10 Movies That Are Popular For All The Wrong Reasons
2. Joker
The discourse surrounding Todd Phillips' Joker was exhausting long before the movie even came out, as folk on all sides of the political spectrum worked themselves up into a frenzy.
On one hand, it's a gritty, elevated origin story for Batman's most iconic foe with a terrific, Oscar-winning performance by Joaquin Phoenix, but for many, they perhaps over-identified with Phoenix's troubled comedian Arthur Fleck.
Joker has been vocally embraced by the self-called "incel" community, who seemingly found kinship with Fleck as a rage-filled social outcast driven to violence.
But it probably shouldn't need to be said that Fleck is anything but a figure to be idolised - a fascinating, brilliantly performed one, for sure, but absolutely not one worthy of unironic, uncritical lionisation as he has been.
Fleck is certainly sympathetic to a point and the film is most effective in underlining society's failures in supporting its most vulnerable people, but for the character to be held up as a genuine emblem for impotent male rage is rather concerning in its own right.