Do you know about THE PEOPLE’S JOKER? It’s an unauthorized, extremely D.I.Y. riff on DC Comics about a trans woman Joker/Harley Quinn combo (director/co-writer/editor Vera Drew) trying to make it as a comedian in Gotham City. I may not have ever known about it if not for it somehow premiering at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving a firmly worded letter from Warner Brothers. After many cancelled screenings they somehow convinced the evil corporation that it was fair use/parody, the movie got a limited theatrical release and now it’s on VOD and on blu-ray and DVD from Altered Innocence. For THE PEOPLE!
I think the main reason it has lived beyond that initial grabbing of headlines is that beneath the gimmick and the many layers of goofiness it’s a very heartfelt autobiographical story about, among other things, coming of age as a trans woman. It’s dedicated “To Mom and Joel Schumacher,” and I strongly suspect that both the strained relationship with her mother (Lynn Downey) and the youthful confusion ignited by seeing Nicole Kidman in BATMAN FOREVER come from Drew’s real life.
The sincerity is key, but wouldn’t be enough without the comic book fun. Drew plays “Joker the Harlequin,” whose youthful gender dysphoria caused Dr. Jonathan Crane (Christian Calloway) of Arkham Asylum to prescribe the experimental drug Smylex, turning her a little insane. But she’s really more of a funny, self-doubting artist than a super villain. She moves from Smallville to Gotham to escape small minds and practice her craft, with colleagues including The Penguin (Nathan Faustyn), Bane (Dan Curry) and Poison Ivy (adorably crude computer animation voiced by Ruin Carroll).
Kinda like the official non-parody Harley Quinn animated series that I love, THE PEOPLE’S JOKER mixes and matches different takes on comic book characters with allusions to versions from various eras and mediums. The Penguin has the BATMAN RETURNS nose and eats raw fish but is just kind of a slobby, okay slacker dude who wears t-shirts and doesn’t shave. Superman character Perry White is seen as an animated right wing commentator on TV, voiced by Tim Heidecker (US) doing an Alex Jones impression. The name “Ra’s al Ghul” (David Liebe Hart) is used for a clown character who’s Joker the Harlequin’s idol and improv guru – it really has nothing to do with the original character, but unlike BATMAN BEGINS Drew uses the correct pronunciation.
Joker’s jerkwad boyfriend (Kane Distler) is also a Joker, called Mr. J and styled after the Jared Leto version from SUICIDE SQUAD. We later learn he was born Carrie Kelly (the female Robin from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) but transitioned into Jason Todd (the Robin famously killed by the Joker after readers voted for him to die via 976 numbers) who was being sexually abused by Batman and became “damaged,” as the tattoo says. Personally I don’t like that Batman smearing, but I do like the movie’s mix of apparent knowledge of many different incarnations of these characters with an anarchic lack of preciousness about them.
The story involves comic book elements like hacking drones, traveling between dimensions, and feeding Batman to a venus flytrap with comedy world insider jokes about improv classes, open mics and what constitutes selling out. Somehow Lorne Michaels is a major character, voiced by Maria Bamford.
This is all possible on a micro-budget because of a well-curated chintziness, shooting everything with Video-Toaster-esque green screen backgrounds, but allowing for a wild collision of hand-made styles by over 100 crowdsourced artists. The way it swings between winkingly crappy and genuinely stylish makes for a fun ride. There’s lots of animation in different styles, some miniature models, a great puppet Mx. Mxyzptlk (Ember Knight), some scenes starring action figures, and many characters and locations animated like Playstation games. I especially love the Nicole Kidman in the BATMAN FOREVER parody. I wonder if she knows The Rock from THE MUMMY RETURNS? The collaging of all these different styles gives the movie a tone and personality far more appropriate than if it was consistent.
I appreciate the many BATMAN-1989-specific references: Bob the Goon, “let’s get nuts,” a well-done Prince knock off song called “Pity Party Man,” and in a really funny bit of audacity (REALLY FUNNY BIT OF AUDACITY SPOILER), Drew got Robert Wuhl to reprise his character Alexander Knox via what is clearly a Cameo video of him saying that he can’t legally say the things he’s being asked to say. (During the end credits we see more of the video where he offers support for the project.) I asked for Knox in THE FLASH, but only THE PEOPLE’S JOKER delivered.
Watching this I assumed Drew had to have grown up on Adult Swim shows, so it makes perfect sense to learn she was well known for editing alt-comedy favorites including On Cinema, Comedy Bang! Bang!, The Eric Andre Show and I Think You Should Leave. For me most of the jokes here work, but even when they don’t the whole chaotic narrative and visual approach gets the attitude across so well it’s hard not to smile like a gas victim and just appreciate that it somehow exists, and not just on Youtube.
Though she thankfully focuses on absurdity, Drew shows strong instincts in some why-so-serious parts too. In the childhood scenes she bleeps out any use of her name (like Beatrix Kiddo before we know her name in KILL BILL VOLUME 1), so when Mr. J dead-names her during an argument (calling her the name she doesn’t use anymore to devalue her) it’s the first time we hear it, making it a real gut punch.
Only afterwards did I read the secret origin of THE PEOPLE’S JOKER: it was initially inspired by that much-mocked interview where JOKER director Todd Phillips said he had to stop making comedies because of “woke culture.” Drew’s friend Bri LeRose said she’d only watch Philips’ JOKER if Vera Drew re-edited it, and Venmo’d her $12 to do it. From the sounds of it Drew wasn’t offended by the Phillips quote, and liked his movie, growing to appreciate it even more after taking the assignment seriously and trying to recut it to be funnier. The more she got into it the more she thought about what the Batman movies meant to her and how much the Joker character reflected her experiences, so during COVID lockdown the project evolved into a found footage personal essay, and eventually a new-footage scripted movie (co-written by LeRose). I think it’s interesting that Drew’s parody version of the Joker is more reverent of the character’s history and original medium than Phillips’ official, authorized movie. Not that it would have to be.
We have this situation now where some hugely famous characters and stories (including Batman pretty soon) are going out of copyright, opening up possibilities for how they could be used outside of their existing corporate ownership. It’s happened with Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie, for example, but so far the only response I’ve seen is slasher movies that technically would’ve been covered by parody anyway. I had this wish that some interesting indie artist would want to do something sincere with Winnie the Pooh in their own style, but maybe that’s asking too much. If you’re gonna go through the trouble of making it maybe you’d rather make up your own thing.
THE PEOPLE’S JOKER was accomplished without any of the Warner Brothers Discovery Streaming and Tax Write-Off Corporation’s precious trademarked intellectual property asset portfolios escaping into the domain of the public, but it’s a good example of the type of creativity I’d like to see from people dealing in that realm. It’s more pop art than adaptation – it uses our knowledge of and attachment to these existing characters to express something entirely different from a real Batman story. If there was a version that used generic composite super heroes instead of specific DC references it would be, in my opinion, unbearable. On some level this is a story about how pop culture shapes us, comforts us, explains the world to us. It makes me so happy that someone not only thought of the idea, but went through all the trouble to do it. On days like this it almost seems like this town does not need an enema.
August 15th, 2024 at 10:43 am
No film is easy to make; your least favorite films had a bunch of people working their butts off. But my first takeaway while watching this was huge appreciation of how much vision and blood, sweat, and tears across a large community had to go into this thing. The fact that it’s coherent and frequently lands its emotional punches makes it all the more incredible! I love that this exists.