Yes, context matters, but in that sense too, Joker plays it commercially safe. None of the onscreen casualties are aggressively innocent people. No, in real-world morality, none of them deserved to die. But in movie-world, they are the same kind of characters, save for maybe his final implied victim, who you aren’t supposed to mourn when they (for example) fall into the sea, become engulfed in flames or drown in lava in stereotypical disaster movie. They are “safe” victims, either outright villainous or “rude,” chosen for the same reason why Michael Myers didn’t kill that crying baby in Blumhouse’s Halloween sequel. If anything, Joker’s biggest problem, and the source of its “danger,” is that it isn’t transgressive enough.
You can feel the calculation at work to make sure that the film can’t be declared to be sexist, racist or otherwise inflammatory in our current “depiction = endorsement” clickbait media era (not that it stopped us from grasping at straws). Offering a Joker who only kills the rude and isn’t bigoted makes him more of an idealistic protagonist for those who might seem themselves reflected. That said, in a world where racists and anti-Semites took American History X as an endorsement just because Edward Norton’s doomed reformed former neo-Nazi protagonist was taken seriously and looked cinematically cool doing his bad deeds, it may be for the best that Joker didn’t present a more authentically motivated mass murderer.
Moreover, bringing this back to commercial considerations, I would argue that one of the reasons that Joker may leg out is that folks will spread that word that it’s not anywhere near as extreme as it’s been presented since its debut in Venice in late August, and that those on the fence about its content can “handle it” if they have seen their share of R-rated movies. Moreover, if Logan, which features a horrific sequence where an innocent family is slaughtered by a bad guy, can play in China, then there’s nothing in Joker (even the anti-establishment theme focuses on individual wealth at the expense of society in a China-friendly fashion) that would shock China’s film censorship organizations.
That arguable commercial calculation is no different from the choice to make It (the first one) into a glorified, “safe for kids” R-rated Amblin adventure or the choice to make Star Wars: The Force Awakens into a loose rehash of A New Hope. I whined, but they earned $700 million and $2 billion respectively. I’m not about to penalize Joker too much for making commercial concessions that render its story less authentic and/or less uncomfortable, considering the result is a $60 million drama that might top $400 million by Friday. Warts and all, Joker is a ridiculously well-acted visually gorgeous comic book origin story. It’s still a solid three-star entertainment that demands a big screen experience.
Joker is also a commercial product, made by an experienced commercial filmmaker with the intent of making money for a major studio and enhancing an established brand. You can see the ways in which it tries to not cross the line in terms of not having its Joker, for example, burn down an orphanage or spout incel catchphrases as he goes from meek-n-mild to Gotham’s biggest villain. It also has just enough R-rated violence to make (some) folks think it’s edgy but no truly beyond-the-pale content that might threaten word-of-mouth (or make it a recruitment tool for the worst of the worst). In that sense, one of its biggest artistic flaws is also its greatest commercial strength.
