'Joker: Folie à Deux' Commits the Mortal Sin of Wasting Lady Gaga

The latest in pop-culture news, recaps, and reviews, plus close reads, profiles, interviews, and more from Vulture.com. [Brand Logo]( venice 2024 [Joker: Folie à Deux Commits the Mortal Sin of Wasting Lady Gaga]( What are we even doing here? Photo: Warner Bros. When Joker came out in 2019, it was greeted with a [firestorm of controversy](about its potential to instigate violence that verged on a moral panic. The furor didn’t come out of nowhere. Todd Phillips’s atypical comic-book origin story took place in a Gotham City that resembled 1970s New York and riffed on Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy in telling the story of failed comedian and eventual killer Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). But its depiction of a downtrodden outcast who embraces violence and clown makeup also existed in the orbit of edgelord 4chan memes and the 2012 Aurora mass shooting, which took place at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises. (It wasn’t actually inspired by the DC villain, but, thanks to an [erroneous statement]( from then–New York police commissioner Ray Kelly, continues to be associated with the character anyway.) Joker, thankfully, didn’t turn out to be dangerous. It did turn out to be a hit, an [intentional ideological muddle]( of a movie that didn’t have all that much on its mind but made enough of a show of psychological complexity to brand itself as more sophisticated than the average blockbuster. [read more]( 2024’s Comedians You Should and Will Know 1. [Leslie Liao Was Once Destroyed By an Audience of Children “I hated it, and it was amazing.”]( 2. [Chloé Hilliard Is Funny Because She’s True “A grown man in a thong humbled me.”]( 3. [Skyler Higley Will Inevitably Get All the Trophies “Success is meaningful based on the concept of value within our collective neoliberal psyche, but fuck all that shit, man. Open your mind!”]( 4. [Let Roz Hernandez Judge Drag Race! “I want to host TV shows, podcasts, act, tour as a stand-up for the girls and the gays.”]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( 5. [Malik Elassal Ditches the Side Quests “If I say something offstage and it makes someone laugh, I try to keep the core of it the same.”]( 6. [Brandi Denise Does What She Wants “… And I mean that in the most disrespectful way possible.”]( Devour pop culture with us. [Subscribe now]( to save over 40% on unlimited access to Vulture and everything New York. The Latest TV Recaps • Sunny: [Dōmo Arigatō, Ms. Roboto]( • Bad Monkey: [Magical Intervention]( • The Bachelorette: [It Wasn’t Supposed to Be This Way]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Stories We Think You’ll Like [Anna Sawai: ‘I Have This Weird Confidence’ She could become the first Japanese actress to win an Emmy for her lead performance in Shōgun. But she’s keeping her cool.]( [Opera Singer Anthony Roth Costanzo Can Do It All The countertenor is mounting a one-person adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro at Little Island this fall.]( [Larry Owens Loves to Practice “Rehearsal is limitless options. It’s blue skies. It’s best idea wins.”]( [Dirt Buyer’s Songwriter on How They Handle Performance Anxiety The indie-rock band will be playing Baby’s All Right later this month.]( [So Is Joker: Folie à Deux a Musical or Not? Why did Lady Gaga say the movie isn’t a musical? I can think of a few possible answers.]( By Nate Jones [The Apprentice Gets Dumber the Longer It Goes On Director Ali Abbasi’s portrait of a young Donald Trump never lives up to its strongest performance: Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn.]( By Bilge Ebiri [We Read the New Twilight Book So You Don’t Have To An annotated reading of Midnight Sun.]( By Rebecca Alter [It’s Grotesquerie, Brought to You by Travis Kelce Ryan Murphy’s latest premieres September 25 on FX.]( By Tom Smyth [Todd Phillips ‘Can’t Say Yes or No’ About Joker 3 But he can explain how he “scared” Joaquin Phoenix into doing a sequel in the first place.]( By Nate Jones [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Vulture Games [Today’s Crossword]( 22-Across, Three Letters: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, astrologically Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic, Getty Images (Michael Loccisano, Angela Weiss/AFP) [Today’s Cinematrix]( Can you name an Oscar-winning Forest Whitaker movie? Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty A newsletter about the perpetual Hollywood awards race, for subscribers only. [Sign up]( to get it every week. [Get the Newsletter]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe]( | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2024, All rights reserved