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The People’s Joker is the grenade that needed to be thrown into the saturation of superhero media. It feels especially necessary after the retooling of comic book lore with the Academy-Award-winning Joker. That film had so little to do with the DC Comics villain that the origins and name of the character have been changed. If Todd Phillips could contort the clown criminal into his own Martin Scorsese project, why couldn’t someone turn the character into an earnest and trippy depiction of the transgender experience? Director Vera Drew wasn’t going to wait for the approval of DC Comics or Warner Bros, charging forward to create a queer Joker that is far more compelling than Phillips’ gritty repurposing.
Vera Drew places herself in the role of Joker, narrating her rise to become transgender and a villain. She’s established as an aspiring stand-up comedian who becomes quickly disillusioned by the comedy scene. Growing up as a boy, she hid her identity amid the stereotypes of transgender people and restrictive nature of comedy. Her chaotic childhood with her discriminating mother (Lynn Downey) leads to Vera being drugged by Dr. Jonathan Crane (Christian Calloway), forced to put on a smile and keep those trangender thoughts at bay.
As an adult, Vera takes off for an exaggerated version of Gotham City, the only way to make it in comedy is to appear on Lorne Michaels’s (Maria Bamford) UCB Live, a jab at both Saturday Night Live and Upright Citizens Brigade. She learns all about the toxic and reinforced behaviors of comedy, desiring something more that show can’t offer. Soon, Vera starts cavorting with the rejects of the comedy scene. The slacker Penguin (Nathan Faustyn), a non-binary Poison Ivy (Ruin Carroll), and a dorky Riddler (Trevor Drinkwater) all join forces to create an anti-comedy club. There, they perform their non-comedy set pieces bound by the darker tales that Gotham doesn’t want to hear. It’s only when Vera starts embracing more of the absurdity in this darkness, laughing at the pain of those wronged by society and Batman, that she finds her more earnest style of comedy.
As you might have guessed from the descriptions above, this film takes grand liberties with familiar comic book characters. In this world, Batman (Phil Braun) is established as a far-right figure who takes zero responsibility for those he has hurt and abused with his power. Vera also hooks up with an already established Joker (Kane Distler), taking inspiration from the Jared Leto version from Suicide Squad. It’s the perfect choice for staging him more as a trans man with trauma that becomes an emotionally manipulative partner for Vera. There are also a lot of clever background characters utilized for establishing the chaos of Gotham, including Perry White (Tim Heidecker) going full Alex Jones as a conspiracy theorist. I especially dug David Liebe Hart doing his own thing as Ra’s al Ghul, playing himself more up as a comedy sage than a master of the dark arts.
The style of the film bounces all around in a semi-pastic manner. Most of the scenes are live-action using green-screen backgrounds that mimic the stylized comic book format like a drugged-up Dick Tracy. A handful of scenes rely on animation ranging from cartoony 2D to uncanny-valley CGI to stop-motion with toys to puppetry. It has the appearance of keeping the budget low, but the bleeding of mediums creates a vibe all its own. The parody feels colorful and experimental, treating nothing as being off-limits in the off-kilter format of telling a transgender Joker tale. It’s a far cry from the superhero blockbusters that rush their special effects onto the screen. Those films try and fail to cover up the cheap flaws, while The People’s Joker wears it like a proud badge of honor, making its DIY assembling all the more inspiring.
As an editor, Vera started this project, initially intending to re-edit Phillips’s Joker into a better movie. That project ballooned into parodies and re-edits of all the Batman movies. It would soon evolve into a coming-of-age trans story, more refreshing as text than a lesser director might’ve played it as subtext. As such, this highly rebellious film never feels like it’s holding anything back, giving a middle finger to mass-market populism with a neon-painted fingernail. It’s as much a vocal transgender dramedy of bucking the search for validity as a playful romp of playing with anything DC Comics for comedy. It runs along the same lines as the postmodern Harley Quinn animated series, but with more freedoms granted, where studio notes about how Batman can’t lick Catwoman’s pussy are non-existent and not just because this movie frames Batman as a closeted gay man.
The People’s Joker is best DC Comics movie that Warner Bros never made and DC never approved of. It has a genuine spirit of expressive freedom and is uniquely funny in a way that wield satire of gender and entertainment with a parody of DC Comics characters. There’s a treat with the revising, where the mesh of Joker and Harlequinn works well for depicting transition, but a bigger heart and positive message of self-acceptance is still present on its surface. Will it piss off some comic book fans who won’t shut the fuck up about lore? Possibly, but who gives a shit? This film defied Warner Bros to see the light of day on theaters and get beamed into homes via streaming devices. Unlike the copyright-defying Escape From Tomorrowland, however, Vera Drew has made a film that is appealing beyond its controversial choice in media to parody. It’s an uproarious and meaningful comedy with a transgender Joker becoming the villain that others might not want but the one we need. There’s a great saying about franchise movies; good movies may give fans what they want, but great movies will give fans what they never knew they wanted. I never knew I wanted The People’s Joker until Vera Drew made it look so damn good.
