In ‘The People’s Joker,’ an iconic villain is co-opted for sly trans expression

Manuel Betancourt April 11, 2024

The first lines that greet viewers of Vera Drews gonzo new film, The Peoples Joker, are

quite obviously

a necessary disclaimer meant to assure audiences (and whatever legal department

s

at various corporations may be watching) that this passion project was never

meant intended

to

intentionally

infringe on any known copyright. Later, a logo of the film will more specifically make this point. It labels Drews wildly inventive take on everyones favorite Batman villain as a fair

–

use comic

–

book parody/trans autofiction. But much like Drews fictional alter ego, a wannabe comedian

/ -slash-

villain living in Gotham City coming into her own, the beauty of this DIY project is found in that slash, in the infinite

space of

possibility opened up by bridging two things (be they gender or genre) and creating something altogether

quite

dazzling

, quite

and new.

Drew, who co-wrote

the script

(with Bri LeRose), edited, directed

,

and stars in The Peoples Joker, is clearly aping the trappings of the self-serious superhero origin story. The kind that found its zenith in Todd Phil l ips 2019 take on Batmans clownish foe. And indeed, theres a way of seeing Drews own take on this Joker the Harlequin as a playful middle finger to such dour depictions of a character whose first live

–

action iteration was in the campy hands of

one

Cesar Romero. Why so self-serious?

it the film

winks at

us at

every turn.

The moment we first meet Drews Joker, backstage as she waits to go on camera for a comedy show, is meant to evoke Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning performance. Shes donning Phoenixs now iconic red clown suit. Shes made up in similar makeup. And she seems just as wary of what shes about to do when she steps on set.

But just as quickly as Drew has encouraged us to connect her project with that other

Joker,

she asserts how deftly shes about to reframe such a comparison. In this version, her Joker is a trans girl whos grappling with

some

childhood trauma and some unresolved gender identity issues. More tellingly, she is driven to pursue a career in comedy. Except in this world, comedy is only allowed at the UCB Live show, an SNL parody thats sanctioned by Batman (a pot-bellied animated hero voiced by Phil Braun) and run by Lorne Michaels (a Sims-like CGI figure voiced by Maria Bamford).

This Joker, then, is waging a war against comedy. Or rather, against the comedy thats allowed to be broadcast to mainstream audiences. The anti-comedy troupe she assembles with her friend Penguin (Nathan Faustyn) looks uncannily like a whos who of well-known Gotham dwellers, including a sly cat burglar, a mouth-guarded muscle man

,

and an ivied plant-human hybrid.

Drew isnt subtle in wanting to puncture th

erough that

insidious claim that women, trans folks

,

and any and every minority not to mention

Z z

oomers writ

–

large

, perhaps

have killed comedy. And so, amid this

animated/live action hybrid vision unique version

of Gotham City, her Joker finds her own villain origin story in wanting to break into a comedy boys

‘

club.

As she hones her

comedy routine

(and her fashion sense, borrowing from various iconic Joker looks over the years), Drews protagonist falls madly in love with Mr. J (Kane Distler), a trans stand

–

up

comedian

whose green slicked

–

back hair, white makeup

,

and damaged forehead tattoo arent enough of a red flag for her to care. Instead, she becomes enamored with Mr. J, whose backstory with their

shared

Bat-foe turns this T4T romance into something far thornier than youd imagine.

In essence, this is a bonkers remixing of one of the most well-known comic book characters of all time. But with a raw vulnerability that comes from Drew plundering

of

her own lived experience, shes made the film serve just as well as

, alternately,

a trans coming

–

of

–

age tale,

as

a probing meditation on abusive relationships

,

and

as

a visually inventive reminder of the queer art of camp appropriation. In her hands and this does feel like a hand-crafted film whose scrappy animations and digitally painted backdrops lend it a homemade

,

textured sensibility decades worth of depictions of the Joker and Batman are entry points into how pop culture can function as a self-fashioning tool.

For Drew

,

that

early textclearly

was Batman Forever. In Joel Schumachers neon-colored

rave-like

vision of a

campy

rave-like Gotham City

,

the Chicago-born filmmaker first found herself connecting those on

–

screen avatars with her own unruly desires. The Peoples Joker is a valiant guerrilla-like attempt at bringing Schumachers queered sensibility back into the superhero genre,

exploding

expanding his

neon-colored rave-like vision of Gotham City

movie into a rather bruising personal drama.

Equally brazen and ambitious, Drews film is committed to embracing the zany undertones that have always bubbled under the surface of a comic book tale

where in which

secret identities, arch

ed

performances

,

and fabulous outfits (all worn in the dead of night, no less) have always felt like lifelines for queer and trans kids

worldwideall over

.