We’ve been hearing a lot about the hot new movie “Joker,” and how some theaters are hiring police guards for showings in case some nutcase is inspired by the movie to shoot up the audience.  Having just seen it, that strikes me as a bit of a reach.

What follows is a “gun guy’s” perspective on it. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want me to spoil it for you – stop reading now, go see the movie, and then come back and read this, knowing that you are always welcome to comment here.

Brain-damaged by a beating he received as an abused child, the guy who will later become Batman’s nemesis is a loner with strange habits who not only never receives the approval he craves, but instead is abused by all around him, including a government which abandons him via budget cuts and leaves him without counseling or psyche meds. He gets stomped, with his crotch and ribs kicked in by a bunch of street punks. 

The storyline riffs on the Bernhard Goetz shooting in New York City in the 1980s. A young man who had been mugged and denied a carry permit illegally acquired a Smith & Wesson Chief Special .38 to carry, and when surrounded on a subway car by four young black muggers, put a bullet into each and fled at the next subway stop. None died, though one was paralyzed for life, and by the time Goetz turned himself in, he had become a hero among New Yorkers who were fed up with the street crime which was rampant in that city at that time.

“Joker” is set in Gotham City, plainly an analog for NYC, supposedly in 1981.  The Joker is on a subway car when he is assaulted by a trio of drunken, entitled white Yuppies who beat him without mercy.  He draws his Smith & Wesson Chief Special and proceeds to shoot all three in self-defense, killing two and hitting the third in the leg. At that subway car’s next stop, the wounded one flees and the Joker pursues, shooting him in the back and then standing over him to deliver a coup de grace, turning self-defense to murder. He escapes, and the incident triggers a supportive “kill the rich” response in the city.  I suspect Millennial-age viewers won’t get the contorted parallel to the Goetz case.

Unlike Goetz, however, the Joker then goes on a murder spree. The guy who gave him the gun and lied about it is stabbed to death (throat and eye) by the Joker. Learning that his elderly, beloved mother had lied to him about many things, he smothers her in her hospital bed, and then shoots to death on camera a local TV comedian who has mocked him.  Before he is captured and sent to the asylum, the Joker has become a hero to rioting “have-nots.”

The movie is very well acted and filmed, and I’m sure those who predict Oscars for it are correct. To me, the message is that when the media glorifies someone who kills, it sets the stage for more violence to happen.

Of course, we gun nerds always look at details. The Chief Special is a five-shot revolver. In the actual Goetz case, the gun was emptied with one bullet going into the ceiling of the subway car and one apiece into each of his attackers.  Without being seen to reload, the Joker manages to get considerably more than five shots out of his Chief Special, but hey, we shooters get picky about that sort of thing.

The color scheme of the patrol cars is true to NYPD, but the cops’ uniform shirts are wrong for that department during that period, as are the duty belts.  And one thing I can’t blame the movie for: Internet Movie Firearms Database, which is usually spot on for this sort of thing, mis-identified the Joker’s gun as a Colt Detective Special.  That’s like mistaking Robert Mitchum’s ’57 Ford for a ’57 Chevy in the movie “Thunder Road”: just unacceptable to us nerds. http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Joker_(2019)

IMFDB lists the Joker’s gun as a Colt Detective Special…
…But in the movie it’s clearly a Smith & Wesson Chief Special. Internet Movie Firearms Database rarely makes such mistakes.

31 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks, Mas. I’m going to watch the movie tomorrow, Sunday, but I don’t mind being “spoiled.” Also, I saw a promo on FoxNews for a documentary about “Bernhard Goetz: The Subway Vigilante,” airing tomorrow night at 8pm Eastern time, on the FoxNews Channel. Now I see the tie-in, and I have always been intrigued by that case. I am old enough to remember when it happened, and yes, people cheered for Bernie. If I invented a gun, I would name it after Bernhard Goetz; a brilliant man whose life was ruined by Ron Kuby and the criminal IN-justice system.

  2. We see the Joker being shaped by his environment. The same theme occurred with John Rambo (I’ve only seen the movies, never read the book). Rambo was supposedly trained by our government to be a killer in Vietnam, came home, and because of PTSD from the war and his training, goes on a killing spree. However, the movies are careful to keep Rambo’s killing within the bounds of justice, in my opinion. In other words, Rambo only kills “bad guys,” or good guys who are acting unjustly against Rambo. But the Left really believes if you are trained to kill in war, your moral compass may malfunction. See “Leonard Lawrence” in Full Metal Jacket. Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann trained Leonard to kill, and Leonard ended up killing the Sergeant, then committing suicide. Leonard was verbally abused by the Gunny, and ridiculed by his fellow Marines. So, he is another character shaped by his environment.

    As TN_MAN has reminded us, Leftists think people are born good, but their environment causes them to choose evil. Remove the evil things (like guns) from the environment, and we will have better people, according to the Left. So this idea makes it to the movies, which is fine, because movies can be about anything. They are “fantasies” even if they depict reality.

    I would like to see a movie where American cops go on strike for a week. In real life, cops are not allowed to go on strike, but it would make an interesting movie.

    How about a film where Sharia Law takes over America? It would be so much fun to watch American women adapt to Sharia Law.

    • A movie about Sharia law in America? I can see it as a Quentin Tarantino blockbuster, but the contortions of the Hollywood Left would be astonishing.

      I’d love to see that movie. Great idea, even if it will never happen.

      • I dunno.. the way some things seem to be headed, the Nightly News may well be a sort of serialised film on precisely that topic. Ithink if a film on that subject were to include a realistic portrayal of some true patriots, organised somewhat along the lines of the “committees of correspondence” and “mechanics” we read about working with Paul Revere, and some very creative “assymetrical warfare” to counter the shariah imposers, it might be useful as a polictical statement… it just might be a great film but bring in some interesting perspectives that might mitigate against shariah ever being admopted in these here parts…… might serve as a sort of cautionary warning, and a means of awakening the sleeping massess that now might just think shariah won’t be all that bad, and if it gets THEM to calm down maybe we should adopt it…. by portraying how bad it really will be, and what is likely to happen if it does come.

      • Tionico,

        You wrote, “…might serve as a sort of cautionary warning, and a means of awakening the sleeping masses…” That’s exactly what I had in mind.

        The same thing would happen if a movie were made where we get to see what America would really be like if the Left got their way. Obviously we already have Detroit and San Francisco as a preview of coming attractions, so writing that script won’t take much imagination.

        I could go on and on, but I think I’ll be brief for a change.

    • @ Roger Willco – “As TN_MAN has reminded us, Leftists think people are born good, but their environment causes them to choose evil. Remove the evil things (like guns) from the environment, and we will have better people, according to the Left.”

      You beat me to my own punch! As I read Mas’ description of the plot for this movie, I was thinking “Left-Wing to the MAX”. The whole thing follows the leftist belief in the “Blank Slate”. In other words, that humans are born as a blank slate. The slate is then filled out by their life experiences and environment which end up totally shaping the kind of person they grow to be. No individual responsibility. No control over your own fate. You are just an automaton shaped by environmental and societal pressures.

      Look how this is portrayed in this movie. The Joker’s mental problems are cause by child abuse which is a standard issue and justification for the Left. Firearms are the next environmental factor blamed. Hand a gun to the Joker and it turns him into a murderer. The gun is just another factor pushing him toward evil. The Left-wing favorite of “Class Struggle” (poverty caused by capitalism) also seems to be a theme.

      Hollywood is heavily left-wing so it is not surprising that they make movies that are intended to be “morality tales” to illustrate leftist ideology. The Left has been using literature and movies, as propaganda tools, for a long time now. Heck, the classic Dickens tale entitled “A Christmas Carol (1843)” is also nothing but pure leftist propaganda. Like the Joker, Ebenezer Scrooge was totally shaped by his environment. The entire purpose of the “Ghost of Christmas Past” was to examine his childhood and young adulthood so as to show that child abuse (abandonment by his father) and capitalism shaped him into the miser that he became. Dickens was a bit more positive with his propaganda. He used the ghosts of Christmas Present and Future as environmental inputs to “re-program” Scrooge into a model left-wing activist (a sort of early version of a Social Warrior 🙂 ) who then uses his money to fight the negative environmental effects caused by Capitalist poverty.

      So, this Joker movie is nothing new. Just another Left-wing propaganda piece from our Marxist comrades in Hollywood!

    • @ Roger Willco – “I would like to see a movie where American cops go on strike for a week. In real life, cops are not allowed to go on strike, but it would make an interesting movie.”

      Maybe not as interesting as you think. Back in 1975, the police force in Albuquerque, NM went on strike for 10 days.

      What do you think happened? A great many of the residents of the city armed themselves. There were people “Open Carrying” all over the place.

      The result? The crime rate went DOWN! The criminals were afraid to “pull off jobs” because they were afraid some armed citizen would “blow them away”. The crooks were actually glad when the strike ended so that they could go back to “business as usual”.

      Even that bastion of left-wing ideology, the New York Times, had to (reluctantly) admit the drop in the crime rate. However, they fought against the idea that Armed Citizens were the cause of it. See this story from their archives:

      https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/24/archives/rate-of-crime-believed-lower-in-albuquergues-police-strike.html

      I need to give credit to Mas for my knowledge of this incident. He informed the class about it during a recent MAG20 course that I attended.

  3. Society seems to now relish:
    Unnecessary Violence
    Unnecessary Objections to Traditional Norms
    Unnecessary (fill in the blank)
    Concealed carry appears to be evolving to less of an option.

    • Had David Clarke still been that sheirff, I’ll bet he’d have been up in the last row, immidiately under the projector ports, sitting back and enjoying the onscreen fare, yet ready to respond should any “funy business” erupt.

  4. Movies are wonderful, but they are only entertainment and have to be taken as such. As with the Saturday morning cartoons in the early 50s, I knew better then and anyone with half a brain should know better now. Stop “sanitizing” entertainment to protect us. Even very young children understand that Wile E. Coyote is an idiot.

    My partner and I (off-duty, plain clothes) attended the first local screening of “Dirty Harry”. We became something of a spectacle sliding out of our seats and laughing when Eastwood pulled that four-pound hand cannon from a shoulder holster and set out to get the bank robbers. Totally unrealistic, but great cinema.

    I love movies, but I AND MOST OTHER PEOPLE are acutely aware of the difference between reality and make-believe.

    • Craig, too much inaccurate awareness-of-what-reality-is does obtain in this world. After working in various teaching roles with literally thousands of young people in public and private schools, I began to yearn for a special course for the young on discriminating imaginary from real. I have vivid memories of the confusion that some kids had, especially regarding vengeful violence.

      • Strategic Steve,

        One good idea is for people to go on TV/movie studio tours in Hollywood, CA and Orlando, FL. They reveal their secrets on those tours.

        You could teach children about advertising. Point out how the ads are aimed at the audience believed to be watching the show. Sports programs have ads mostly aimed at men, soap operas have ads mainly aimed at women, cartoons aim ads at kids. Ads are more important than shows to TV producers, because that’s where the money is made. The purpose of a TV show is to draw eyeballs to look at commercials.

        The thing which helped me to break out of my entertainment “spell” the most was teaching my brain to think like a businessman. Businessmen have to be concerned with reality, with what works.

  5. The cost of going to any movie these days is outrageous I will use my money for ammo for my grandson to use up shooting his 10-22.

  6. Thanks Mas, you saved me the cost of admission. Plus if I cannot carry I do not go and many of the theater’s have gone to security with wands or metal detectors.

  7. Hard to get excited about any comic book movie, they’re always so hyper-melodramatic and silly. People don’t act or become motivated like that in real life, nor do they make those kind of dumb decisions. As noted in many films, the hero or villain usually has to make at least a few obviously stupid decisions that defy common sense to move the plot along. I don’t expect perfection from films, but comic books movies are the worst at this. Pretty much unwatchable, unless you really dig unnecessary violence and physics-defying goofball fantasy action.

    • RS, except for the name of the title character and a bit of a prequel to the Batman franchise, this movie is really more of a character study and a descent into madness than one of the comic book movies.

  8. A friend who saw the movie said that Denerio when shot had the whole audience sheering and clapping. Of course your mileage may vary according to locale.

  9. I have soon to be 8 year old twins. The last movie I saw in the theater, my wife was pregnant. You know what? I don’t miss them. Too loud to the point or distortion, sticky floors, no pause button to go pee, no rewind button when I couldn’t tell what was said. No carry, no dinero. I can home carry an M1A if I feel like it!

  10. From the photos Mas included, one could see in the one showing the revolver being cocked that it has a hammer mounted firing pin, as in the S&W Chief’s Special, but not the Detective Special or any Colt double action revolver of the 20th century.

    I remember being at a Second Chance Shoot in the early 1980’s where Rich Davis had a special Bernhard Goetz match with the shooters using a S&W 36 to blast four targets, and introducing a skinny male attendee wearing glasses who bore a remarkable resemblance to Goetz.

  11. I saw Joker this week and I thought it was awesome. If DC sticks to this kind of movie making, they will be back in the game with super hero/ villain movies. A good pairing would be Christian Bale as Batman but it will probably be a lesser known actor. I bet money on Phoenix getting an award for his performance. Not only was his acting spot on but he lost 52 lbs. for the role. Go see it. Now…..

  12. I seem to recall that one of the young men Goetz shot was armed with a screwdriver.
    Today there would be a call to ban screwdrivers for all but licensed and registered carpenters.

  13. Many will flock to see this wretched movie, but it won’t be me because of my disgust with Hollywood’s force-feeding us such degenerate, violent crapola. Save your money for something worthwhile.

  14. The last movie I saw in the theater was Gran Torino. Don’t care about them anymore. After being my daughter for 2 years fighting her cancer I lost all interest in TV. Every time I watch some it seems to be politically motivated and bad humor to me. Thanks for the run down Mas. It reaffirms what I figured.

  15. I saw “Joker” yesterday. It is indeed a “descent into madness” for the Joker and a descent into chaos for Gotham City. But I only have one additional comment. Holy smoke! How many cigarettes were puffed away by that Clown Prince of Crime?!

  16. Hollywood loves to make millions of dollars from gratuitous violence while simultaneously championing gun control and vilifying gun owners as domestic terriorists. As such, I pay no attention to the latest violent offerings from these hypocrites. Extra security at theaters won’t hurt, especially since theater owners are anti Second Amendment as evidenced by the proliferation of “No Weapons” signs. We all know how effective those have been. If security discourages one insane mass shooter, it’s worth it.

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