Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn deserved better than what ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ gave her
Welp, I saw Joker: Folie a Deux and it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life. It got pretty much everything wrong, but I am particularly upset about how the film treated Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn character.
So where do we begin? First off, this movie should have never been made to begin with. The first Joker film came out in 2019 and was directed by the same man, Todd Philips. At the time, there was a mixture of both excitement and confusion based off of early teasers. Would this be a gritty, hyper realistic portrayal of the famed villain? Or something else entirely.
When the film finally did release on Oct. 4, 2019, the end result was something in-between the two ends: realistic and gritty but also goofy as hell? And it also made like over $1 billion so that’s something. Flash forward to 2024 with the sequel movie being a…musical featuring Lady Gaga? It’s definitely a premise with potential, but it’s clear this was just to strike lightning in a bottle again for the execs that be.
Spoilers for Joker: Folie a Deux ahead
Surprise, it was trash. As reported by Variety, apparently Philips didn’t even want to make it in the first place, which would explain so much. Joker 2 picks up after the events of Joker, which seemingly ended with the Clown Revolution happening. Our comedic protagonist now sitting in Arkham prison awaiting the ‘trial of the century’ for whether he should be sent to death row for his murders or not. While in the slammer, he meets up with Harley Quinn and they both fall in love immediately and try to weather the legal battle before them.
The problem with Quinn is that she’s entirely just an object of obsession for the Joker throughout the whole film. Her only point of personality is being ultra-obsessed with Arthur Fleck the whole film. Besides that, she’s basically painted as a sociopath with no other redeemable features. Worst of all, after Arthur disowns his Joker persona, she very cruelly tosses him aside like he’s nothing, and leaves him to await his death.
Harley deserved better. For years, she’s been made into the same fetishized abuse victim that exists as an anti-feminist sexual fantasy in many popular portrayals of her. As we’ve talked about before, HBO’s Harley Quinn animated show does a substantially better job with her than the vast majority of Batman media out there. Not only does she get her own narrative autonomy, but she’s also very explicitly a queer woman in a relationship with Poison Ivy. 2020’s Birds of Prey also does an excellent job with this subject matter.
When she does finally become the titular Harley Quinn in Joker 2 and puts on her iconic jester outfit, it’s very brief and entirely attached to Arthur’s own tribulations. She can’t exist as a strong female character on her own, she has to be written entirely in service to a man, and that’s pretty wack TBH. It’s not just a waste of such a beloved character, but also of pop star Lady Gaga. And apparently Lady Gaga was paid less than her male co-stars on production too. I’m not asking for much, just for Hollywood to treat one of my favorite comic book characters with the respect and dignity she needs. Less sexual fetishization and more female empowerment in comic book movies, please.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
