Is this the end of Joaquin’s Joker as we know him? Was he ever “The Joker”?
As moviegoers and fans alike, we live in a particularly weird time. With more access to movies and TV than ever before, as well as the ability to voice opinions within seconds, what was once a culture of distant fandom with discourse sanctioned to private conversations amongst friends and colleagues has become something of an orgy of hot takes and breakneck statements declaring something “good” or bad” on a whim.
I’m not saying anything fresh here, but there is a sharp irony to the timing of Variety’s piece on toxic fandom in Hollywood right on the heels of the wide theatrical release of Joker: Folie à Deux. The article is equally a great expose on modern fan culture, as well as a troubling red herring that toxic fandom isn’t going away anytime soon, and executives are very aware of that. Many don’t want to poke the bear.
Joker: Folie à Deux, however? Boy, does that give the bear a run for its honey.
Part musical, part courtroom drama, part deconstruction of the Superhero genre at large, Joker: Folie à Deux.opens with ironic, animated ode to Looney Tunes and ends with a brutal and abrupt tragedy. It’s not for everyone. On its surface, it maybe not be for anyone.
Below, let’s explore the anti-blockbuster nature of the second (final?) entry into one of the most controversial comic book movies of all time. Is making something so subversively opposite of audience and fan expectations a bold move being under appreciated? Or simply director Todd Phillips jaded with the industry, making something without caution to any fan’s wind what the response would be?
Spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux follow.
Joker Was Never Joker—Is This a Joke?
In many ways, I would consider Folie A Deux an inverse of Joker. Arthur Fleck became an overnight icon for an underrepresented minority by publicly shooting Murray (Robert De Niro) on cable TV, and his legacy outgrew who Fleck really is at his heart—a troubled man with a mental illness and history of trauma, left in the gutter by a cruel an unforgiving system.
“Joker” was always a persona for Fleck to escape Fleck, and now his character (as well as us, the audience) is reckoning with that.
Todd Phillips himself stated to Entertainment Weekly that Fleck was never truly Batman’s long-standing sadistic lover Joker as we know him, stating:
“In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore — he wants to be who he is.”
So if Joker isn’t Joker, who is?
This dichotomy is portrayed largely through Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who it’s slowly revealed has zero interest in Arthur Fleck, only the villainous icon we know and hate to love, Joker. This is alluded to but confirmed in their climactic staircase interaction. Filmed symbolically on those now iconic(?) Joker Dance Stairs after Fleck is sprung from the courthouse by goons, Lee fully rejects Fleck after he rejects Joker in his closing statements to the court.
In the grand scheme of Folie à Deux—their joint delusion—this is ultimately a grandiose tragedy. Fleck thought he found someone that loved him, but she only really loved the delusion. Staging this after the goon breakout is also an inspired (if somewhat cruel) choice on Phillips part, giving the audience a tiny sliver of what their “Joker takes over Gotham” movie might look like.
Regardless, this scene gives a grandoise, almost Shakespearean tragic moment with an emotional core over an empty, blockbuster-style ending. My take is that there’s an inherent meta irony to this making Folie à Deux something of an inverse sequel that rejects both the modern Superhero movie and blockbusters at large.
Arthur only ever found happiness and respect when he was the worst version of himself. But that’s never who he was or wanted to be.
The Antithesis of the Marvel Method
If you’ve seen more than two Marvel movies you know the formula: [insert superhero here], bright color palette, quippy jokes, CGI world-ending climax, day saved. There are some exceptions to this of course, but more-or-less as an audience we knew what we were buttering our popcorn for.
This worked extremely successfully for a long time—it’s the highest grossing franchise of all time with a total gross of $28.9 billion, after all.
Taking the opposite approach is what made the original Joker such a surprise hit, taking a much darker, R-rated approach with no central hero—it grossed one billion dollars. So, if Folie à Deux doubled down on budget and the subversion of the traditional superhero blockbuster—not to mention the added addition of Lady Gaga and musical elements to spice things up—how could it fail?
Well, it turns out you can got too far. Folie à Deux even went so far as to brutally kill its main character in its closing minutes. And we’re not talking sacrificial, Iron Man hero moment—we’re talking straight-up random act of violence prison shank.
This brutal closing moment is the antithesis of everything we’ve come to be conditioned to expect about Superhero movies as we know them. The “hero” denouncing their alter ego? The conclusive on-screen death preventing further franchise entries? A bleak, downtrodden cliff note to the darkest two movies ever made with the DC or Marvel monicums attached to them?
In many ways, its kind of a bad ass act of defiance. But considering that Folie à Deux only made $40 million opening weekend with a $200 million dollar budget… was it worth it? Is there a way to franchise success outside of the traditional blockbuster mold?
A Response to Blockbuster Franchise Fatigue?
A movie I couldn’t help shake from my head throughout Folie à Deux was David Gordon Green’s trilogy concluding Halloween Ends.
While on paper these two movies have very little in common, I couldn’t help but shake the connective tissue of two predominantly comedy directors taking a beloved franchise character and totally subverting what a movie about them looks like, almost teasing the audience by giving them the opposite of what they likely expect.
Halloween Ends took a Michael Meyers story and almost completely stripped it of Michael Meyers, instead making it something of a fucked up rom com and origin story for a new villain entirely. Did I love it? Not really, but I do respect that he tried something fresh. In many ways I think Folie à Deux did this genre subversion more successfully, despite some structural and tonal messiness.
All this to say, is this a product of franchise fatigue, with bolder directors making efforts to shake it up? This circles back to the Variety article referenced above, begging the question that if fans are so dissatisfied with big budget movies they aren’t going to see them, will there be room for creativity and innovation in franchise blockbuster characters?
Arthur Fleck’s Curtain Call
In closing, I’m interested to see what happens with Superhero movies and blockbuster franchises in general. In many ways, I think Joker: Folie à Deux was a perfect cap to this iteration of the character—both Arthur Fleck, and the meta of the franchise itself.
Fandom is here to stay, and the implications of Joker as a cultural statement in its original success and now box office failure will sure to have ripple effects for years to come. My only true fear is that it will lead to less risk taking in big budget movies.
With James Gunn’s newly ignited DCU on the horizon there is sure to be a newly cast Joker sooner or later. Only time will tell whether he’ll be a savvy crime lord, megalomanic psychopath, a down-on-his-luck standup turned to crime, or a little bit of everything.
If there’s one thing we do know, he won’t be the tragic Arthur Fleck. R.I.P. dude.
Author: Grant Vance
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
