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| Images courtesy of Altered Innocence |
We’ve seen many iterations of Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker over the years. From Cesar Romero’s playful, ultra-campy iteration in the 1960s Batman television series to Heath Ledger’s darkly unhinged portrayal in The Dark Knight, the character has run the gamut of different personas. While many might feel like we’ve seen it all at this point, out comes a bold new contender from left field. Vera Drew’s imaginative film The People’s Joker simultaneously manages to embody all of the renditions of The Joker that came before it while also treading entirely new territory, and it’s a trippy, absurd good time.
Both reverent and iconoclastic in one fell swoop, the film is an exploration of gender identity through a very meta Bat-filter. Vera Drew is a trans New York-based comedienne, and this story is a semi-autobiographical exploration of her struggles growing up as a trans woman and her attempt to make it big as an underground comic. She essentially stars as a caricature of herself in The People’s Joker, explaining how one of her only comforts as a child was Batman comics, and thus the “origin story” of her character is born. In the film, she flunks out of the SNL-esque comedy troupe UCB after moving to Gotham City to escape the judgmental confines of her home, meets up with fellow UCB dropout The Penguin, and they decide to pave their own way to success. They create an “anti-comedy” club with the other villains in town, and we witness Vera become a defiant amalgamation of Harley Quinn and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
The way Drew casually presents The Rogue’s Gallery from previous films in unison with strange reimaginings of them unlike audiences have seen before is controlled chaos at times. Combined with a smorgasbord of animated sequences in crude animation styles and keyed-in CG backgrounds donning the live action bits, there’s something liberating about her approach. It’s amateurish and bizarre, yet I can’t imagine it working any other way. Realism simply wouldn’t do it justice. The film has the essence of a classic punk rock collage poster that contrasts images of political figures with icons like Mickey Mouse, for instance—where on a surface level, everything is unrelated, but when looking at the bigger picture and the messages behind the art, it makes all the sense in the world. It’s rebellious, it’s silly, and it somehow simply works.
Even more impressive is the fact that despite the cheeky, nonsensical nature of The People’s Joker, it manages to be entirely heartfelt. Drew is an absolute pleasure to watch and owns every bit of screen time. Whether she’s paying homage to her predecessors by quoting some classic lines from the ‘89 Burton Batman or presenting a monologue that shares more insight about her gender dysphoria growing up, she has a sincerity about her that transcends all of the malarkey. She has something to say, she says it well, and if you can’t handle it being told through the lens of a ballsy clown makeup-laden trans woman, then piss off. She’ll be just fine without you.
The People’s Joker is a messy love story of sorts. Sure, Drew’s character has a romantic fling with a Jared Leto-esque Joker throughout the film, but it’s more than that. It’s a love for Batman that helped her through dark times, and ultimately, a love for her burgeoning sense of self that previously felt stifled and is now thriving. Like most love stories worth telling, it’s the mess that makes it interesting, and by the ending of the film, despite seeming suspect at the onset, the creative means she uses to showcase her story feels entirely perfect and uniquely her. Intellectual property be damned: long live The People’s Joker, and long live Vera Drew.