MOVIES
Joker 2 Bids Fans Adieu
When a sequel actively hates the positive reaction to the original
Joker: Folie à Deux, with its French title and semi-musical courtroom sequences, wants to matter. Like Arthur Fleck, the main character, this sequel to a billion-dollar movie wants to be bigger than its namesake. It wants to mean something and justify its existence — despite its comic book roots that the director, Todd Phillips, is so ashamed of. The first movie was publicly controversial, with its murderer main character and anarchic conclusion, media outlets were afraid of what it could bring out in people, especially considering the random violence from previous Batman showings.
Evidently, they were half right. There was nothing as extreme as the mass panic that the media had preached, nor would it have been the movie’s fault for portraying violence on screen, as it’s just one of many to do so. There were however, people online who genuinely related to Arthur/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), and held the movie as an inspiring tale. The clown face became a symbol, for internet trolls and genuine people disillusioned by modern society. Putting that aside, in its own right, the movie is also divisive for being an alleged Martin Scorsese clone, borrowing a lot of things from 80s seminal movies like The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. The first Joker was accused of aping those films, putting a surface-level supervillain spin, and barely getting by.
A movie that itself was supposed to be one and done, the sequel had to establish a reason for its presence in the pipeline, and for it to cost 150 million dollars more. It does so by dolling it up with beautiful cinematography, bringing in Lady Gaga, and turning it into a reaction to fans' expectations — the exact opposite of it. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Oscar-winning soundtrack gets drowned out by old jukebox tunes. Joker’s iconic suit and makeup mostly appear in dreamy singsong scenes. I suppose it’s on brand, Joker’s music overwhelms Arthur’s inner turmoil, until the end, where he is forced to choose one over the other. Joker 2 is a response to a lot of things. It retroactively becomes the punchline to the joke that the first set up.
A response to Joker fan(atic)s
Though there were no riots on the streets after the first movie was released, an alarming number of people identify with the character. People dress up as him and post his face on social media, subtitled with nihilistic quotes, sometimes with complete sincerity. Joker 2 is a response to all that, clearly stating what should be obvious from the original, that everyone involved in the making of the film does not support Joker’s actions.
To state it as clearly as possible, Joker 2 prostrates Arthur. It pities the lonely mentally ill person that people, instead of giving concern, somehow put on a pedestal. While the first film doesn’t necessarily condone his actions, it makes his violence transcendent, with Guðnadóttir’s strings and Phoenix’s post-murder dance. His actions were like a baptism for the downtrodden — self-actualization through brutalism. When Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed indirectly because of Joker’s actions, it was framed not as tragic but fated. The camera on Arthur’s side, holding on to him giggling at his achievement. Folie à Deux counters this presentation, showing that what Arthur does is not something to strive for, Joker is not someone to be, and there are consequences you can’t escape. It balks at Arthur’s actions, showing him not as someone to be looked up to, but as an ill person that needs help.
A response to the current state of cinema
Joker 2 not only critiques fandom, but it also takes a jab at franchises. It doesn’t only hate how much people liked the first movie, but also the situation that caused the second movie to be made in the first place. The film is a product of how audiences enjoy franchises, getting production companies to support their demand, and making them the most profitable enterprise in filmmaking. Ironically, it despises the world that makes its existence possible. Suffice it to say that its brutal commercial failure may prove to be its intended success. Its middling critical reception, however, could only attest to the limit of Todd Phillips’s pretense. Like a jester showing his king the kingdom’s problems, the film performs its truth to us, by making a fool of itself.
Ever since Heath Ledger’s performance as the character won him a posthumous award, the role gained this infamous mythic status, something you whisper to get the media rolling, the next actor to take the mantle worthy of front page news, what regimens they take to prepare for the role, how crazy they’re willing to get. A clear example is Jared Leto riding on the name Joker to boost his filmography and make his name jump up the charts, disregarding his lack of screen time, or his quality of performance.
Superheroes are a curse, not because they are horrible art, but because they take over the public consciousness so easily. The movies are iconic because their characters are designed to be trademarked. They are easy to remember, for kids to draw, and to be put on lunch boxes. Joker’s makeup is recognizable and easily reproduced, becoming cheap cosplays for Halloween, and emojis on text screens.
A response to Joker (2019)
Joker (2019) was a reaction to superhero movies at the time, with Marvel at the top of the food chain, and DC wanting to stake a claim at their own success. When Zack Snyder’s universe failed, they tried something else, prestige cinema. If that first movie was a response to other people’s works of art, then Folie à Deux is first and foremost a response to Phillips’s own.
In the world of paintings, re-creations of famous works or pastiche is not uncommon. They may not be as highly regarded as the original masterpieces, but they exist, especially in the era of pop art. Lichtenstein recreated Van Gogh’s bedroom painting in his style. Warhol made a whole series from Da Vinci’s Last Supper. It makes sense that comic book movies, cinema’s own pop art, are doing the same thing to Scorcese. Is the redundancy of any value? Does the homage say something on its own separate from the original? Does it improve on the predecessor? That is a whole other can of worms that requires a different essay for discussion.
What is important is Phillips's reaction to his pastiche, and the entire creative team’s decision to make Joker 2 the way it is. In a roundabout way, it reminds me of Radiohead’s Creep. After the song’s immense popularity, the band got sick of always being told to play it, so they made the song My Iron Lung as an outlet for their frustration:
This, this is our new song
Just like the last one
A total waste of time
After watching the first movie, what would the second one even be, more of the same? What do people want from a Joker sequel, one that could satisfy both critics and audiences alike? Him fistfighting young boy Bruce Wayne? Him taking over the city and creating a society of Jokers? I reckon the final product is the most creatively virile of the alternatives. It’s a logical continuation that the delusions of the first movie get visually separated by its musical sections, and we get a fistful of reality for Arthur when he is in prison or the courtroom.
He is only the Joker when it’s time to be a musical, with full garish colors propped in IMAX widescreen. He is safe in the spotlight there, living his dream of being a star, all attention on him, without any of the consequences. When it’s time to wake up to reality, the lighting isn’t as convenient, the colors are less saturated, and the screen is letterboxed with a regular aspect ratio. Previously, he longed to be the talk show host that Robert De Niro played. Unwittingly, he achieved his dream. People watch his trial, some even root for him, but it’s all a sham. In the end, he’s just singing his last words before his death sentence, a ritual dance that ends on the ground.
The trailers telegraph a different version of the movie that never came to be. A story where the same thing that happened to Joker happens to Lady Gaga’s character, showing the birth of Harley Quinn. There are even shot-by-shot recreations, but this time with Gaga’s face instead of Phoenix. The first one had an iconic stairway dance? Well, this time there are two! Maybe people were disappointed that the movie they thought they wanted was not what they got.
Joker 2’s target audience is none other than Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix. Every decision is suffused with their creative intent. There’s a reason Phoenix never starred in a sequel before this. One of them is the money, another is the message.
The main thesis statement of the movie is apparent after its midpoint. When previous characters return and respond to Arthur’s actions. In this movie’s universe, what happened in the first Joker was turned into a TV movie. The killings have been sensationalized. It’s meta. Both the audience of the trial and the sequel don’t care about the person behind the makeup, they just see the performance. It’s all entertainment to us.
Joker is this exaggerated act that Arthur did once and fell into, a typecast. Even his love, Harley, leaves once the makeup wears off. All Arthur ever needed was love and attention, but only Joker received any of it. Not dissimilar to actors who only get asked superhero questions on press junkets, even when they are promoting other passion projects. Case in point, Ben Affleck on Live by Night, repeatedly asked about his unrelated role in Batman, adding up to his decision to hang up the cape.
Joker 2 is self-deprecating. Arthur begs Harley to stop singing. The film emasculates him, with an unpleasant scene of the prison guards abusing him. This is not a heroic tale, it is a tragedy, for all parties involved, filmmaker and audience included. The film’s penultimate courtroom sequence is a press interview after a red-carpet premiere.
A response to obsession with the fake
Joker 2's ending is almost the opposite of the first, when Joker smiles a blood-red grin in the back of a police car, looking out the window at the chaos he has wrought. Here, with his worn-out makeup, he sees the desert of the real. Like the third act of a superhero movie, we see devastation in all its glory, the violence that audiences seek, caused by Joker’s fans. In one continuous take, Arthur runs away from all his apostles toward his love. He doesn’t want freedom, he doesn’t want to be this symbol, he just wants to be loved. But all the poor man gets is adoration for what he’s done, not compassion for who he is.
When Arthur was face-to-face with someone dressed as Joker, it’s eerily accurate to what comic book writer Alan Moore said about his real-life fan encounter:
So actually, sort of, Rorschach became the most popular character in Watchmen. I meant him to be a bad example. But I have people come up to me in the street saying, “I am Rorschach! That is my story!’ And I’ll be thinking: ‘Yeah, great, can you just keep away from me, never come anywhere near me again as long as I live’?”
People who idolize the clown prince of crime both on and off screen aren't people you'd like to hang out with. Moore recently spoke about toxic fandom’s negative impact on the world, particularly in political contexts. Joker 2 is an extension of that reality, dressed in fiction.
*Spoilers ahead for the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux*
By the end, even when the camera is focused on Phoenix’s performance and the background blurs, people are still commenting on what it means for the lore or the future. A hundred headlines ask if there will be another Joker film, the ending gets dissected and sequels are speculated. Threads arise asking who the real Joker is, or if it has any connection with Heath Ledger’s version. No one cares about Arthur’s solemn face or his peaceful slight smile. Even in his final moments, people think of the persona, not the man.
The obsession with there being one true Joker is the same obsession with comparing Batman actors. They all have their own merit, yet people are so obsessed with canon that no creative liberties can be taken. Too obsessed with the authenticity of fake people, on the possible repercussions to the larger fictional DC universe, people miss Phoenix’s subtle twitch as Arthur lies dead. The fans have killed him, and the movie, because both are not what they wanted them to be. Both did not live up to the idea of Joker they had in their heads.
Joker: Folie à Deux is provocative, and because of that, I admire it greatly. I certainly admire it more than other franchise movies that would play it safe by reusing the familiar. Joker achieved its goal and produced the reaction from fans that it had hoped. Though maybe not as much from critics.
Titled after a comic book character, Joker is cursed in a limbo between prestige cinema and superhero movies, thus alienating both audiences. It is neither smart enough nor sincere enough to be firmly in either aisle. It’s a wild card that gets left by the wayside, not knowing how to be played. Unlike other spin-off villain movies like Venom or Morbius, Joker fails differently, it tries to rise above its source material, becoming a “mature” film with a clown in costume.
“Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.”
— Alan Moore
