NS: Celebrating Pride with the Joker

[cyberghostface]

As another year has gone by with Joker again being left out of DC's Pride celebrations, I found it interesting to see how he has become a symbol of Pride elsewhere with many people attending various LGBTQ events around the world dressed up as the Clown Prince of Crime. (It should come to no surprise that Batman attended a few of these events with his frenemy as well.) 

Here are a few images I found with their respective sources underneath.

 
(Source)


(Source)



(Source)



(Source)


(Source)


(Source)

Comments

[redmagpie]

Hey as a queer Joker fan, why do you think that DC leave him out?

[cyberghostface]

If I had to guess it’s because he’s a hugely popular character and Warner Bros. is very protective of how he’s used.

I don’t think it’s because he’s a villain/murderer given the other characters DC (and Marvel fwiw) are using for Pride.

[mordalo]

If you'll pardon the bluntness, if DC freaks out at the thought of Batman going down on Catwoman, they sure won't like the thought of a queer Joker (although I think of him more as Bi).

[numeronone]

"We've had this character rip his own face off and reattach it with velcro, murder people in increasingly grim ways, mutilate them in other increasingly grim ways, (NTM rape sometimes!), and he's become a role model for immature edgelords all over the world, sometimes coinciding with actual real-life murders.

And also he's pansexual! Happy Pride!!!"

[cyberghostface]

Since numeronone has blocked me, I'll ask him here:

What rape are you referring to? Because Joker has never raped anyone in canon, unlike characters like Mystique and Daken (and maybe Poison Ivy) who are featured for Pride by the Big Two.

Also if you're referring to Jason Holmes, he had nothing to do with the Joker. He wasn't dressed up him, didn't say he was the Joker. That was all bullshit added by the media after the fact. And regardless if someone mentally ill *did* decide to put on a Joker mask and commit a crime, if the Joker did not exist he would have likely still committed a similar crime.

[cainofdreaming]

There was a Batman story that touched a similar subject. A psychiatrist who had declared a psychotic who'd been committed because he'd murdered his parents as sane because the patient's insurance had run out claimed that Batman was to blame too (the patient had started to believe he was Bats and started killing people he saw as criminal). Batman disputed it, sure he was the trigger but people like this would just find another one if he didn't exist.

[cyberghostface]

Right. It’s oversimplifying things and gross to blame the actions of disturbed people on works of fiction.

[beyondthefringe]

I have trouble seeing the Joker as a sexual being at all, much less gay/bi/pan.
He's Batsexual, inasmuch as he's laser-focused upon the Batman, but not in any sense of arousal or attraction.

Does Joker have sex? Sure, to scratch an itch like many people would.
Would he sleep with anyone he felt like? Yes, because he refuses to limit himself in terms of gender or physical appearance or identity or presentation.
In fact, he does whatever he deems funniest or most transgressive at any given time according to the pendulum of his sanity.
Maybe that means one day he's dressing up as a 50s housewife, and the next day he's in black leather dom gear and the next day he's in a full clown suit. Whatever fucks with his victims the most. Whatever amuses him the most. Whatever disturbs and unsettles people and keeps them off edge.

He's not a gentle, tender, considerate, or even reciprocal lover because that's not how he works. UNLESS it's to throw off expectations.

The above images are awesome because they reflect a Joker who, in being deemed a Pride icon, embraces the role like he does so many others--and he frames it in relation to the Batman in so many of those. Hell, he probably forced the Dark Knight to dress up like that as part of some scheme to push Batman out of his comfort zone, akin to The Killing Joke.

But calling the Joker gay or bi or pan is like applying those labels to literal forces of nature. Queerness is part of his essential makeup, but if he showed up to a Pride event, he'd scare the shit out of everyone. And he'd laugh, and he'd be at the very front of the parade waving a big ol' rainbow flag...

And then he'd Joker gas the crowd. Maybe the participants. Maybe the cops. Maybe the protesters. Maybe everyone indiscriminately. And he'd do it all to get Batman's attention...

But this is why DC would rather push someone they've developed into a more acceptable, sympathetic, relatable anti-hero, like Harley. Because she's still human where it counts. :)

[redmagpie]

So

Ace Psychopath representation? Like Akihiro used to be?

[beyondthefringe]

I wouldn't even pin him down to Ace or Aro, because they feel limiting for how I see the Joker.

[icon_uk]

Thank you for summarising my own thoughts so much better than I would.

[beyondthefringe]

As you can tell, I find him a fascinating character in theory and execution, because he’s so adaptable to a myriad of circumstances and depictions. I don’t necessarily like the Joker, but I like his potential complexity.

[cyberghostface]

It’s not his usual style but Joker has been tender in the past.

[beyondthefringe]

The Batman:TAS Joker has always been a little less homicidal and a little more whimsical. That’s why he’s such a satisfying version of the character.
It’s no surprise that Harley could develop out of that particular setting before showing up in the comics. :)

[shakalooloo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Joker has not canonically come out, so DC is not wanting to use any characters in Pride who are not 'confirmed'.

[cyberghostface]

They’ve had non-confirmed characters before.

[shakalooloo]

Then beyond the mass-murderer thing, I'm drawing a blank.

Having typed that, I guess it's okay to depict Superman or Nightwing being an ally, but endorsement by a murder-jester is not positive optics.

[redmagpie]

These covers feel less about them being queer and more about them being 'allies holding pride flags'

[cainofdreaming]

Bat-bugle to hide the Bat-bulge? Boo! Let it be free!

[icon_uk]

Though beyondthefringe said it extremely well further up, I think I want to add my own take on it.

The Joker isn't a DC-acknowledged queer icon because any queer traits he might have seem are hollow, overshadowed by his utter lack of empathy.

As the Pied Piper noted over thirty years ago, "He's a sadist and a psychopath, I doubt he has real human feelings of any kind." and that's kind of the point of the Joker.

His real motivation is that he is an obsessive, regardless of whatever orientation he might, or might not, have.

He's the worst stalker imaginable times ten, convinced that the target he obsesses over loves him, even if they never say it, and is in complete denial over anything that suggests otherwise. Every other person around his target is a pet, at best, or more likely a cardboard cutout, who can be ignored or discarded at will if he feels they are getting in the way, because they don't love him like HE does. And in the case of the Joker, that means another bodycount.

That, to me, is a much bigger component of his personality than his ability to use apparently sexual/romantic gestures to manipulate people and which aren't based in any way on love or mutual attraction.

People cosplaying as the Joker at Pride marches, well, I have to give the Joker credit for not giving a hoot about anyone's perceptions of him, he is who he is (Whoever that happens to be today, and that will vary wildly) vibrant, camp, disruptive, out loud, all the time. And if someone in an oppressed minority find's release in reflecting that approach to life then good for them.

But again, the "actual" Joker might well join a Pride march because he thought it was amusing, but he'd also set it on fire and toast marmallows on the remains of the participants for the exact same reason, because the Joker doesn't care about queer people any more than he cares about anyone who isn't literally HIS Batman.

[beyondthefringe]

A great analysis!
He makes for a good queer icon for those who like that sense of chaos or transgression—and lord knows that the queer community has always embraced elements of performance and transgression—and I love the shots above which keep the Bat-Joker dynamic in full display…

But DC is almost certainly never going to label the Joker with any specific identity in their mainstream comics. No matter how writers or artists might code him (or have coded him for decades!) there’s still a line between creative interpretation and corporate control.

Thank goodness they went full steam ahead with Harley and Ivy though.

[lego_joker]

In addition to this... lately I've come to think that, in an extremely backwards way, the Joker's come to embody systemic privilege for a lot of fans. Not exactly in the Lex Luthor villain-with-good-publicity sense, but in the "Literally everyone hates him, he literally makes every effort to make everyone hate him, and the law still treats him with kid gloves" sense. (Think about all the rich kids who get off with the Affluenza defense - or our dearly-beloathed ex-president.)

Now that I think about it, the current Joker might be the very embodiment of the idea that you can be chaotic without being a rebel - and it's the latter, not the former, that's truly the spirit of Queer.

[john_drake1964]

As someone who is not part of the larger community depicted above, but supportive of it, the concept of finding figures who push back against social strictures and expectations as a form of developing personal and community liberation against said demands, as well as expressing personal individuality, I certainly can see why it might be appealing to find such figures.

That being said, I suppose the idea of trying to develop a figure like the Joker into such a potential figure or icon is a bit...head-scratching, I suppose. Especially as I see above someone dressed as the Heath Ledger Joker, who has a considerable body-count.

1. He orchestrates a robbery of a mob bank that ends with him being the only survivor by design, having the others off each other.
2. Rams a guys eye into a pencil, eraser end first.
3. Has two crooks vie for a spot on his growing gang by fighting to the death with a broken pool cue.
4. Kills a Batman imitator presumably slowly and painfully while video-taping his mocking of the man earlier.
5. Blows up a judge and kills the police commissioner with poison or acid.
6. Attempts to kill the mayor at the funeral of the commissioner, causing chaos and presumably some deaths or injuries in the scramble afterward.
7. Causes mass chaos and presumably several deaths during the attack on transportation of Harvey Dent.
8. Has a remote bomb sewn into a goon which he detonates to escape GCPD.
9. Is responsible for the death of Rachel Dawes and the maiming and eventual mental push of Harvey Dent into becoming Two-Face.
10. Burns Lau alive on-top of a money pile.
11. Kills another by having dogs tear him to pieces (possibly, or maybe just killed him and fed him to the dogs...either is in character.)
12. Kidnaps a school bus of evacuees from a hospital (which he blows up) and has them disguised as his goons, so when a SWAT team attempts to rescue them, they kill them, before presumably being attacked by the mooks now disguised as hostages.
13. Sets up a big moral dilemma of taking two ferries hostage and forcing them to make a choice about who gets blown up (and when it doesn't happen, goes to blow everyone up...)

[cainofdreaming]

With the Ledger Joker the focus is more likely on Ledger himself, rather than the character. At least I'd like to think so.

[cyberghostface]

I think they just liked the idea of Joker dresses up a nurse, it’s a popular look for fans.

[john_drake1964]

Well, the last picture also seems to be of the Ledger Joker, going by the coat and hair. So it's not just his nurse ensemble.

[cyberghostface]

I forgot about that one but Ledger's Joker is probably the most popular version of the character in general and I've seen him appeal to both women and gay men for a number of reasons. I don't think it's an endorsement of his actions in the context of the film, though.

Like Hannibal in the show has become a gay icon in many respects (a lot of it being very deliberate on the part of the showrunner and cast) and Hannibal is arguably worse than Ledger's Joker at least. I don't think the people who like him as a character are endorsing the awful things he does.

[john_drake1964]

I mean, I personally don't think that those who dress up as the Ledger Joker want to commit acts of domestic terrorism or agree with his actions, and it probably has more to do with Ledger than the character, as cainofdreaming suggests. It's just there's a trend that can happen where characters can have some of their worst traits glossed over for a variety of reasons, which can sometimes led to...depictions which might be a little awkward, I guess.

I don't have an issue with the Joker being developed into a potential icon if the idea is to re-interpret the character as a force of positive chaos, pushing back against societal expectations, demands and more and showcasing personal pride in oneself and identity and community. The more generic Jokers above the Ledger ones are a bit easier to separate into this development than the Ledger one, at least from my perspective, but maybe that's part of the problem, two views of a coin that are looking at it from different life experiences and so on.

[zachbeacon]

Forget the murder clown.

I just wish they'd give The Ray more than two panels where he's in a crowd shot.

[cyberghostface]

Who?

[zachbeacon]

Exactly.

[icon_uk]

The Ray gets his own story in this week's DC Pride Special

Whether we'll see him again before another Pride Special is perhaps more open to debate, alas.

[zachbeacon]

That's good. I read the 2021 issue and was pretty ticked about the lack of Ray-presentation. Back to hoping they do something with the Freedom Fighters (because they mostly seem to be a package deal these days), I guess.

It wasn't a bad as Marvel putting Julie Power on last year's Voices issue only to have her show up in one tiny panel in the intro. You'd think the rainbow girl would be a bigger deal when Pride Month rolls around.