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#oh the unattainable dream of getting a comic accurate Joker in a live action adaptation
distort-opia · 2 years
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I see a lot of people say they don't want Joker to be important in The Batman sequels, that they're sick of Joker, etc. but is it just me or do people kind of overstate how ubiquitous Joker is in Batman adaptions? He appears in most of them yeah but that's to be expected when he's Batman's archnemesis. There are some where he doesn't show up, or if he does, isn't necessarily the main/only focus of the villains. The only time I can think of where it got egregious was in the Arkham games, but even then other villains still got a good deal of attention. Or do most of the people making these complaints just not like Joker in general?
Mm, no, I would agree Joker isn't as ubiquitous as he's made out to be in Batman media. However, I do agree with the complaints regarding him to an extent. I'd say it's less about how often he shows up and more about how he does it. Him showing up frequently should be a consequence of him being crucially important. Whether people like it or not, Joker is essential to Batman, that's impossible to dispute -- as you said, he's Batman's archnemesis. But there is a difference between writing a good Joker story and just... sticking Joker in one because he's a popular, titular character.
For instance, in the current Batman run they had Joker be the one who hired Deathstroke to kill Robin way back in the day, and I rolled my eyes so hard. They shove Joker in whenever they're in need of a Plot Twist (aha, it was Joker all along!) or when they have something horrible happen, because of course Joker would do that, he's deranged! Even if the act itself is not in character for Joker. He's come to be used as a plot device when writers don't know what villain to pull out of the hat, and it wouldn't annoy me as much if it were well-written. But instead of trying to fit the story within Joker's core characterization, his personality tends to get rewritten a lot, in order for the writer to tell the story they want. That's how you get... one-dimensional, shallow, typical serial killer and not-actually-funny Joker. So I get how this might make people feel Joker shows up too much, because a lot of the time he's not showing up in the right way, and it becomes grating. I love Joker, but even I am torn between watching his character get skewered vs. not reading about him at all.
Plus, something to keep in mind is the fact that a lot more people watch movies, and not nearly as much read comics. For many fans, the contact they've had with Joker has been through live-action films, and The Dark Knight (2008) especially. Ledger's iconic performance forever influenced what came after. Every attempt at playing Joker since then has had elements from it, and this after Joker got turned into a mascot for dudebros who watched TDK and thought "I'm an agent of chaos" is all there was to him. So many people associate Joker with this "We live in a society" kind of message now -- which Joker (2019) played into heavily, creating a completely different version of him -- when Joker in the comics is so much more than that. It's actually baffling to me how Joker, such a heavily queer-coded character (even within TDK) came to represent toxic masculinity for a lot of people. This, I would say, is another big reason why Joker has become so hated. People have heard of Joker inspiring a shooter to go into a theater and unload a gun into the audience, they've heard about Leto sending dead rats to his colleagues, they've seen all the toxic mysoginist 'alpha' males with Joker posters in their room, and they've landed on this horrid image of him. Which does annoy me to no end, because that's not who Joker is. Joker isn't about wanton destruction, the same way Batman isn't about mindless vengeance. But that's an essay for another day.
Also... it's become a bit of a trend in the last five years, especially on Tumblr and Twitter; to complain about Joker's every appearance, to wish for Batman to kill him or for Joker to disappear entirely, etc. Obviously not saying there aren't people who genuinely dislike Joker (and that's their prerogative), but there's a bit of a 'getting woke points' aspect to this more recent wave of hatred, which has become more prevalent right now for villains in general. Hating on Joker is an easy way to show your moral superiority -- after all, he did so many horrible things. And it's tough to even introduce nuance in a discussion about Joker with people like this, who only view the world in black and white, because they do not seek to understand. The goal, conscious or not, is more the performance a 'pure' moral stance so that they feel good about themselves, and so others flock to agree with them (which in turn makes the commentators feel good about themselves, and on it goes).
Sorry, anon, this got way longer than I expected :)) In the end, this Joker fatigue many DC fans are having right now is influenced by many factors, and it’s such a pity. When done right, Joker can be an absolute delight.
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