Sunday morning’s release of the official trailer for the four-hour Justice League Snyder Cut ended with a bit of self-awareness when Jared Leto’s Joker, who in this version will share a speaking scene with Ben Affleck’s Batman, told said Caped Crusader being portrayed by said actor that “we live in a society.”
If you’re wondering why that’s significant then, congrats, your internet consumption is at a healthy level. But the rest of you are likely aware of the Joker/Seinfeld related meme that has been springing up around the web for years.
When Leto utters the five words it will actually mark the first time that the character says that phrase in a movie/TV show (what a time to be alive). And while you may wonder what would happen to art if the internet is allowed to impose dialogue, that’s probably fair, but it also seems apt that fans be tossed a bone in this case since the online hoards pushed so hard to get the Snyder Cut released in the first place.
In keeping with the theme of showing self-awareness, Leto tweeted out the trailer with the same set of words that spurred this whole article. You can watch the trailer here, skip it, or watch below (options, bro). For the impatient types, Joker throws the line in at the end with the quote “We live in a society [dramatic pause] where honor is a distant memory.” It caused an expected uproar online, which Leto himself acknowledged in a single tweet.
Though nobody could’ve been aware at the time, due in part to the fact that nobody knew what the fuck a meme was, the item was born from an early ‘90s episode of Seinfeld. While there’s no real way to predict what will and won’t be meme’d (at least that I’m aware of) the line uttered by a frustrated George Costanza was popularized amongst Redditors, message boards, etc. You know how it works:
A few years ago the line was associated with The Joker, and though a petition was circulated to get Joaquin Phoenix to utter it in the 2019 movie centered around the origin story of the Batman villain, no screenwriter/director actually tossed it into a movie until now.
Commence people being excited about this:
Anyway, the Snyder Cut will come out on HBO Max on March 18. You can scroll up to the top of this page and click the link to the trailer (lots of work) or just cut out the middle-man and check it out below.
