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Jokers face stapled on3/30/2023 Some see it as commentary on their society “Life now only teaches you to lie and cheat for a living because you simply have no other choice, and that’s not a life I want,” she said. People in Lebanon feel the same sense of disillusionment that’s depicted in “Joker,” Aboujaoude said, and that’s precisely why she felt compelled to protest. ![]() “It was the one and only thing I thought in the moment I could do to get a message out,” she wrote in an email to CNN. ![]() It just “felt right,” she said.Ĭynthia Aboujaoude painted her face to resemble the Joker during a protest in downtown Beirut on October 19. But they weren’t the only people who saw Gotham City as a stand-in for their home.Ĭynthia Aboujaoude, a 28-year-old senior art director in graphic design, showed up to protests in Beirut wearing Joker makeup. The brothers posted their art on social media and plastered the image around Beirut. The flames above his head read “72 hours” in Arabic, a reference to the deadline that then Prime Minister Saad Hariri gave political adversaries in Lebanon’s coalition government to agree on reforms. Using their signature style of calligraffiti, they drew the Joker holding a Molotov cocktail. So when people in their home city of Beirut took to the streets after a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls, the brothers turned the Joker into a symbol of the demonstrations. Through the Arabic rap and street art collective Ashekman, Kabbani and his twin brother Omar use art to speak out against social and political injustice. “This is the Lebanese society situation at the moment, full of underdogs, full of oppressed people that are extremely frustrated and that is looking for a window of hope,” he said. This street art poster created by the collective Ashekman was put up all over Beirut, Lebanon. That power struggle between ordinary people and elites, Kabbani said, is what’s resonating with protesters in Lebanon. One bad day after another slowly drives Arthur Fleck to madness and by the film’s end, he’s transformed into the Joker – and ultimately, an unintentional symbol of the downtrodden. In the film “Joker,” Gotham City is rife with crime, social services are getting slashed and residents are left feeling powerless and disillusioned, while wealthy elites respond with condescension or obliviousness. “The Joker is us,” Lebanese street artist Mohamed Kabbani told CNN. So why are some protesters in Lebanon, Iraq, Chile, Bolivia, Hong Kong and Spain taking inspiration from a psychopathic killer from a controversial film? Deepening inequalities between ordinary citizens and the ruling elite. Their causes are different, their grievances varied. ![]() Someone spray-painted “we are all clowns” onto a statue in Santiago, Chile.Īnd in Hong Kong, protesters dressed as the Joker as an act of protest in itself, defying a government ban on face masks and face coverings during public gatherings. In addition, Lenny Kravitz will sing during the In Memoriam segment.In cities around the world, among the sea of demonstrators who have taken to the streets, one image has stood out: the stark white face and creepy red grin of the Joker.Īrtists in Lebanon and Iraq invoked the character on posters or edited him into images on social media. While Lady Gaga, who performed at the 2019 Oscars with Bradley Cooper, when ‘Shallow’ from their movie ‘A Star Is Born’ won Best Original Song, won’t be singing at this year’s ceremony, the other nominated acts are all confirmed to perform, including Rihanna (‘Lift Me Up’ from ‘ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’), Sofia Carson and Diane Warren (‘Applause’ from ‘Tell It Like a Woman’), David Byrne, Son Lux and Stephanie Hsu (‘This Is a Life’ from ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (‘Naatu Naatu’ from ‘RRR’). ![]() “So she is not going to perform on the show, however, this is all, from our point of view, about someone making a movie and us completely understanding that that’s what is priority in this business, especially when we are honouring movies.”
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