The Philosophy of Deadpool - Wisecrack Edition 

Deadpool did offer something new. A good x-men movie.

Deadpool is Bugs Bunny for today's adults.

I found that despite Deadpool's cynical attitude, it does stand apart from other films. The fourth wall between the audience is broken directly rather than through interactions with other characters. Deadpool talks to the audience rather than to another character expecting the audience to get in on the joke. Not a lot of movies do this. You see it more often when a character turns to another with a snarky remark or only implies the acknowledgment of the audience (however, there are both of these in the movie as well). So rather than the "we get it, you're funny" reaction, Deadpool's jokes are less expected and more ridiculous.

Interesting and well made points, (you probably won't see this comment or care much) but you got urself another new sub.

That clickbait thumbnail is totally in character, Well done.

why do these videos educate me more than school?

Well Deadpool did offer something new, it did offer a completely satirical fun superhero movie with the only quest in the movie is the quest to be hot again.

I don't think people realize that Deadpool is actually insane. All that fourth wall breaking and awareness is all in his head. Which is why you can get away with having Deadpool in the same universe as with The Avengers and X-Men. Notice how in the film, he doesn't start breaking the fourth wall until after he was experimented on. Every time Deadpool makes a joke, we are actually laughing at a guy who has lost his marbles. It's like laughing at a suicidal schizophrenic. So when you really think about it, Deadpool is actually a very tragic character.

Difference between hipsters and Deadpool: Everyone loves Deadpool, nobody likes hipsters.

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I laughed, I giggled, I might have even gaped or sobbed a little. I can't remember, but I enjoyed it. Does art exist for its meaning, or for the experience it creates?

I'd honestly use One Punch Man as a counter example. By subverting and mocking all the tropes its genre employs, it has created something entirely new, while both being commentary and an amazing action show in it's own right, it also asks "What makes a hero." and does so honestly, and in a none-cliche fashion. All the characters outside of the main character, also take every event like a serious threat to humanity, and while we the viewer know that Saitama is eventually gonna save the day, the stakes and struggles are real for everyone in the Hero Association. Saitama's issues however diverge, in that he's so powerful that he has become bored of life. He's the most powerful being in the universe, yet he still has personal issues which he struggle with. The problem Deadpool might have, is that no character takes what's happening seriously, nothing is sacred, there's no ideals to uphold, and Deadpool sincerely gives no shit about anything but what Deadpool wants.

Am I the only one who thinks that Wade and Vanessa actually love each other?

Do "The Philosophy of Mr. Robot"!?

Good stuff. Sent via MattPat.

Deadpool is how you properly subvert tired cliches. It calls attention to everything not because the writers feel like they are the most clever shit ever because they referenced a tired cliche, but they actually deconstruct it. They intentionally invert and play with the tropes of the movie, and don't just do a shout out. The entire time I was watching this, I was getting a serious case of deja-vu. Then it hit me, one of the channels I subscribed to did the exact same deconstruction, only this was with the entire medium of anime instead of western film. Anime has the exact same problem as Hollywood; instead of doing something new and interesting with the medium, they just make lazy nods to tropes. Teal Deer, you're not fucking clever because you called attention to tired, overused cliches, and then used the exact same tired, overused cliches, we're sick of it, and we want something new.

i like to think deadpool is the austin powers of super hero movies

I love how when you scroll down into the comments of a wisecrack video, all of the comments are, like, 3 paragraphs long, at least, and are worth reading, rather than the throw-away comments you see practically everywhere else, kind of like this comment!

can you do the philosophy of bojack horseman next? It has so much that I onowbIm not picking up

Thought provoking piece. I really loved Deadpool but I think maybe we're giving it a little too much weight in the course of cultural events. There has been a serious mood in comic book films - the genre was ripe for a little bit of levity. Certainly Deadpool wouldn't have done as well if it came out right before the first Avengers movie, but after Batman V. Superman, it was a good reminder that this was all suppose to be fun. Another point to make is this may have more to do with genre fatigue than culture itself. Horror franchises are quite known for this: They started with serious Dracula and Frankenstein movies and eventually made their way to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The 2000s saw a rise of Zombies and we ended up with Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. Perhaps these types of "referential" films that require an "awareness" of the genre and tropes of filmmaking are more prevalent today but that may also because as a culture we consume so much more media than ever before.

Mat sent me

I think all comedy exposes systems and structures for the ridiculous constructs they are. I think that's why comedy is so vital. Deadpool doesn't need to create something new because by its very presence it forces other super hero films to abandon these now exposed tropes and create something new, or at least it should. Cabin In The Woods on the other hand is a far more thematically rich and existentially biting film than Deadpool and please make it your next analysis. Cabin in the woods is a modern retelling of the Classic of the Minotaur and the maze that uses tropes of horror to make a biting inditement of our perverse enjoyment of teenagers being slaughtered (this is actually referenced in the film with a Minotaur being present in one of the other stations of sacrifice. Also, it's one of the only pieces of fiction to offer a meaningful response to the presence of Cosmic Lovecraftian Horror: triumphant nihilism.

There is no more new booze anymore, all we can do is customize the bottles.

I found myself thinking "damn, can't people just enjoy a movie?" and then I remembered that I asked for this, I clicked the link, I started the video. Well played, sir. Also, MatPat sent me.

But isn't this video criticism a movie hipster's criticism of hipsterism in the Deadpool movie to begin with? Will Wisecrack hang itself in derision of its own work then?

I think Deadpool achieves something subreptitiously brilliant and earnest with its over the top meta postmodernism. The character, much like the movie, is trapped inside its own mental collecion of pop culture references. He sees himself as the immature violent asshole who makes jokes and doesn't deserve anything serious. Hence why Wade doesn't simply talk to Vanessa about his deformity: Deadpool seems to not care about anything because he thinks himself incapable of properly handling responsibilities. So when he suspects that his actions might affect a person he truly cares about, his solution is to stay away, reasoning that no one is better with him in their lives. The "cliché love-revenge" story is the only actual thing that lends his life meaning: he puts himself in a storyline that calls for a traditional hero, knowing full well that he doesn't deserve the happy ending --he doesn't know how anyone could love him or expect anything from him besides jokes and violence. He only steps in because his love for Vanessa is the only real feeling he knows, she's the only person he's truly attached to, and no traditional hero will save her, so he'll have to do. I actually deeply related to that story, of this immature sarcastic loner who feels himself incapable of normal nice things, and gets his one chance at love ruined by a fucking evil asshole. I'm sure others might have, too.

When I watched the temple of doom, I saw that smile directed at the swordsmen, a bit of humor at his realization that what he thought was a non-threat was actually now going to cut him up.

Well you have to ask what is the purpose of a movie? Deadpool did a damn good job at making me laugh and enjoy myself. Sure it is no Shawshank Redemption in terms of bringing some change to the game, but not every movie is meant to do that. I will also say, I think being an R rated comical superhero movie was a game changer.

Well life CAN actually be lived with a "fuck-all" attitude, because there is, logically, nobody that has authority over somebody else's life. Everyone is a person with their own uncertainties and limits and fears. We are all just animals inside the cage of society and structure. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but far too many rules are made by idiots or corrupted people

Ryan Reynolds sold Deadpool. 'We the sheeple' bought him and in no way; none whats so ever, nada, do we have buyers remorse.

Deadpool(the movie) does pull off the irony and cynicism. That's the whole point of the movie, to make fun of the genre. Citing other movies that use the technique doesn't make the case that Deadpool or what it says is bad/not furthering art. 1. art needs to be introspective in a ridiculous way to encourage new movements or trends and 2. all of the other movies shown using the techniques Deadpool employed were used out of laziness. It allows the writers to stick with the same basic stuff and earns a cheap laugh. Possibly hollywood is doing this to make fun of its audience. "Look how stupid you guys are, not only watching the same movie year after year; but we're actively going to point that out and you'll still give us your money." I think Deadpool can be looked at in one of two ways: it is a well executed parody movie or it's being meta about being meta and over using the irony and cynicism to force hollywood to reinvent the superhero movie

So the humanity is like a game where you finished the history mode, showed credits and now enabled the freemode.

I think what we liked about it - and about Deadpool in general - is that he might be for 'fuck it', but he does 'care' about people in his own way, not just in the comics but also in the movie. he's indestructable, his girlfriend isn't...but he also knows she can save herself. He even kinda took attention away from one of the other 'inmates' by goading on Francis. also Negasonic Teenage Warhead probably did some of the best work and also had the best costume, so I don't care if she's bargain bin, worth it!

I disagree with the relationship being based on lust ( 8:51 ). There is a scene where he confesses he loves his partner (it would've ended there if that was the case), another scene has a line where he states that he contemplated why their great together, and so on. Lust is a stage in a romantic relationship and theirs genuinely looked liked it progressed past it.

It IS the same recycled materials, but the wrapping is pretty. That's Deadpool. (The movie, not the character)

Anyone else here from MatPat?

I liked the deadpool movie, but I would have prefered they kept wade's two other personalities, constantly commenting on all the stuff that's happening for an even greater fourth-wall breaking. Yes, it didn't have enough fourth-wall breaking for me.

Hey you!? Yeah, You! Did Mat send you from Film Theory? Well, he sent me too! :)

Alright, this comment got out of hand, so apologies for the novel that follows this. (And yes, MatPat sent me here, obligatory Film Theory shoutout.) Here's my two cents that gradually turned into $20: Yes, postmodernism and counterculture and hipsters are the same thing, and what is new media if all new media is simply referencing and riding the wave of the old media that came before it, and how do we gauge which self-referential humour is funny and which isn't and what's the difference between them, but I think it all comes down to two simple questions: 1) Is the referential humour punching up, or punching down? and 2) Does the reference fit with the current zeitgeist? Deadpool manages, with regard to the first question, to straddle the line between the two while still mostly being the former, i.e. punching up. I think Deadpool's popularity came a lot from the sheer joy you could tell Ryan Reynolds felt from being able to finally make this film, and while this was still a major blockbuster which broke records and grossed a truly unreasonable amount of money for a studio owned by a company that is already rolling in consumer dollars, it was also very clearly a step out of the norm and a huge risk and something no one in corporate would have expected to do well. That made all the cynical references something that resonated with the audience, which answers my second question. The majority of the references in Deadpool fall into a few categories: comic book fourth wall break, comic book //movie// fourth wall break, social climate fourth wall break, and capitalism commentary. With each of these, considering Deadpool as a movie that took Ryan Reynolds 10 years to make, and one that Disney and Marvel Studios likely did not enjoy greenlighting, the self-reference comes from an outsider perspective //within// these film and TV bigwigs, which allows Deadpool to *wink wink, nudge nudge, commiseratory groooooaaaaan* with the audience in a believable and relatable manner. It wasn't the corporate executives trying to "get on the consumer's level" with outdated memes in advertisements, or some director leeching off the successful implement of some other technical rig in a different movie to make their own look just as impressive (*cough cough Doctor Strange leeching off Inception, cough*). It was the conceptual child of someone just as enthused about this movie as people who had been waiting to see it for years, which then allowed it to point at all the roadblocks it had hit along the way and say to the audience "people thought we couldn't make it, but we did, and wow what a big fuck you to those guys, huh?". Anyway, to further tl;dr what was already meant to be a tl;dr, Deadpool's humour still hits the mark, and it hit its mark better than any self-referential film has I think //ever//. Not even the very first Scary Movie managed this level of commiseration with the audience about the current state of the media and the social landscape while //still being objectively a good movie// in its own right. I, personally, think it's unfair to even put Deadpool on the same level as all that ham-fisted referencing out-of-touch executives think work on us as consumers. My only fear is that Deadpool will now lead to a new brand of self-referential comedy that will try to mimic it and //fail//.

Who came here because of Matpat

Does it bring anything new? Well that depends on how you define new. Virtually everything we create is spawned from earlier devices and is simply some form of refinement from them. Truly new things emerge infrequently and as such are an awfully high bar to set. I feel Deadpool was unique enough to set it far apart from most of what is currently being released. If we were to view originality as a spectrum rather than a it simply is or is not original I would say it ranks much more highly than most films of the past 2 decades. If we rank it purely in it is or is not groundbreaking I suppose one could safely say it is not, but by extension we would also have to say the massive majority of films we see are all not groundbreaking or original.

do stranger things philosophy

matpat sent me

What makes Deadpool different than just another Scary Movie or 21 Jump Street or every other movie people don't really care about and just go to see for mindlessness, I feel, is a willing and wholehearted unapologetic nature. Which is somewhat easier to do with a character that can break the fourth wall. Deadpool isn't a hero. He isn't an antihero. He's just a selfish douche who can do incredible things. Colossus isn't just a wide eyed dreamer. He's a person with those beliefs which others might find naive. Not wrong or misguided. Just hopeful. And that's what the XMen try to be. Even the villain, though not complexed, is delightfully NOT COMPLEXED. He's the equivalent of a mutant arms dealer. Money's all he cares about for gains. No world domination. No giant monologues about grand plans. Just one dry 'this is what's going to happen' intro and done. Everyone embodies who they are, while still embodying the trope they're satirizing. Still believing in what they want, while not being paper thin.

Am I the only person to catch the 1988 Fright Night 2 Reference in the 2:50 mark? Good one Wisecrack!

Don Quixote? NO... NOT JOKER

I was curious how long it would take for the hipsters to find a way to hate a film build on the simple premise of being fun. Four months. Longer than expected.

Wow... good job making the movie sound like crap.

!!!! HEY YOU !!!!! MattPat sent you didn't he ?

The character Deadpoool is like the writers of South Park and by that is that they just don't give of fuck I LOVE IT

I'm from film theories.

Is satire an attempt to change the system, or is it merely a way to show your appreciation of the system?

Thank Matt

I disagree with people's view on the romance in Deadpool as just lust. Was she a hooker, yes. Do they have a bunch of crazy sex, sure. But past that there really isn't much else to make that statement. In the film they live and get to know one another over at least a year, she cares and is there for him when he gets his diagnosis, she seems to have changed her profession for him, and having had crazy experimental sex I can say that takes a level of trust. I'd argue that the relationship in Deadpool has more merit than most films about what seem like total strangers fighting for "love". Just because she isn't a fair maiden and he isn't a knight in shining armor, doesn't mean their devotion is any less real. You know, for a movie that is.

dude, seriously? read a book, a comic book that is. wade hates life and wants to die. that is why thanos *curses* him with literal immortality, and why their mutual love interest, mistress death, is totally bat shit in love with dp. and yet, through his many trials and tribulations, wade comes to discover a great deal about himself, gaining a wealth of perspective about his own life and life itself. in facing off against thanos, who is trying to kill eternity, which is to say all of existence and life itself, dp says: "i'm crazy. i'm unpredictable. i'm erratic. i'm a contradiction. i'm a predator and i'm prey. i am life itself." sure, dp may resemble many other literary elements and characters, but what dp has become is one of the most original, creative, and even inspiring characters in modern comics, if not fiction as a whole. it feels like this is a critique purely of the movie, and on that level, perhaps it is fair, but let's remember that this is a movie adaptation of a wealth of comic stories, and a single origin story at at that. you do great work in your videos, but on this one it seems you have sold the overall concept of the deadpool story line and character short. dp began as a complete ripoff that was so poorly received that it was very nearly cancelled for good, and only then, when the fuck it factor finally kicked in, did the creativity and originality of throwing the book out the window come with it. what has come since is, perhaps, the single most original and well received comic book series of all time. if the decade plus attempt at this movie that got declined over and over again, but only finally popped due to the 'leaked' footage blowing up the internet isn't proof of that, i don't know what could be. sorry for the long post, but dp deserves it, and a great deal more. in wrapping this up, be careful, dp tracked down and killed his own writers, so i'm sure he might find himself bored and cynical enough to lookup some bad online reviewers as well. lol ;)

matt sent me

mam Batman vs Superman gets shit on every where! I liked it tho...

who is from matpat aka the film theorist

Hey Lucas gave up Star Wars because they didn't give Him that much creative freedom. If you watched that interview he sad there's a narrow formula of how you're supposed to make movies. That's exactly why the new Star Wars was the exact same of when Luke destroyed the death star

Reporting on MatPat advice =)

At least Deadpool wasn't used to set up anything

I think the real problem with movies like this is the fact that people just want to be in on the joke. They don't give a flying shit about storytelling anymore. As long as they can talk about it with their friends who also like it and laugh at the same attempts at humor, mission accomplished as far as they're concerned. And that's sad.

UGH. WIsecrack! I love most of your videos, but this video is just your crusade against postmodernism. Postmodernism is not tired, just because it's suddenly entered the "mainstream" in the past couple decades. You just don't like it. The argument that postmodernism throws out meaning, and does little else, is asinine. These films still have meaning- you just refuse to look beyond the surface and see the implications.

I disagree. Deadpool was clearly written with alot of love and passion, and the entire thing is a cynical look at comic book movies rather than a comic book movie ocassionaly pointing out its own absurdity for a laugh here and there. It's essentially comparing a satire to a politician joking that they're personally hypocritical.

ROYAL HIGH THEORIST MATTHEW PATTUS HATH SENT ME

Highest grossing R-rated movie, until the Joker movie was released in 2019

Mat. Pat.

Wouldn't all this make Deadpool a self aware Nihilist comic?

I grew up to think cynicism and irony are desired qualities and must therefore be bred and cultured in any self-respecting academic

Mat pat sent me

please do gone girl, probs my second fav fincher film, i would love it if u guys would talk aobout it

yes, yes it is worth it to give deadpool this much love

i know its not intentional, but it sounds like he's saying "donkey hotay"

Anyone who says that any sort of trend "is a danger to society" needs to shut up.

you fail to realize that deadpool has been breaking the fourth wall for fun since he was created, furthermore its marvel copying DC copying marvel, which is why it was made the way it was made. don't confuse it for the sane old shit or hipsterism. deadpool is the light at the bottom of the abyss, and if they follow the comics the guy that beat thanos after he gets the infinity gauntlet.

Thanks Matpat for sending me

i disagree. deconstruction of something can lead to something entirely new. using the edgy and overpowered anime main character trope and deconstructing it by making the character extreamly flawed or overly overpowered. (the second one isn't that old yet but i already know 3 anime that use that deconstructed formula: Hero Acedemia, One Punch Man and Mob Spycho 100) i would even say that deconstruction is the best way for anything to move forward.

You gotta admit, Cabin in the Woods was pretty unique and interesting. This makes it look like they're ripping off other movies, but it's easy to find their inspiration behind those monsters / scenes because there were virtually ALL monsters in that one literally like 100's of them, but those monsters aren't the main monster (s) in the film or anything.

Can you do: The Philosophy/Psychology of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty?

Well put, as always! Side note: I've found myself rewatching MST3K for nostalgic purposes, and you've made me wonder how it fits into this philosophy. Anyone?

I never knew how to put my love of Deadpool into words..

Philosophy of Ex Machina please

For 10,000 years we've been telling the same archetypal stories over and over again with a twist or a tweek every now and then. That's fine, we've gotten the formula for a good hero's journey down to a finely polished sheen, but every hero is ultimately a knockoff Gilgamesh. There isn't any problem with that, new works made in the classical style are often magnificent. While there's nothing wrong with recycling tropes over and over again if they're good tropes, I don't understand why there are so many cultural commentators who chomp at the bit to decry anything with a hint of reference, mockery, cynicism, or irony as "hipsterisim" (a pejorative blanket term used to sneer at just about anything those dag-gum millennial whipper-snappers do), and the "end of civilization." Is our 10,000 years old civilization so weak that it cannot stand the sight of a fun-house mirror reflection of itself? Is there really no room for both Superman, perhaps the ultimate non-historic expression of a heroic demigod, and Deadpool, his dickhead peer, to co-exist? Did Mozart's finely metered and classically structured poetry about farts and his dick lessen the value of Don Giovani, or even prevent that opera's creation? No, of course not. There is room for both the cynical and the sincere to exist next to each other. In the Renaissance, every cultured court had, simply *had* to have a fool, a jester, a member of the court who's purpose is to undermine the authority of the state's nobility and even its divinely appointed royalty through mockery and ridicule. It's important for a society to not let it's head get too far up it's own butt, and what better way to discourage that than appoint someone to stick their head waaay up there while holding a rubber chicken? And while mocking reference for it's own sake is not a guarantee of quality by any means (look at Family Guy), I reject outright the notion that mockery as a result cynicism and irony will be, or is even capable of being, the death knell of sincerity. After all, without sincerity, there wouldn't be anything to mock.

This is why a Telltale Deadpool game will be perfect.

I would like to see pieces of media stop making fun of overused cliches and begin to stop using them all together or change them in a way that doesn't make everything feel so predictable.

Greetings FROM matpat :)

I think one of Deadpools AKA Ryan Reynolds biggest assets is his ability to be non-PC and not have you hating him for it. You don't take it personally. You just find it funny because he NAILS the delivery. He can be free with he says, mainly because he is just so charming.

I love Deadpool because he doesn't take anything seriously, and I love the movie because it also doesn't take anything seriously, and embraces it's cliches. We live in a world that constantly asks for something new in superhero movies, yet once we actually get something new (the DCEU), we disregard it, even mock it, because it's *too* different that what we're used to (the MCU), and they call them "dumpsterfires" simply because they weren't critically received well because they weren't the same thing. This is why I love Deadpool, he gives us the same thing, yet pokes fun at it. It's also why I loved Batman v Superman, because, while it does take itself seriously, it gave me something new, and something new to look forward to in the future DCEU.

Don't your criticisms describe the very humor in your channel?

Deadpool cannot exist without the rest of the genre, but thieves cannot exist without honest workers. No, it's not creating something new, but it's using what's available to entertain the audience. If there's trash everywhere and you find a way to use the trash to make something good, that's good. That's why I don't think Deadpool is just a market that can't reinvent itself

literally just watched RIPD today this is some illumanati shit

I don't understand why media has to have a deeper context. Why can't movies just be entertaining without some moral to the story.

6:30 my exact gripe with most of Big Bang Theory. Rather than having actual consequences for their actions, they barely apologize for it, get a few looks and then a few head shakes as if to say "oh who look at these nerds who don't understand how to talk or behave well in ANY setting!"

eh. Meta is good when it's well done. It's not inherently good or bad. like everything.

the philosophy of zootopia

I'm always one to subscribe to any channel that I like even a little bit, because even if I don't absolutely love one I can still see the potential in them. In short, I will subscribe because I am interested to see where this will lead the channel.

Deadpool is the first, amazing, step. ^^ (to a change) - I'm not saying we should stagnate at cynicism, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't include and enjoy it. ^^

Personally, I think a sense of something new is the appeal of anime. It can do whatever it damn well pleases, and there will always be someone to watch it.

anyone else remember deadpool's reference to batman he literally says "she's my robin to my batman"

Mat pat sent me and do Godzilla