raise some good points. And so now I just look, you know, there are two sides to this thing. And he's not the only one who's listening to both sides of the freedom versus tyranny discussion. Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors and someone who is usually very outspoken about political issues and usually cannot wait to jump in and insert himself into all kinds of issues that have nothing to do with basketball. Well, now you have a political issue that does have something to do with basketball. It is directly associated with the NBA.

And so you would think that Steve Kerr would be eager to, he would just be chomping at the bit to, to champing at the bit actually as the, it's not chomping at the bit as the incorrect phrase there. Anyway, he would just be eager to get in there and say something. But that actually isn't how it worked out. Here's what he was asked if he has a comment on the China situation. And here's what he said. Actually, I don't. I mean, it's a really bizarre international story. A lot of us don't know what to make of it.

So it's something I'm reading about, and just like everybody is, but I'm not going to comment further. Oh, he's reading about it, you see. He's reading about whether China's suppression and persecution of pro-demonial. protesters is good or not. So he's doing some reading. He's considering the angles, you see, and he doesn't want to comment. It would be irresponsible for him to comment. Now, just for comparison sake, just for fun and for comparison, let's reminisce about how Steve Kerr responded after the election of Donald Trump. Now, with something like that, a U.S. election, First of all, it has nothing directly to do with the NBA.

Second, there are certainly multiple sides. It's a complicated issue. You could do a lot of reading about it. But on that, Kerr was very eager to share his opinions. And here's what he said about that. For me, probably the biggest disappointment with this whole election was the level of discourse. You know, there should be some level of decorum and respect and dignity. that goes with the election of the presidency.

And it was like went out the window. And maybe we should have seen it coming over the last 10 years. You know, you look at society, you look at what's popular. You know, people are getting paid millions of dollars to go on TV and scream at each other, whether it's in sports or politics or entertainment. And I guess it was only a matter of time before it spilled into politics. But, you know, then all of a sudden you're faced with the reality that the man who's going to lead you is as routinely used racist and misogynist, insulting words. That's a tough one.

That's a tough one. And I, you know, I wish him well. I hope he's a good president. I have no idea what kind of president he'll be because he hasn't said anything about what he's going to do. We don't know. But it's tough when you, when you, when you, when you, when you want there to be some respect and dignity and there hasn't been any. And this goes on for several minutes, by the way. He goes on and on. And there have been many other rants from Kerr about Trump. He is, again, very willing to pontificate about that, but not on China. Meanwhile, other Rockets players like James Hardin have joined in the boot-licking fest. Now, Hardin was, let me play this clip. He, I think they were in Tokyo.

for exhibition game or something. And this is what he had to say about China. Yeah, we apologize. You know, we love China. We love, you know, playing there. I know for both of us individually, we go there, you know, once or twice a year. They show us the most important love. So, you know, we appreciate them as a fan base.

And we love everything, you know, they're about. And, you know, we appreciate the support that they give us individually. and as an organization. So, you know, we love you. Of course, all of this groveling amounts to nothing, as usual, because there are still boycotts now in China, and China's state-controlled media is dropping NBA games. So as I always say with these situations,

that, number one, you should never apologize for the truth in the first place, no matter the consequences. If what you said is true and right, supporting freedom is true and right. You shouldn't apologize. But even on a more pragmatic level, it won't matter if you do. It never does. Because whether you're apologing to communists or you're apologizing to the American left, and that's basically a distinction without a difference, they're not going to forgive you anyway. So there's no point you might as well just say, hey, I said it. I'd say it again. You might as well take that approach because it won't matter.

grovel and apologize and and kiss their feet. And it will make no difference. And that's what's happening here. By the way, I read about that, the backlash in China, how they're still boycotting and dropping games or anything. I read about it in a Yahoo article. Actually, I think it's an AP article that Yahoo is running. But with a very bizarre headline, here's the headline of this article. It says NBA Chief Silver stands firm as China backlash mounts. And here's the lead. The National Basketball Association won't gag its personnel or apologize over a team executives' tweet that ignited a firestorm in China.

Commissioner Adam Silver insisted Tuesday standing firm despite a growing backlash that imperils the league's lucrative Chinese following. Now, wait a second. The NBA did apologize. I just read it to you. It might not have said the words we apologize, but that was definitely an apology. And they are clearly gagging their personnel. There's a reason why.

It's not a coincidence that the NBA players are either saying nothing, refusing to comment, or coming out and apologizing. So the AP or Yahoo is running cover for the NBA, which itself is running cover for a communist regime. So duplicity and cowardice just abound in this case. I call this a perfect encapsulation of corporate cowardice precisely because of this comparison between the NBA's approach to Trump and its approach to China. Because if you're an NBA coach or a player, there is no downside to attacking Donald Trump. All your friends are going to agree with you. Many of the fans will agree.

everyone on the team's going to agree. So the media will certainly agree, and they're going to celebrate whatever you say. So you risk nothing by criticizing him. In fact, you may actually risk something by not criticizing him. To fail to join the chorus criticizing Trump, if you're in the NBA, if you're in a position like that, that could actually be where the risk comes in. Yet with China, okay, now there's something on the line. because China has a lot of money and a lot of power and a lot of influence, obviously, standing up against them, really standing up against them.

Not the fake stance that Yahoo is pretending the NBA is taking, but really standing up would be risky. And that's why all of these outspoken, these supposedly outspoken players and coaches and personnel, they've all run for the hills because they want nothing to do with this. I think the word courage is way overused in our society. And there are so many people who get credit for saying supposedly courageous things. If you look at what they had to say, whether what they said was true or not,

there's no courage in it because they didn't risk anything in saying it. It's only courageous. Taking a stance is only courageous. It can only be courageous if you are really, risking something. But if you are, if what you're going to say it will be appealing to all of the people who you need to appeal to, there's no courage there. So this is just utterly shameful, disgraceful, cowardice. And, you know, all of the, the kneeling and everything that happened in the NFL, and there was a little bit of it of it in the NBA. Certainly,

NBA players supported have been outspoken in their support for the kneeling that happened in the NFL. Well, again, if these players really want to have courage and if they really care about standing up against oppression, which is supposedly what that whole anthem stunt was about, well, you know, now they'll all link arms and make some kind of demonstration against China because that is going to take guts. If they really cared about it, if all that anthem stuff was anything more than just a publicity stunt,

then these players are going to come out and make a meaningful stance against China. But of course, we know it all was a publicity stunt. So they're going to remain silent and take their marching orders and just go along with it. All right, a couple other things. This was kind of funny.

to mention it briefly, a guy named David W. Brown. I have no idea who he is, but he has a blue checkmark on Twitter, so he must be important. And he wrote an article lamenting the fact that women are failing, apparently, the Army Combat Fitness Test. And here's his sort of summary on the link that he posted on Twitter, said, leaked slides reveal the catastrophic failure of the Army combat fitness test. If 84% of women are failing your physical fitness test, 72% in a single preposterous event, you're not trying to make a stronger army. You're trying to force women out. So 84% of women are failing this test. And it says in the article that 70% of men are passing, so that's 30% are failing. That's almost three times as many women failing as men.

Now, what does that tell you? Well, It tells you that women are built differently, that women are not as strong as men. It further tells you that most women are not physically suited for combat. That's literally what it tells you, right? It's the combat fitness test. So if most women are failing it, it would seem to mean that most women are not fit for combat, which is not a big surprise. But how is this all manipulated and twisted? Brown says, no, you see, it's not women failing the test. It's the test failing women. That's what he says. If women fail it, well, then there must be something wrong with the test. Now, if 84% of women were passing the test, then we would say, oh, this is the best, greatest test, it's a wonderful test. This test proves that men and women are equal. In fact, women are better than men. So if women, if the tests were getting the results that the left wants, then we would be told that this is the greatest and most accurate physical fitness test of all time. But it's not. And so, no, there's

something wrong with the test. Forget about it. And that, you know, I guess I can't really quibble with the logic because that's the exact same argument I tried to make in high school all the time, you know, where I would say, yes, teacher, this test, this math test seems to be broken or something because I got I got I you know I got every question wrong I got a zero percent so there's something wrong with it oh what's that I'm I'm just stupid you're saying okay well maybe that's it could be that or could be either way so this is just how desperate people are to avoid basic biological realities which is that men women are different men are stronger and that's it and of course ironically what ends up happening is

in this effort to protect women or to get women involved or whatever they're trying to do, you end up undermining the women who are really exceptional. Because, yeah, 84% of women are failing this test. But that means that 16%, I can still do the math on this one. I think 16%, right? 84 plus 16. That means 16% of women are passing it, which means that those women are really exceptional. So if you change the test and you make it easier, then all you've been, done is you have undermined the achievement of these really exceptional women.

Let's see. A couple other things. Oh, here, so I saw this headline from CNN. I just, I don't really have anything to say about it. I just wanted to point it out. The headline is dog owners are 24% less likely to die for any reason, but the life prolonging benefits are even higher for anyone with cardiovascular disease according to two new studies. I just, I couldn't, I saw that online today and I couldn't pass it over. Dog owners are 24% less likely to die for any reason. So, no, I haven't looked at the study. And I hate to be the guy who contradicts scientific findings without actually researching them.

I admit I haven't done my research on this. I do, though, have to doubt whether dog ownership actually imbues immortality into the dog owner, because that's what that headline would seem to, if you're less likely to die for any reason, then, so that would be you're immortal, I guess. And anyway, if, but here's the thing, even if that's true, that as long as you own a dog, you'll be immortal, again, I have some issues. I suspect there's some problems with the methodology of this study. But even if that's true, I would say that, well, maybe mortality isn't so bad then because I'd rather be dead than live with a dog for all eternity. So it's kind of a catch-22. It's like, yeah, you can live forever, but you've got to have this hairy beast around you at all times for all eternity. In that case, I would say, you know what, death isn't so bad, actually. Death is a little bit underrated, you might say. All right.

Speaking of CNN, they have, CNN has been completely obsessed with this Joker movie. Now, as you know, leading up to the release of the film, the Joker movie came out over the weekend. Leading up to the release of it, the media, not just CNN, but the media in general, the mass media, they were really rooting hard for a mass shooting to happen at one of these screenings. And I know that may sound harsh to say that they were rooting for a shooting, but I don't know how else to characterize it. Because story after story, headline after headline, I'm sure you saw them, talking about the worries and fears and everything

that someone might shoot up a Joker screening, that it might inspire violence and so on. And why is that? Where were they getting this from? Why did they randomly decide that we should be worried that this specific movie is going to inspire violence and there's going to be a mass shooting at a movie theater? Is it because of the Colorado theater shooter who dressed in Joker, cost makeup and said he was the Joker? Well, no, it couldn't be that because the Colorado theater shooter actually didn't dress like the Joker and didn't claim to be the Joker and didn't do or say anything associated with the Joker. at all. That was, maybe you didn't know that. A lot of people still don't. That whole thing about the Joker shooter, he said he was there. That was all, that didn't, that didn't have the shooting happened,

but he never said he was the Joker. That was invented by the media. That was a media narrative that they invented, I guess because it makes the shooting more spectacular. So where did this idea come from that someone might attack a Joker screening? Well, it was also invented by the media. There was no reason to worry about it. But they kept suggesting it in the form of cautions and warnings over and over again saying, oh, gee, I hope someone doesn't shoot up the Joker screen. It would really be a shame if someone shoots up the Joker screening. And then, you know, so how else am I supposed to interpret that?

It would really seem like that's what the media wanted to happen because they kept bringing it up, suggesting it. and then the movie comes out and a bunch of people go see it, it breaks all these records and everything. No violence. Nobody shot up any theater. And so what does the media do? They immediately pivot to other Joker-related concerns. Let me give you an example of, let me give an example of some of the headlines from CNN

over the last few days about the Joker, the Joker movie. I'll read a couple. One is, Joker, the film about a marginalized clown who goes on a killing rampage is facing a wave of criticism that it glorifies a killer and could encourage copycat attacks. Another headline. The true appeal of the new Joker movie lies in its invidious validation of the white male resentment that helped bring President Trump to power. Of course, you got to, by the way, the invidious validations would be a great name for an indie band. But aside from that, of course, we've got to bring Trump into this. Another headline, Joker is a cash grab by a major studio, which capitalizes on intellectual property with 80 years of history. Oh, a cash grab.

Yeah, because of course the Joker movie is the first superhero movie to be a cash grab, right? So, yeah. And then this one was my favorite. This was a headline yesterday last night from CNN says, Rock and Roll Part 2, a song by convicted child sex offender, Gary Glitter, plays for about two minutes as Joaquin Phoenix who plays the Joker. dances down a flight of stairs. That in particular, all of those headlines are ridiculous. That last one, you know, rock and roll part two, nobody even knows.

You hear that name of the song. You don't know what that. But you've heard that song a million times. If you've ever been to any stadium, any sports stadium of any kind, you have heard that song. It plays in every stadium in America at every level. It's the, you know, most people know it as the hay song. That song where it plays a beat and then everyone shouts hey, right?

That's the song. So that's a song that nobody knows the name of it. We've all heard a million times. They played in stadiums across the country. And apparently, news to me, the guy who wrote that song is a sex offender. And so now somehow CNN is trying to make a tie-in between that and the Joker. It's just this is, you talk about grasping at straws. It's completely desperate.

but CNN is not the only one, of course. There's been a lot of talk of Joker glorifying violence and encouraging violence and on and on. Well, I did see the movie. And so I wanted to give my brief thoughts on it and kind of chime in on this whole, on the hype surrounding it and everything. So first of all, as for the hype and the concerns about encouraging violence and all that, well, as I suspected, it was completely unwarred. or unwarranted. Yes, it is a violent movie. It's not even close to the most violent movie to come out. Even, it's certainly not the most violent movie to come out this year. Probably not the most violent movie that will come out this month. It's just, there are tons of violent movies. We could,

we could all name right now off the top of our heads, 50 movies that are more violent than this movie is. And here's just one, for example, John Wick. Okay. Now, like 800 characters. die in every John Wick movie. He just goes around shooting everybody. And yet the media doesn't freak out about violence in John Wick movies nearly to the same degree that they freaked out about Joker. Really, the media is okay with any and all violence in movies and on TV unless it's this particular Joker movie or a Mel Gibson movie. Those are the two times. So they've kind of expanded their repertoire a little bit because usually they they'll say

nothing about violence and movies because they don't care and they just wait for Mel Gibson to come out with the movie and then all of a sudden they care. Oh, it's all this violence and I'll never forget of course Passion of the Christ to be the primary example of this. Passion of the Christ comes out and the media

they're very concerned about the violence. It's so violent. It's so brutal. And it was around the same time that Kill Bill, I think it was either Volume 1 or Volume 2 came out, I think it was in the same year, one of those. And the same media personalities that were lamenting the violence and passionately Christ, they loved Kill Bill. It was critically acclaimed. Meanwhile, there's a scene in that movie, in either Volume 1 or 2, the entire movie is ridiculously violent.

There's a scene in Volume 1 or 2 where the protagonist, Uma Thurman, She, like, she decapitates a hundred people in one. She fights off. I mean, it's a pretty impressive fight scene. But she just is with a sword. She just decapitates one person after another. He just heads rolling all over the place. No problem with that.

That's fine. But this movie is, the violence is too much. So that's the way it goes. Does this movie actually glorify violence? I would say, no. Not at all, actually. I agree that. some movies do glorify violence, and that is a problem. A movie glorifying violence isn't going to cause

real-world violence. It doesn't work that way. It's not a one-to-one causal relationship where somebody goes and they see violence in a movie and they say, oh, I think I want to commit violence also, and then they go out and do it. It's not the way it works. It's much more complicated than that. But people are influenced by the images they see on a screen. And when you go and you watch a movie or you sit down and you watch a TV, you are immersing yourself in this world, the fantasy world, and you're in some sense giving yourself over to it subconsciously, at least. And you're certainly susceptible to being influenced. And so I would agree that it can be a problem when people marinate their minds in all of this stuff that does glorify violence.

But just because there's violence in a movie, that does not mean that the movie is glorifying it. A movie that glorifies violence is a movie that makes it seem cool and fun and sexy. You know, that's a movie that glorifies violence. But Joker does not do that at all. The violence in this movie is it's not fun. It's not funny. It's brutal and it's random and it's disturbing. and it's sad.

The entire movie is very sad. In fact, that's one thing that surprised me about it. I didn't go into it expecting it to be a barrel of laughs, but I was actually surprised by how sad the movie is from the first scene to the last. It's a very sad movie. And that's the way the violence is portrayed. That's how it comes across.

You don't, it doesn't look, there's nothing glorifying about it. You leave the movie feeling like that was very sad to see all of that, which is how you should react to violence. And so violence, I think, in a movie or a show, it's only a problem when it elicits the wrong sort of reaction. As for the quality of the film itself,

well, like everybody says, Phoenix's performance, walking Phoenix as Joker was mesmerizing performance, which is nothing new because walking Phoenix has been one the best and certainly the most interesting actor in Hollywood for a long time. I thought it was very engrossing. It was captivating. It's a character study about a man on the fringes of society, slowly losing his grip on

reality. A man who, as he says in the movie, explaining to a social worker that he, over time, started to question whether he even exists. He started to get this feeling like he doesn't exist. and so the outbursts of violence towards the end of the movie was really about him asserting his existence on the world and saying, hey, look at me, I exist. Which is true to life.

That is, I think what, that's why most mass killers do what they do because they're trying to assert their exist. They're trying to exist to be seen, to be noticed. And which to point that out is not to excuse it by a long shot. It's just to give insight into what drives these disturbed people. It's not a movie for everyone, that's for sure. As I said, there's brutal violence in the movie. It's a slow burn.

It builds tension gradually. It's not an action film. It's not a superhero film, really. And even though it's selling tickets like a superhero film, it's not. And that, I think, that was my takeaway. That I think is the best thing about the movie, is that, basically the filmmakers tricked a mass audience to rush to the theater and watch this movie, to watch essentially an art house character study about a man's descent into madness.

They tricked everyone to go watch this movie by attaching a superhero brand to it, which they didn't need to do. It's not essential to the plot or the story at all. Because the superhero tie-ins, the Batman tie-ins, yeah, there's a few of them, but you could cut that out, and it would do nothing to impair the story whatsoever. It was completely unnecessary, except that it, you know, we are so programmed to,

we want the brand name, we want the superheroes. Those are the only movies that anybody will pay to go see anymore. And so I guess the people behind this movie, they said, all right, okay, if that's the only way we can get people to watch this movie, then we'll just, we'll call it Joker. It's not even a Joker movie. The character's name is Arthur Fleck. So they could cut out a couple scenes with Bruce Wayne's father, take those scenes out,

call it Arthur Fleck instead of Joker. And the problem is that nobody would go see it. You put Joker on it, people go see it. And that is maybe the greatest trick that the Joker has pulled in a sense, you might say, by tricking all these people to go watch a movie that, this movie has no business being a blockbuster. And I don't say that as a criticism. I think it's a good, interesting movie that makes you think.

But it's just, again, you take Joker off, you call it Arthur or something, and it's the kind of movie that would be released in select theaters for a week, and then it would be on demand. So you could watch on Comcast or Netflix or something. It's just, it's that kind of movie. It's not the kind of movie that would normally sell 100 million, whatever it was,

$100 million in the first weekend or whatever it was. And I think that maybe there's more to the branding choice than that even. At one level, it exploits our obsession with brand names and superheroes, an exploitation that I appreciated personally. I thought it was pretty genius. At another level, though, a deeper level, I think maybe the movie is, you could argue,

is saying something about the kind of stylistic violence that we all enjoy in things like superhero movies without ever considering what we're really watching. So this movie's Joker is what a supervillain would be like in real life. Nothing super, really, just a villain. Insane, violent, brutal, a sad, pitiful sort of character, not funny, not silly, no superpowers, nothing like that, just a disturbed and violent man. So maybe this movie is saying to the audience, oh, you want supervillains? Okay, well, well, here you go.

How's this? And then some people recoil and say, well, hey, this is problematic. This is inappropriate. This is violent. Yet normal superhero movies depict death and destruction on a large scale all the time. They just do it without the blood. And they do it with a few one-liners and quips and everything. And so nobody notices.

you're still being exposed to the violence. It's just you don't notice it because you've got Robert Downey Jr. I'm cracking a joke and they don't really have the blood. It's just the building comes down and you imagine there's probably a thousand people inside who just died, but you don't really see it. And so this movie, I think, makes you notice what is actually happening and what the implications really are. I don't think the movie is saying that we shouldn't watch superhero movies. I think it just causes you to stop and think about what you're watching. and why exactly some forms of violence in entertainment disturb you, while others you find whimsical and fun. So it just makes you think in general, and I think that's it's very unusual for a blockbuster film to do that. And so I appreciate it for that reason. And I would say it's worth watching for that reason. I would hesitate to say that I recommend it because I don't think it's a movie for everyone.

And I think there's a lot of people watching this or listening to this who, judging by other emails I've gotten, this probably is not your taste. So, but if you know going in that it is, yes, it's a sad movie. There's brutal moments. There's blood. If you know that going in, you're prepared for that. then I think that there are things you can take from it. And it does, you know, I just think it's, there's not enough of that.

Where you go, you watch a movie in the theater and on the way home, you have something to talk about. You're actually talking about the movie and the issues it brings up and, you know, was it, it just, there should be more of that with movies, I think. And unlike most superhero movies where you go, you watch it, you leave, and five seconds later, you forget what even happened. You couldn't even talk about it because you don't even remember. It was just colors and images and things happening and who knows. So I appreciated it for that reason. All right. We will leave it there.

No emails today. We'll get back to that tomorrow. Matt Walshow.g.m.com is the email address if you want to chime in with your opinion on this movie or anything else we talked about today. And I will talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. and if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review

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