Suicide Kino, Chapter II

Introduction (1/48)

It seems like /teevee/ has decided that it's going to regurgitate the "popular" opinion of the latest entry in the DC Extended Universe, David Ayer's Suicide Squad. At first glance, the film is a serviceable but not particularly interesting take on the anti-superhero genre pioneered in the Toxic Avenger and, most recently, popularized by Tim Miller's Deadpool. In fact, Warner Brothers even demanded reshoots and a complete recut of the film to make it more “fun”and attempt to capture the same energy that made Deadpool such a success. But Suicide Squad is not Deadpool and David Ayer is not Tim Miller. In contrast to the bland commercialism of the aforementioned Ryan Reynolds vehicle, Suicide Squad is a subversive masterpiece hidden in plain sight, obscured even further by studio interference.

Sup Forums is not your home board. That is the only argument required. Capeshit caters to an IMDB inflected pedestrian "entertainment" sensibility that is not shared by ANY of authentic Sup Forums. It's Sup Forums, it's Sup Forums, it's reddit. It's priorities were entertaining audience and sparking social media discussions. Praising it is no different to praising breaking bad. This is an art board. If you're giving a pass to "entertainment" masturbation then you do not belong. These movies are a video game. If you liked it you'd be more at home on Sup Forums.

wew
been waiting for this familia

Man of Steal (2/48)

One of the great American myths is that of the charismatic Outlaw. The Outlaw is both anti-social (breaking society's laws and hurting other people) and ultra-social (sexually desirable and inspiring of loyalty). The clash between these two seemingly contradictory attributes has been explored in countless American films. Suicide Squad, like Batman vs. Superman, presents us with a fresh take on a stale genre, challenging audiences' expectations by slandering not only the symbols they are taught to worship, but even the narrative framework through which they “commune.”

Two-Faced (3/48)

The film gives us a group of Outlaws in the Suicide Squad. These seven represent traditional archetypes in American myth. However, each is given a character attribute or element of backstory that undermines those same archetypes. Harley Quinn (The Whore Madonna) rebels against society in her dress, sex positivism, and criminal behavior. Yet, when Enchantress presents her with her greatest wish, we see that she secretly desires a traditional family with The Joker (The Trickster). Deadshot (The Black Knight), a man who kills other men for money, is shown to be a doting father with a strict, though skewed, moral code. El Diablo (A name that translates directly to “The Devil”), despite his namesake, spends most of the film abstaining from violence. The other squad members, though given far less characterization (likely due to studio-mandated cuts), are similarly toothless. I believe that these Outlaws are not Outlaws at all – they are frauds, slaves to the very society they claim to hate.

A League of Injustice (4/48)

This contradiction is present in the traditional heroes of the films as well. The foremost example of this is Amanda Waller, the quasi-military mothe” of the Suicide Squad. Although she ostensibly assembles the group to prevent tragedy, her negligence and arrogance leads to most of the film's conflict. Aside from the thousands of deaths she caused by releasing Enchantress, she even kills her own staffers without compunction while fleeing her command center. She is unquestionably evil, yet is able to present herself as morally superior to the Outlaws due to her position of authority. Other “good” characters are shown to be similarly compromised. Rick Flag (the All-American) turns a blind eye to Waller's abuses and paranoia, even when he realizes that it is putting lives at risk. The head guard at Belle Reve (The Law) is a corrupt sadist. Even Bruce Wayne, the Avenging Angel of Snyder's opus, extends Waller his protection in exchange for information, despite knowing of her criminal behavior.

Black Mirror (5/48)

Time and time again, we are shown that although characters present themselves in a certain manner, they are, in-truth, their own inverses. Take, for instance, the Navy SEALs supporting Flag throughout the film. Special forces operators are the closest things Americans have to superheroes. They are the subject of endless propaganda films and lauded in the corporate news media. Their physical prowess, intelligence, and martial ability are, literally, the stuff of legends. Despite this, we hear practically no dialogue from the Navy SEALs in Suicide Squad. What little we do hear is almost exclusively questioning of their treatment and the mission itself. They were lied to in the briefing about the threat they had to face in Midway City, and as a result suffered extreme casualties. A group of Navy SEALs, the nation's best, was sent as a distraction to allow the Squad, violent criminals, to extract Waller. Do they respond to this mistreatment? Do they avenge their fallen brothers? No. Instead they continue to unquestioningly follow orders and die. “Is that heroic behavior?” Ayers forces the audience to ask. “Are our real-life superheroes in the War on Terror acting heroically, however competent they may be?”

Thanks for saving that. I've made a few revisions to previous sections and moved the order around a bit. I hope you enjoy the changes and additions.

Clown Show (6/48)

Compare the SEALs behavior to that of the Joker's henchmen. This group is similarly capable. Early in the film, we see them rescue the Joker from Arkham Asylum with military-like precision. Later, they are seen storming a WayneCorp subsidiary's heavily guarded facilities in order to kidnap the inventor of the neck bomb. During their attack, they use flamboyant iterations of military equipment and tactics. The similarities are so profound that the Joker's men are able to successfully impersonate elite soldiers twice – the first in the hijacking of a military helicopter during their failed rescue of Haley Quinn and the second when they storm Belle Reve dressed in SWAT uniforms. These highly technical skills would be out of reach of the common street criminals we see populating the Gotham underworld, and their use by the Joker's henchmen implies that they had military or police training. The fact that they use these skills for crime suggests that Ayer considers modern “operators” as more mercenary than stooge.

By Any Other Name (7/48)

Beyond their activities, a close examination of the henchmen reveal that even their appearance is similar to that of the heroes of the modern era. Note that “JOKER” is emblazoned on the Joker's flak vest during the final rescue. It could just as easily be the callsign of an actual special forces operator. The heavy beard and muscular figure of the head henchman, Jonny Frost, stands in contrast to comic book portrayals of the character, but closely aligns with popular depictions special forces operators. In the WayneCorp raid we even see one of the Joker's men wearing a Batman mask, perhaps an allusion to the caped crusader's moral compromise in the post-credits scene. Suicide Squad revels in traditional symbols of authority (The airshow to commemorate Superman's death at the beginning of the film), while simultaneously showing that authority to be hollow (The fallen jets in the background of the 2nd Act). The EOD technician's suit worn in the War on Terror, and popularized in The Hurt Locker, becomes a Panda costume worn by a machine-gun toting maniac.

War Machine (8/48)

This deconstruction of the militarism prevalent in popular culture extends to the end of the film. One obvious inspiration for the original comic (which I have not read and do not plan to read) is the Dirty Dozen, in which a group of Allied prisoners during WW2 are sent on an impossible mission in Nazi-occupied France. The ending of that film recalls the Holocaust itself, as the convict task force the locks a group of German officers, French civilians, and other non-combatants in a cellar and bombs them with grenades before burning them alive. By the end of the film, the Dirty Dozen should be seen as monsters. A group of murderers is not redeemed by committing more murders. What progress does the Suicide Squad make by the end of the film? They stopped Enchantress, but considering that her plan was to destroy the planet, this can easily be seen as self-serving. They experience no growth other than the camaraderie often associated with the military experience. If there is no redemption for the Suicide Squad for defeating a threat created by government incompetence, is the US government redeemed by its victories the War on Terror when it had a hand in the creation of many of the terrorist threats it now fights? Ayer's answer is a clear “No.”

> (1/48)

Guys, I think we broke DCfags

I unironically love you. You're one entertaining guy.

Bel-Air, 1996 (9/48)

According to Ayer and Snyder, society is both terrorized by and dependent on people barely distinguishable from criminals. What is Deadshot's response to Waller, a senior government official, gunning down three loyal employees in order to cover up her catastrophic mistake? “That's gangsta,” flatly delivered by Will Smith. This line is especially meaningful in the DC Extended Universe's metacultural commentary on popular morality as Smith was once a hip-hop musician whose music in the early '90s, with its positive messages and carefree attitude, stands in sharp contrast to the violent, commercial, monstrosities that are modern day popular entries into that genre. Though supposedly our society abhors violence, abuse, and injustice, it constantly glamorizes anti-social and even psychopathic behavior in music, film, and television.

To Be and Not to Be (10/48)

Ayer has played with duality in his films before. Denzel Washington's character in Training Day was both a legendary police officer and a legendary criminal. Fury deglamorized WW2 combat, yet the 3rd Act played out as more a traditional film would have - with a heroic last stand. Harsh Times even centers on the idea that the characteristics of a special forces operator sometimes overlap with those of criminals. In Suicide Squad, Ayer achieves perfect balance – creating rebels who do not rebel and heroes who do not behave heroically. In doing so, he challenges popular understandings of these archetypes and their role in our culture. Are anti-heroes, rather than symbols of freedom and personal autonomy, agents of the establishment? Have capitalist forces hijacked both public morality and public immorality?

...

Post more kino

Is Kek secretly supporting kino?

Hot Topic Insurrection (11/48)

When I first saw Jared Leto's take on the Joker, I was skeptical. However, having seen the theatrical release, I see my doubt was misplaced. Although The Dark Knight was an almost immoral expression of Christopher Nolan's fascist sympathies, it is undeniably a successful film due in large part to Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. Ledger's adaptation of the character showed the villain as Bush-era audiences understood terrorists to be: fundamentally out of step with western liberal values. While Ledger's Joker borrows heavily from the works of Michel Foucault, anti-modernism to its logical extreme, Leto's Joker is a true chaotic element – the Trickster from Native American and African oral traditions. Posters on this board often mocked the character by writing “Mom's going to freak!” not realizing that this sort of childish, impotent, rebellion was exactly what the actor was going for. Instead of an alien other, Suicide Squad's villains are mirror images of ourselves.

Chaos Theory (12/48)

Our society is governed by laws. Of course, while this often refers to traditional legal codes, we are also bound by cultural norms, professional standards, personal morality, and the laws of physics. Leto's Joker operates outside all of those laws, effortlessly defying them for the sake of the plot. Take his interaction with Monster T (played by a hip-hop musician whose professional name is “Common”), in his strip club. Monster T operates under the laws of the gangster subculture. He compliments “Mr. J” on his successful establishment, on his attractive companion, and on their mutually beneficial partnership. The Joker returns this courtesy by mocking Monster T for being “too serious,” a grave breach of both criminal and business manners. After Monster T begins to use informal language, the Joker takes issue with his word choice and proceeds to offer him sexual favors from Harley Quinn (violating cultural norms pertaining to cuckoldry and polyamory). Monster T, despite these insults, politely declines. The Joker then feigns that he is the aggrieved party and shoots Monster T in the head, in the middle of a crowded club full of witnesses. This scene perfectly illustrates Leto's approach to the character and Ayer's critique of society. The Joker, like our cultural and financial elite, simultaneously demand that “Common” people follow the rules of society while also disregarding those rules entirely. To the powerful, rules are jokes.

Entertaining stuff

A Thousand Blind Eyes (13/48)

The Joker's rebellion is truly pointless, as it always occurs within the bounds of traditional authority. Suppression of individual liberty in exchange for social good was a theme of both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, and Ayer's off-shoot expands on the idea further – challenging the idea that earnest rebellion is even possible in modern society. The Enchantress' creates monsters who are covered in tiny eyes. Although this alludes to the modern surveillance state, it doesn't do so in the conventional sense of the term. Rather than extradimensional creatures (like Enchantress herself), we learn that these monsters are everyday people corrupted by evil power. In the same way, modern social life has become somewhat defined by surveilling others. Through social media, we craft our public-facing images and are crafted by the images of others. It's no coincidence that people talk of “stalking” potential romantic partners when they look them up on social media – the blending of public and private space is inherently invasive. Just as Enchantress' victims are corrupted by her spells, secret knowledge, we too are corrupted by our participation in system that forces secret knowledge upon us. Can rebellion foment in public? If anti-social behavior is encouraged by society, is it truly anti-social?

There's no way he can keep this up

All Art is Propaganda (14/48)

By watching a film, particularly those from auteurs like Snyder or Ayer, we are forced to adopt the perspectives of people other than ourselves. The best commercial directors are able to use this perspective shift to make the audience recall positive emotions – nostalgia, love, awe, etc. The wonderful thing about the DC Extended Universe is, although the films are marketed as though the were commercial and deal with objects that exist in popular culture, they instead force the audience to reconsider their own perspectives by shaping expectations and then frustrating those expectations. Through this frustration, this phantom pain that must be filled, the audience can begin to question their relationships with power, culture, and other people.

This is autism in it's purest form.

> cuck shit

There it is

Its copy paste for VA edited to fit suicide shit

The Blade Rung True (15/48)

Take, for instance, the character of Katana. She is introduced early in the 2nd Act, hopping on the Squad's helicopter seemingly from out of nowhere. When asked where she was, she replies that she was busy. Then we are treated to a short clip of her killing a group of Japanese men who were nominally connected to her husband's murder. After this, other than a brief aside before the final battle where Flag explains the significance of her sword, she plays no substantive role in the story. She doesn't save anyone's life, she has no relationships with any of the other characters, and she barely even speaks. Her inclusion in the film is truly meaningless. This speaks to the fundamental flaw of most superhero films: their characters are not characters at all, but rather puppets to be used in action set-pieces or to throw out one-liners. Is Katana really a member of the Suicide Squad (a social entity) if she has no meaningful friendship with the other members? Is she even in the movie if she doesn't affect the plot or other characters in any way?

>12+

Samsara Tableau (16/48)

In fact, the entire plot of the film is circular. The Suicide Squad is created to deal with otherworldly threats, but an otherworldly threat is released by creating the Suicide Squad. After the threat is gone, the Squad is disbanded and its members are returned to their confinement. Likewise the Joker lost Harley Quinn, then rescued her, then lost her again, and then rescued her at the film's end. With the announcement of a second Suicide Squad, we can only assume that the Squad will reform, a threat will reappear, and Quinn will be recaptured. This endless cycle of of birth, death, redeath, rebirth, etc. produces endless suffering (the DC films have taken great pains to depict the massive collateral damage caused by metahuman activity) and shows no sign of stopping. Instead of portraying this unending conflict positively, as Marvel's movies do, DC reveals it as destructive and pointless, something that must end and will end through the moral arc of the Superman films at the heart of its cinematic universe.

Why would someone do this.

...

H...has it stopped?

He's slowing down, no way this shit reaches 20

Serviced Fans (17/48)

We see other flashes of this honest approach to the fan service most superhero films rely on. Slipknot, a “super” villain whose power of tying knots is laughable, is introduced only to serve as a Guinea pig for Captain Boomerang's theory that the neckbombs are fake. Captain Boomerang, despite an inspired performance from Jai Courtney, doesn't appear to have any abilities other than being Australian. Aside from a few humorous asides, we learn little about the character . We don't see his Enchantress-induced fantasy, we aren't allowed to understand his motivations, we don't even find out why he carries around a stuffed unicorn. Time and time again, certain Squad members are deemed worthy of exploration while others are cast aside as background flavor, despite the film supposedly being an ensemble. Even Robin, whose death was the most important factor in franchise-lead Batman's turn to cruelty, is relegated to a brief mention in Harley Quinn's dossier, which appears on screen for only a few seconds. Through this playful subversion of the cameos popular audiences demand, Ayers forms a critique of a society obsessed with colorful characters but averse to characterization.

wew

The Superman Who Wasn't There (18/48)

This lack of substance is absolutely intentional, and continues the DC Extended Universe's exploration of American myth. According to the franchise-runners, the land of myth is a harsh one, governed by the values of a compromised society. If Snyder's Superman is Christ, then the characters of Ayer's Suicide Squad are the Piss Christ featured prominently in Batman v. Superman. They are a vulgar imitation of heroism that society demands. Rather than liberation, they offer slavery.

...

Nice to Meet You (19/48)

One of the most important films addressing the cultural problems facing the Millennial Generation is Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. What makes Spring Breakers so interesting (and so divisive among critics) is that it bombards the audience with beautiful images that are eventually revealed to be grotesque. Suicide Squad's aesthetic operates in a similar manner. Although the film (and every DC film) is undeniably better shot than anything in Marvel's catalog, we are not shown anything worth admiring. Instead, we are given a glamour show of corpses, destruction, and morally repugnant people. In Suicide Squad, style isn't substance – it's anti-matter.

This is like half the size of the others. He's pussing out

Monitoring this thread

Fatale Femme (20/48)

One example of this comes in the chemical bath scene, where the Joker performs a faux-baptism on Harley Quinn. The music video aesthetic present in the introductory montages returns, the score swells, and we supposedly see the pair's romantic relationship at its high point. However visually stunning this may be, upon taking a step back, audiences can realize that they are actually seeing a textbook abusive relationship. The Joker tortures Harley Quinn, and nearly kills her with the stunt at the factory. Her skin and hair are literally stained by the trauma. And yet, the film never blinks, never drops its facade and acknowledges that what viewers are seeing is horrible. It jars audiences into recognizing their passive acceptance of other abuses ignored or accepted by our culture.

This was the conclusion of the original thread

Domestic Terrorism (21/48)

Returning to Harley Quinn's Enchantress-induced fantasy sequence, we now see that her supposed longing for a “normal” life isn't really all that different than what she experienced before her incarceration. Without any moral or philosophical boundaries (a cornerstone of the new iteration of the Joker), there is no reason that she could not strip and rob during the day, only to return every evening to her children. In fact, even if these rules were meaningful, there was no reason that she and the Joker would not have been able to have this sort of relationship when they were both free. Perhaps, viewers are forced to ask, they did. It is entirely possible that we were seeing her life before she was confined to Belle Reve, and that her and the Joker have a child together. After all, what would stop them?

> (20/48)

> mfw a DCpleb was so bitter that a movie was shit that he writes pages of garbage about the Iraq War and Buddhism

Hip to be Square (22/46)

Of particular importance to this scene is the wardrobe and styling of the Joker without his makeup or tattoos. His clothes, and particularly his hair, deliberately mirror that of another character previously played by Jared Leto – Paul Allen in Mary Harron's film adaptation of American Psycho. Although Christian Bale (himself a veteran Ayer player) is cast as the titular “psycho,” Patrick Bateman, the subtext of both the film and the book is that the yuppie capitalist subculture itself is inherently psychopathic. Allen may be one of Bateman's victims, but he is also a double image of Bateman before the killing. Both work in mergers and acquisitions (Which Bateman jokingly refers to as “murders and executions.”), and both are consumed with the frivolities of the ultra-wealthy. The two even look so similar that they are constantly confused for one another. Suicide Squad tries to tell us that there is no difference between the Joker's insanity and the insanity of the modern capitalist elite.

How? How?

> One of the most important films addressing the cultural problems facing the Millennial Generation is Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers

I can't believe I read this far

I want to say that I'm mad, but I can't

...

A Silent Scream (23/48)

Leto has been vocal in his criticism of the cuts to the film, which apparently centered around the Joker's abusive treatment of Quinn. Although I understand the actor's frustration at the decision to leave the product of months of grueling labor unseen, I think this material's absence makes the film's critique of more powerful. Although the media elite are supposedly concerned about domestic violence and sexual abuse, this concern is clumsy, seemingly motivated more by a desire to gain political power rather than to thoroughly examine and correct these social issues. Test audiences were (understandably) made uncomfortable by the Joker's abuse of Harley Quinn, so the studio heads decided to simply excise the material rather than force audiences to consider the idea that a popular villain would treat others badly.

You Can (Not) Redo (24/48)

The most notable change came in the Joker's attempted rooftop rescue of Quinn. Although the theatrical releases to show the Joker pushing her out of a crashing helicopter to save her life, the original cut had him pushing her out to kill her for “betraying” him and forming healthy relationships with other people. This is the inverse of a controversial change to one of Snyder's early works, Sucker Punch, in which the MPAA demanded that he reedit a scene showing a female character having consensual sex with a man into one where the man attempts to sexually assault the female character. According to the MPAA and film studios, both instruments of cultural authority, seeing an abusive relationship is more vulgar than glamorizing abusive relationships in the same way that seeing sexual assault is wrongly considered more acceptable than seeing a consensual encounter.

> Identical, sequential dubs

What the fuck

Negative Space (25/48)

Images matter. The things you see every day inevitably become normal. The sanitized violence of the media becomes real-world violence in the form of either crime, self-destructive behavior, or even more socially accepted activities like military conflict. The DC Extended Universe, with its overtly philosophical take on a film genre that is producing untold moral (and even physical) destruction, is attempting to shock society out of its collective psychosis by producing images that make audiences question what they are seeing and how they react. Although Snyder's films did this by retelling Arthurian legend through the lens of German Expressionism, Ayer takes an explicitly American approach to the issue. By embracing the modern Outlaw myth, he reveals the full extent of its corrupting effect in an effort to rescue us from a cultural and aesthetic suicide.

>eva references
Truely we have achieved pretentiouskino

Was his hair actually the same? I remember that he dressed similarly in both movies

I think we were there 20 paragraphs ago

Thats a silly argument

go on

>this is an art board
Not even you believe that.

go on man, you have muh attention

Looks like OP is at stage 4

>heavily

Its really impressive how far DCucks would go.


Kinda wish some MCUck would do a similar writeup on something like Civil War. Or The First Avenger.

DC films may be shit, but at least they attempt to have substance

dubs if OP is right