New Yorker:
"“Joker” reflects political cowardice on the part of a filmmaker, and perhaps of a studio, in emptying out the specifics of the city’s modern history and current American politics so that the movie can be released as mere entertainment to viewers who are exasperated with the idea of movies being discussed in political terms—i.e., to Republicans...
...The trope resembles Hillary Clinton’s reference to many of the supporters of Donald Trump as “deplorables,” a term that was adopted by some as a badge of honor—except in “Joker” the epithet applies rather to radicals on the left, who loom as a menace waiting to happen."
Salon:
"Is this movie really just the biggest-budget Ben Shapiro video? To what extent will misogynistic creeps “feel seen” in this film? "
I think I've mentioned here before, but I look at the rotten tomatoes "ratio" of films, critic score vs viewer score. If the critic score is much higher than the viewer, that's a bad ratio. it's either super artsy, or politically far left. If the viewer score is much higher, it's either an enjoyable popcorn movie, comedy, or in rare cases, a movie with a political right message, or at least anti left. Joker is undoubtedly the latter. 90% viewer, 68% critic. And you don't have to read many of the "rotten" reviews, to know that they feel this movie sends the wrong message.