Banning cosplay? What does that accomplish? Are they hoping the potential mass shooters will get demoralized about the ban on cosplay and stay home?
I mean, mass shooters aren’t swayed by the actual law or even the prospect of dying. Do they have some kind of corporate policy that is more powerful than laws and self-preservation instincts? If so, why not just ban mass shootings? What does the international sign for “no mass shootings” even look like? Maybe they think anyone who shirks this cosplay ban is sure to be a bad guy and then they can send in the troops! That doesn’t make any sense either.
This is really confusing and there are more questions than answers.
Maybe they are just authoritarian nutjobs who hate fun. Nah, then it would be landmark dmv, not theaters…
This must be a case of “Somebody do something!” “Ok, we did something.” I hope they also plan to hire an extra rent-a-cop or two on those nights.
OK, the hysteria over this movie has officially crossed into ridiculous. This movie could have come and gone without a whole lot of notice outside of comics fandom and people whining about how it has nothing to do with comics or whatever. But thanks to all the overblown clickbait articles and thinkpieces (mostly by people who haven’t even seen it!) about how dangerous it is and what a threat it is and omg incel Joker omg incel violence, omg omg, it’s not only pushed the alt-right/incel/general angry white dickwinkle community to embrace the movie as their own and triggered their “us vs them!” reflex, it’s also generated the sort of media attention that would incentivize some fucked-up idiot to do something terrible. Congratulations.
(Also, even if, as all signs seem to show, the movie doesn’t glamorize violence or glorify or excuse the actions of its main character, we’re now guaranteed to have a Fight Club situation where the movie says one thing, but a huge segment of the audience just projects their own thing on it.)
(Also: cosplay, seriously? How about banning the thing that shooters use to kill people: guns?)
I believe the problem is that allowing a theater full of Joker cosplay lowers the opportunity cost to dangerous levels. If an incel was contemplating shooting up a theater playing a Joker movie dressed as Joker, there’s an increased chance of a clean getaway if the theater also happened to be full of people dressed as Joker at the time of the incident.
If you don’t think the movie could “push” people into being a specific kind of asshole, why do you think that talking about the movie will “push” people into being a specific kind of asshole?
You’re literally worried that people are “triggering” incels. If that’s a genuine worry, then shouldn’t people consider ways to reduce preventable risks?
That’s blaming the media for the way they might sensationalize the taking of preventative measures. That’s a different complaint than theater owners being careful at the theater, or anyone being concerned about toxic incel culture in the first place.
Instead of banning Joker cosplay they should enforce a mandatory 1 Batman to 1 Joker cosplay ratio. Incels would never identify with a brooding loner, who goes around hurting people in the name of vigilante justice.
That’s not what I was saying at all… What I said was:
All the hysteria about the movie that claims it’s sympathetic to incels/whatever and validates and justifies their violent and toxic thoughts, and claims the movie is dangerous and whatnot, already pushed that particular demographic to identify with the movie and plant their flag in the “this movie is for us and critics are leftist antifa cultural marxist feminazi -insert buzzword here- who are the enemy” camp.
I’m not “literally worried” that people are “triggering” incels. I’m saying that the more hysteric “the left” and “leftist media” gets about the movie, the higher the chance of a particularly unhinged angry white dickwinkle deciding all this attention will provide a good stage for him to do something.
Chances are this movie wouldn’t have generated half of this controversy without the media starting with the “OMG GAIZ THIS MOVIE IS DANGEROUS INCEL BAIT” clickbait sensationalization. It’s exactly the sort of movie that would have generated a few reviews and articles, some rants on the internet from comic book fans/Joker fans, some discussion about whether it’s a comic book movie or not, and that’s it. Now though? Now you have the angry white dickwinkle camp championing it because it “triggers the left” because hey, the left does have this overblown reaction to it, and people who may have passed it on or wouldn’t have strong feelings about it either way, are already forming opinions along their own tribal lines…
…without most people having seen the damn movie.
(5. The word “incel” is starting to lose all meaning. Like, nothing I’ve heard about the movie so far suggests that the movie is about an “incel Joker” or whatever so where did incels come into the picture anyway?)
No, I’m blaming the media for sensationalizing the potential effects of a movie that, in case I need to remind anyone, barely anyone has seen yet, on a certain subset of the audience - and letting the clickbait sensationalization snowball into theater owners actually feeling the need to take measures (as stupid as they are).
Obviously the worst thing about all this is that people feel the need to freak out and take measures and whatnot because anything might actually happen. But the extent of the freaking out over this movie (that barely anyone has seen so far) and the effects of the overblown media hysteria are pretty worrying in and of themselves.
This isn’t really a big deal. We do this sort of thing all the time…banning/barring this or that in the name of safety or security. This is not some slippery slope thing wherein no one will be allowed to wear cosplay again.
This is specifically in response to a movie wherein the lead character is a known sociopath, and an actual shooting incident happened wherein the individual dressed up as said character. This is not any kind of mental gymnastics or pretzel logic here.
I’m hoping this is similar to the Y2K event, where it passes without incident and is looked back on as a whole lot of concern about nothing.
My wife was really looking forward to seeing the movie, and now she doesn’t want to. The threat of fucking fuckers being fucking fuckers fucked it up.
In my mind, the most prudent way to avoid getting caught up in some kind of mass shooting at an opening night of a potentially triggering (no pun intended) movie is to not go to it on opening night. It’s not like it’s only going to show for a single night. My desire to see movies on opening day/night faded away after taking the day off work and waiting in line for hours to see ‘The Matrix 3’. Never again.
I’m wondering if the military, which according to all the paranoid whistleblowing of the last twenty years can see everything everyone ever writes online, might possibly be taking these sociopathic murder fanbois at their word. I could easily believe there’s multiple nests of edgy little shits one-upping each other in chats about how they’re gonna shoot up the place real good just you wait. If you’re going to spy on everyone in the name of public safety, might a well use that information when you get it.
Kinda shitty they only warned military personnel, though. The rest of us can just die in a bloodbath, I guess?
