The Batman's Riddler Repeats Joker's Villain Trick - So Why No Backlash?
Warning! Spoilers for The Batman
Matt Reeves’ The Batman frames Riddler (Paul Dano) like Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in Todd Phillips’ Joker, but without the ensuing backlash. The Batman villain’s origin story was critically acclaimed, but many had issues with the overall message. In seeking to humanize and understand the Joker, some critics believed that Phillips’ film condoned, rather than condemned his actions. Abandoned by his biological father, let down by social services, and overlooked in a city with an increasing wealth divide, Joker suggests that Arthur Fleck and – by association – other angry, lonely men have no other choice but to turn to violence.
In The Batman, Edward Nashton/Riddler wages a violent campaign of retribution against the corrupt figures at the heart of Gotham’s elite. In doing so he, like Arthur Fleck, inspires others to take a similarly violent stand against the city’s powerful figures. Responses to Robert Pattinson's new Batman film have been divisive, but even so, it hasn’t experienced the same backlash as Joker.
RELATED: The Batman Continues Joker 2019's Biggest Wayne Change
The Phillips film clearly owed a debt to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Director Martin Scorsese, who was also a producer on Joker, criticized the ways in which society instigates and venerates violence with his 1976 film. The negative reaction to Joker was as much about Phillips’ fumbled execution of similar thematic concerns as it was about the clash of New Hollywood ideals with a burgeoning 21st-century fascination with the idea of “ethical filmmaking.” Rather than upholding its villain as a tragic protagonist, as Joker does, The Batman avoids this backlash by unquestioningly condemning the Riddler’s actions.
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