We really don't need to do this, you know
On the other the hand, I can add it to my book later.
Listen, we knew this was going to happen. Even when Todd Phillips insisted there would be no sequel to 2019’s Joker, he didn’t sound all that convincing. The movie left a couple of plot threads unresolved, and it ends on an ambiguous note; clearly there was a bigger plan in mind during its creation. And even if there wasn’t, and the movie ended with all questions answered and at Arthur Fleck’s funeral, the fact that it made over a billion (with a B) dollars at the box office meant that a sequel was all but inevitable.
And now it’s here. Or at least, its trailer is. Joker: Folie à Deux, a movie that feels like it’s been in production for the past three years, is a follow-up to one of the most cynical and depressing mainstream films in recent memory, but it’s a romantic musical, because sure, why not.
I saw Joker in the theater, and the best that can be said for it is that Phillips should be thanking his lucky stars every day that Joaquin Phoenix agreed to star in it. With the same intensity he gives to all his performances, Phoenix made a shallow, ham-handed movie watchable, and even occasionally compelling. There isn’t much to Arthur Fleck as a character beyond being mentally ill (and a stand-up comedian who doesn't realize he’s not funny), but with Phoenix playing him he had some depth and soul.
It was almost enough to allow Joker to rise above the heinous discourse that came out of it, and the fact that, like lots of movies that take surface approaches to social issues, too many people took the wrong message from it. Even though the problems Arthur faces are systemic and impact many different people with severe mental illness, the takeaway for many of Joker’s viewers was “Thank god someone’s speaking up for the poor forgotten white man,” as if there hasn’t been a single moment of human existence where we haven’t been reminded about white men and their problems.
It also became adopted as a meme, where pictures of Joker world-wearily puffing on a cig or smiling while crying were illustrated with text saying some nonsense about how you can only push a good man so far before he’ll snap and, I don’t know, murder Robert De Niro on live television or something. It was all pretty embarrassing, particularly for a movie that was inspired by a comic book evil clown.
But now the J-Man is back, and he’s in lurrrrrve. Diverting from canon, this version of Harley Quinn (played by Lady Gaga) isn’t his psychiatrist, but rather a fellow asylum patient who finds a kindred spirit in his troubled soul. Granted, I haven’t read the script for Joker: Folie à Deux but I’m going to take a wild guess that they get out of the asylum and wreak havoc together on a world so intent on destroying them, or some shit like that.
As I’ve been telling pretty much anyone who will listen for the past four months, I’m writing a book about mental illness and how it’s portrayed (usually poorly) in pop culture. Joker has already earned a few paragraphs in it, mostly for encouraging grown-ass men to blame other people for their problems, as well as to believe that their mental illnesses make them mad agents of chaos. Now, Joker: Folie à Deux will get its own paragraphs too, for playing into an entirely different harmful stereotype, that a toxic relationship between two emotionally damaged people is wildly romantic.
Maybe I’m wrong, and the movie will address that. Maybe Joker and Harley’s relationship won’t be manipulative and abusive. Maybe, like the romance with his pretty neighbor in the first movie, it’ll turn out to be in his imagination. Nevertheless, Harley and Joker have long been the model couple for people who think romantic relationships are supposed to be volatile. You know these people, they’ve been in the same on-and-off again relationship that everyone else is sick of hearing about for ages, who ignore (and even resent) pleas to finally end it, and claim that they have a love no one else could possibly understand. They’re the people who unironically post stuff like this:
You know these people. I know these people. Those are the people who are going to see Joker: Folie à Deux and see their shitty, volatile relationship as validated. Now, I’m not saying that two mentally ill people shouldn’t be in a relationship together. A healthy relationship is built on trust and understanding, and who understands a mentally ill person better than another mentally ill person?
I’m saying there’s nothing romantic about bringing out the worst in each other, especially when it’s misinterpreted as “passion.” These are essentially cartoon characters, and it’s frankly just a skosh pathetic that adults, many of them educated and employed, think they’re aspirational. Obviously, being a horror fan, I don’t believe that “depiction=endorsement.” And again, I could be entirely wrong about what Joker: Folie à Deux will actually say (if it says anything at all) about the nature of toxic relationships. I simply think that we do not need one more movie that even remotely suggests there’s a sort of poetic, dark romance in mental illness. Either way, gird yourselves, folks, the memes are about to get a lot worse.
Harley Quinn is literally a cartoon character. She first appeared in the cartoon and was so popular she was retconned into the comics. (This isn’t to disagree with your assessment but to further support it.)
I find her a good example of the way some creators use mental illness as a way to play out the sexy baby trope. Her insanity makes her more naive and suggestible than a character with her backstory should be.
She also is another brick in Batman’s cultural conservatism - a career focused woman who is manipulated by a master criminal because she is too empathetic.
And yet, I also get her popularity, especially the cartoon version. She was interesting and had great quips in a somewhat bleak era for female villains. And yet yet, I agree with everything you’ve written. 😆