Joker: Folie à Deux
The Great White Nope

2,077 words

The film Joker: Folie à Deux naturally follows the aftermath of its predecessor, the Joker movie of 2019. Then, a mentally disturbed lumpenproletarian repeatedly got kicked when he was down, and quite literally at that. Of course, the cheese decisively slid off of his cracker, and the unemployed clown snapped epically. The new film’s action begins with him in the infamous Arkham Asylum. He’s about to stand trial, and there will be courtroom scenes aplenty. He no longer appears as a nascent supervillain, but instead like he was before, emaciated and profoundly disturbed.

I should add that his origins aren’t quite what they are in the usual Batman legendarium. Neither are those of his girlfriend Harley Quinn. DC Comics isn’t a stickler for consistency, but after they cleverly wallpapered over all that with their multiverse concept, there’s no further use quibbling about narrative continuity. Just run with it. Note also, for those who dismiss all that as capeshit, it’s not quite that type of movie.

The Joker and Harley quite often break into song, though it’s not exactly a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical either. Viewers will have to get used to it. (I get the concept; in fact, after watching A Clockwork Orange, tunes like “The Thieving Magpie” reminds me of fisticuffs.) It works, since the story is told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who dreamed of being an entertainer and spends much time in his mental fantasyland.

In one instance, Joker and Harley go into a duet reminiscent of a Sonny & Cher performance. (The film contains some powerful nostalgia porn like this for late Boomers and early Generation X. Although the movie depicts the bleakest facets of the era corresponding with my misspent youth, it was positively majestic back then compared to Clown World!) Lady Gaga, playing Harley Quinn, is certainly up to the vocals and occasional keyboard magic. It’s difficult to recognize her, since this role is one of the few times she doesn’t appear in her usual macaroni hairstyles.

It opens with an animated intro where the Joker’s shadow rises from the ground and assumes control. Somebody’s been to film school! One may assume that this is sort of like the Jungian concept of claiming one’s shadow self, except that it worked in reverse here. Then when the police arrive on the scene, the shadow at the last moment abandons the Joker to the rookers of the millicents who tolchok him right horrorshow. The symbolism of the animated sequence isn’t too hard to decipher.

Arthur’s mental condition

The question remains – who is really living in Arthur Fleck’s head? Is he the unhinged loser who went postal? Is he the supervillain called The Joker? Do both identities occupy his mind? Is there a difference, and does it matter? At this late stage, is it possible to step back from the abyss? All this is difficult to determine, given the character’s vacillation. Moreover, it’s hard to be a badass when confined to the loony bin and at the mercy of sadistic guards.

There are reasons the identity question is quite relevant. For one thing, the insanity defense is an angle at his murder trial. The film’s setting evokes the malaise of the late 1970s and its hangover in the early 1980s. In those days, there was plenty of controversy about violent criminals getting off by using a psychiatric diagnosis, or even a rough childhood, as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. The surrealism peaked with the so-called “Twinkie defense” at the trial for the murders of the celebrated gay activist and San Francisco city councilman Harvey Milk and the mayor who nobody remembers.

You can find this essay and many others in Greg Johnson’s book Novel Takes: Essays on Literature, available for order here

Despite the obvious liberal legal mush, there’s a lot to unpack, going back to Plato’s question of whether anyone in his right mind will commit wrongdoing. How non compos mentis is Arthur, anyway? The stakes are very high in this case. Although Gotham City is an obvious stand-in for New York, the death penalty is on the table. The alternative universe location didn’t feature enough liberal legal mush to make the electric chair impossible.

Also around that time, there was plenty of psychobabble about multiple personality disorder, which these days kinda sorta is dissociative personality disorder. It’s a real condition, though verifiable multiple personalities are quite rare. Back in the day, however, it was the neurosis du jour. This is much the way that “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (better known as the jitters accompanying puberty) is chic among today’s teens who are getting indoctrinated in this stuff.

How should Arthur play it, if anything? For a defendant wanting to cop an insanity plea, then it actually would be helpful to method-act a full-blown Caine Mutiny courtroom meltdown. In his case, though, he’s not pretending. Really, he goes too far with it, beginning with firing his lawyer, not that his case has a prayer anyway.

Who is the real Arthur Fleck?

Arthur’s identity also is a critical consideration for Lee, his love interest. In full, her name is Harleen Quinzell, who of course is the Harley Quinn character. She wants The Joker with an obsessive passion, no less fanatical than that of the Charles Manson groupies. This culminates in a love scene in solitary confinement. (It’s hardly what it could be, since he’s basically a two pump chump.) This is not a case of twuu wuv ’cause she sees the beautiful soul under Puddin’s troubled exterior. She only wants the supervillain version of him. She helps to bring out this aspect in him, which informs the movie’s title – Folie à Deux – basically meaning “shared delusion.” Lee suffers from a case of hybristophilia. That is to say, she’s the type who only goes for violent criminals, because they’re so exciting and stuff.

The movie doesn’t explore the parallelism, but his mother had hybristophilia too. That was why young Arthur was beaten to the point of suffering brain damage, chained to a radiator, and apparently sexually abused by her violent boyfriends. I suppose that the Joker-Harley match works out basically like the Freudian proverb that guys end up marrying their mothers, one way or another. Be that as it may, Lee certainly is not interested in a downtrodden, unemployed clown. Not only would the loser version of Arthur fail to give her the Stockholm Syndrome tingles, he wouldn’t even qualify as a mere utility object to be exploited for favors.

Arthur’s true identity also is quite relevant for the cult of personality that has come to surround him. After he whacked the brutal yuppie ruffians in the subway during the last show, lots of ultraviolent types in clown disguises appeared in Gotham City, inspired by his propaganda of the deed. It’s unclear whether these gentlemen represent anarchists, Occupy Wall Street with balls, a nihilist cult, or something else that will evolve into The Joker’s criminal gang; that much isn’t explored.

Whoever they are, they’re capable of quite a bit, including a dramatic escapade that I rather figured was coming. In the end, though, Arthur decides not to lead them. Well, it sucks to be him then; if he’d played his cards right, he could’ve become a celebrated revolutionary whack-job like Marat or even Saint Che. If I’m interpreting things correctly, this decision brings about the final climactic scene in which perhaps the real Joker takes shape.

What was the audience, and the franchise’s fans, to make of the title character’s regression? This creates another level of meaning regarding Arthur’s identity question. During the Sonny & Cher music duet, he takes a moment to remark, “I don’t think we’re giving the people what they want.” Was he breaking the Fourth Wall here? That is to say, does this mean his character’s imagined audience, or the real ones in the movie theaters? More to the point, what happened to the downtrodden Arthur in the last film who exploded with wrath when he had enough of being a perpetual victim? After all, the audience forked over their dough at the box office to see the guy who refused to take it any more.

If a story is going to have a mattoid as the main character, he’d better be an interesting one. (For that matter, A Clockwork Orange without the neo-mod costuming, classical music, “Nadsat” argot, and the dystopian futurism would simply be a forgettable morality play about a perp who gets aversion therapy.) Consequentially, ticket sales weren’t what they could’ve been. Joker: Folie à Deux did make its nut, but the return on investment went comparatively little further past the break-even point. The show’s offbeat features – the animated intro and the musical sequences – were a little odd, but they could’ve worked.

The main problem for the fans was that Arthur wasn’t The Joker they were looking for. Harley Quinn came to the very same conclusion. So did the rampaging gang of Occupy Wall Street prototypes, or whoever they were.

It’s time to rethink the leader principle

There’s not much of an ideological angle in the movie, at least for us. Still, it does bring up some familiar quandaries. What happens when a leader isn’t exactly the guy who we thought he was? Perhaps we discovered that he’s not quite so larger-than-life as we’d imagined. Maybe we sang his praises for doing the Lord’s work until the shocking moment we realized that he’s only 98% on-message. Because of one little thing, we turn away angry and disillusioned. Suppose we discover that he has some quirks and foibles just like anyone else. Shocking, right? More seriously, these are minor league concerns, but all that happens.

There may be greater difficulties yet in relying on a leader. For example, a Man Against Time might be smeared as an archetypal asshole dictator by an ocean of continually rehashed war propaganda. (It’s hard to swim against the tide, even though the bad reputation comes from exaggerations, outright lies, and opprobrium never heaped upon comparable figures.) A leader may be forced to shut up, like William Pelley or Oswald Mosley. He may be killed before his life’s work is done, like Captain Codreanu or Commander Rockwell. Some others, contrary to what we’ve assumed, might not really be on our side. For instance, a God Emperor could turn out to be a “glass half empty” kind of guy.

Worse yet, there are quality problems. Oh dear, are there ever! A popular figure might be remarkably weird, to put it perhaps too charitably. In fact, an out-of-control sociopath in high places can wreck a large and powerful organization. Then there are saboteurs and controlled opposition figures. In my earlier days, I noted that there were too many chiefs and not enough braves. These included armchair Caesars with zero street cred. Others were big talkers who jawed away for years with nothing to show for it. The worst were jealous backbiters putting down anyone on their side, especially those who did something constructive. They should’ve used their badmouthing skills against the enemy.

There were standout Dissident Right figures even then, and quality has improved by now, but we still don’t yet have a Great White Hope with the means to bring The System to heel. Since time is fleeting, we should reconsider this savior business. Granted, it would be wonderful for a heroic figure to make the first move, so we don’t have to risk sticking our necks out and catching flak. Imagine how convenient it would be if only someone else would lift the burden of action from our shoulders and save our people at the last minute. It would be better yet if we could hang out in the cheering section, while he spares us from all the sacrifice and hard work that it would take us to save ourselves. The problem is that if we wait for other people to do the heavy lifting for us, then one day it may be too late.

Perhaps a worthy leader will emerge with control over enough levers of power to fix things. Since we don’t know when – or if – he will show up, then we should do whatever we can on our initiative that gets us in a positive direction. We’ll have to accept the fact that a Great White Hope is one of the things we can’t count on to save us. The good news is that together, we can rise to the occasion ourselves.