Building a Mountain: Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux
One of the most enticing elements of Joker: Folie à Deux in the lead-up to its release was the promise of another version of Harley Quinn making the leap to live-action. This time, she would be embodied by singer Lady Gaga, which seemed to fit because the film would include several musical scenes. Well, it’s out now, and I appear to be one of about three people who like it, so I imagine Lady Gaga’s take on Harley is not going over well, much like the rest of the movie. But I enjoyed this version of Harley very much, and what it had to say about Arthur Fleck, the societal themes of Todd Phillips’ two Joker movies, and the relationship between the Joker and Harley Quinn in general. In fact, while it’s a deviation from the cartoon and comics in literal terms, I’d argue that Joker: Folie à Deux understands the Joker-Harley dynamic better than any of the films where Margot Robbie portrayed the Clown Prince of Crime’s chronically abused moll.
***SPOILERS***
In Joker: Folie à Deux, Harleen Quinzel is a patient in the therapy wing of Arkham – the less-Asylumy part. And, as we discover, she’s there specifically to meet Arthur Fleck because she fell in love with him (kind of) the moment she saw him blow Murray Franklin’s brains all over her TV screen. Here was a kindred spirit, someone who understood the unfairness of the world the way she did, someone she could build a life with, two psychopaths in love. Arthur learns the truth about Harley in fits and starts because she lies to him at first, manipulating him into abandoning the Arthur Fleck persona and embracing the Joker. You can see the deviations from the traditional Harley Quinn story right away; Harley is an avowed nutcase when she meets Arthur, and she is the aggressor and manipulator in the relationship, abusing him mentally the way the Joker usually abuses her and, in the end, abandoning him the way the Joker so often kicks Harley to the curb – or, more often than not, out a window.
That’s because she’s not in love with Arthur Fleck; Harley Quinn, as always, is in love with the Joker, and Arthur Fleck is not the Joker. I talked about this in detail before, but the Joker is Arthur’s fantasy made manifest, the madness that radiated from a disturbed man’s murder spree that turned into a sort of force for chaos, one that transcended Arthur because he was never truly its avatar. That was what turned so many in Gotham into monsters, what brought out the evil and lunacy in all facets of society. After realizing how malevolent and destructive this plague was, Arthur tried to stop the Joker’s influence from spreading, admitting that he was just a man who killed some people, pleading with the world to let the dark fantasy go. But he was too late; he’d already opened Pandora’s Box, and it got him killed when the true Joker appeared to dispense with him.
In that way, while Arthur Fleck was Harley’s victim, Harley was the Joker’s. She had a nice life, with wealthy parents, a psychology degree, and a promising future. Then, she met the Joker with the rest of Gotham, and his evil, his mania, the chaos he represented warped her. The Joker, at this point just an idea, spoke to Harley the way he did to the legions of violent thugs who took to the streets in the wake of his emergence, and she dropped everything to be with him. Her mistake was the same one the audience made in assuming that Arthur Fleck was the Joker. You could even argue that a part of her knew it wasn’t true, that Arthur was merely a pretender, a stand-in until the real Mistah J could arrive, and that’s why she used subterfuge to push him into embracing the role. (There are differing opinions on this, but I believe she lied about being pregnant as part of this deception; she knew, if only subconsciously, that Arthur needed all the motivation he could get.) Inevitably, Arthur let her down, as anyone but the real Joker would.
And she let Arthur down, much like the Joker. The Joker and Harley Quinn were Arthur’s fantasies, the big, important person he wanted to be and the romantic love he wanted to have. But he didn’t reckon with the truth beneath those fantasies; the Joker is important because he’s a force of evil that brings chaos and destruction wherever he goes, and Harley Quinn holds unconditional love, but only for the Joker, the monster Arthur could never be. Arthur is kind of like those idiots online who post pictures of the Joker and Harley and write “relationship goals” above them, for some reason overlooking the abuse, madness, and murder at the heart of their relationship. He let himself get carried away with the silly trappings, the big musical numbers he imagined in his daydreams, the stolen glances at Arkham, the farce he turned his trial into. But he ignored how unhealthy all of this was, just as he convinced himself to overlook the many lies Harley told him. He chose to be swept up in something he should have avoided at all costs. Arthur had become to Harley what Harley is to the Joker, another reason why he could never really be the Joker.
Compare this to the three (it was just three, right?) movies where Margot Robbie played Harley Quinn. In Suicide Squad, she’s a complete victim of the Joker, with her origin story having the Joker turn Harlene Quinzel into Harley Quinn via a chemical vat like the one that made him. This avoids the perhaps uncomfortable (to modern audiences, or, at least, modern Hollywood screenwriters) truth that Harlene turned herself into Harley to help the Joker. She may be abused, and it may be a tragedy in many ways, but Harley Quinn is not an innocent victim; she’s a psychopath. The Joker manipulated her, but she put on the costume. That’s something Joker: Folie à Deux gets right; Harley made the decision to pursue the Joker, even if she was seduced by the same madness that seduces the rest of his acolytes. It also avoids the Joker’s out-of-character desire to rescue Harley in Suicide Squad; Arthur is devoted to Harley because, again, he’s not the Joker, a clue for that twist. In Birds of Prey, she’s essentially an anti-hero, teaming up with the good guys when the Joker spurns her and becoming her own woman. I know this is prevalent in modern interpretations of the character, but it makes no sense; her identity is completely tied to the Joker. That holds for Harley in this film, where everything she does is in service to “building a mountain” with the Joker, and she recoils from Arthur when she realizes he’s not the monster she thought he was. The Suicide Squad puts her even further into the heroic role, which is a ridiculous mistake that Joker: Folie à Deux never makes, not that it has much of an opportunity to. The truest representation of Harley Quinn will always be Batman: The Animated Series (and the comic Mad Love) because that’s where she was created, but in live-action, as unexpected as this is, it doesn’t get closer than Joker: Folie à Deux – not yet, at least.
Let us know what you think of Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn in the comments!
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Comments (1)
Good headline. Another deep topic, with her being a rich kid shrink, that she would want to kind of use mass psychology and the madness of crowds with her test subject. If you’ve ever seen mania at concerts or sporting events, it would make sense for her to use Joker as the fulcrum to unleash that kind of fervor. We’ve all seen it, for example, the football fan that can’t stop dancing for attention. Could see her using Joker to recruit for a cult of criminals.
They were trying to get her an Oscar, so she was put in this movie across from a prior Oscar winner to try and ensure that. There’s no doubt she can act. She really can. Anything with music biopics or Italian stuff like House of Gucci, you’d think she would excel it. Really, the person Gaga should take a gander at is actually Cristin Milioti, who plays Sofia Falcone, in Penguin, another DC property. I think Milioti and Gaga have kind of a same overall look. She reminds me a wee bit of Streisand. Marisa Abela played in the Amy Winehouse biopic, and that would have been a good role for Gaga, too. Trying to think of roles that could get her that award. Gaga would also been good in spooky type stuff. She comes off that was to me, tbh.