#panel is from 'prelude to the wedding: harley quinn vs. joker'

[forevercloudnine]

re: the joker post you reblogged, I always wondered personally if people's unwillingness to forgive him compared to other rogues is cuz he reminds people of their abusers (with his relationship with harley) I tend to find fandom is often less forgiving of behaviour that hits closer to home when compared to potentially worse but more abstract stuff. Like a character who hits their wife will get more hate than one who blows up a planet, bc the latter feels more fictional? Just my theory though

(The Joker post in question)

I think you're definitely right about that. Plenty of people hate Joker specifically because of Harley Quinn (or, predating Harley's conception as a character, because of his mutilation of Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke-- which, though not considered sexual assault by the author Alan Moore, was definitely sexualized in the art by Brian Bolland). And honestly, given the way he's written as an exaggerated parody of an abusive misogynistic boyfriend in Harley's various solo series, it's completely understandable for anyone who reads those comics to want to never see him ever again, because his appearances are not fun to read!

But I think it's also true that people who are mainly fans of other male villains use him to make their own faves look better in comparison. Though it is funny to constantly see posts in character tags that are like "[insert supervillain here] hates Joker and could totally beat him up," because invariably the supervillain has a) been depicted as friendly with Joker in canon, and b) HAVE fought Joker but lost embarrassingly.

#joker #harley quinn #panel is from 'prelude to the wedding: harley quinn vs. joker' #which is just the premier example of how joker is portrayed by harley writers #because in canon an HOUR after he has this convo with harley. he goes and has the church fight with bruce and selina #and the difference in characterization between these two appearances is absolutely staggering #he is genuinely unrecognizable as the same character #anyway there is definitely something to be said about how btas has permanently added 'abusive boyfriend' to joker's character #and that batman media has sooooooo much trouble with figuring out how much that has to factor into any given portrayal #i think the most transparent struggle with that is on The Harley Quinn Show #where joker goes from being an abusive misogynistic creep to Harley's Funny Ex in-between seasons #to the point that he hooks up with some civilian nurse with two young children and it's treated sweet and romantic #instead of like. incredibly worrying. because he's a noted abuser with a terrible track record around women #but he's switched from being the antagonist of harley's Feminist Character Arc to a comedic side character so whatever it's fine now #so many male writers get to write harley quinn content and i feel like they almost never understand anything about domestic abuse #so they just write the most exaggerated parody of it possible and then have harley hit him with a hammer #and then feel like they've made her a strong female character #which like. i guess makes sense as an evolution for a female character who was originally written as side joke eye candy #NOT that i don't enjoy a lot of the stories paul dini has written about her #but like. there's a lot of contextual baggage in her character from day one