The People's Joker

Vera Drew

Vera Drew's The People's Joker is a queer and trans coming of age tale that appropriates the mythology of the Batman universe. It first debuted on the festival circuit in 2022, but a subsequent release was delayed due to copyright issues. Ms. Drew responded with the longest and wittiest disclaimer I have ever seen attached to a film which graces the stream now available on MUBI. The delay of its release was unfortunate because The People's Joker is a superior satire, brimming with aesthetic energy and nerve. Certainly, it a funnier and more incisive lampoon of life under Trump (aka Lex Luthor) than Todd Phillips' two Joker films. Drew portrays a fascistic Gotham where the populace is made compliant by the twin opiums of mass media and pharmaceuticals. The conformity inducing drug is called Smylex which causes one to smile like Cesar Romero.

Against the oppressive regime and its muscle, the predatory Batman, a band of misfits with familiar names (Penguin, Riddler, etc.) bond together at a renegade comedy club. Drew's background is in improv comedy and the film benefits from his timing, his informed sense of the comedy community, and his contacts. Drew plays the autobiographical protagonist who becomes Joker Quinn in a queer metamorphosis. The acting is uneven in the film's few dramatic scenes with live actors. Only Nathan Faustyn as Penguin can hold the screen with Drew. I also thought the musical moments were outside of Drew's talents.

However, the animated sequences explode with inventiveness. Drew made lemonade out of lemons, enlisting the help of scores of animators when COVID threatened his production. The variegated animated sequences explode the boundaries of the film into a true multiverse of human stories and lore. The film goes beyond the Batman universe to include Betty Boop, Freddy Krueger, Richard Pryor, Lovecraft, "RuPaul's Fracking Ranch", and other strands of joyous dada.

A viewer has to have some tolerance for camp to enjoy the psychedelic rainbow that is The People's Joker, a film tellingly dedicated to "...Mom and Joel Schumacher." All in all, I found the film one of the past year's most rewarding comedies.