The joker is gay
Home / gay topics / The joker is gay
literally.)
The depth of his relationship with Batman is ostensibly missing from the one he's shared with Harley Quinn, perhaps laid most acutely bare in Suicide Squad. Punchline is described as being the polar opposite of Harley Quinn. ("La petit mort," but... I should have mentioned that the facial hair of the Clown Prince of Crime, along with the very noticeable makeup of Batman, are results of enhanced picture quality transfers to formats like Blu-ray.
Some of my favorites are Hillbilly Hare (Robert McKimson, 1950), Rabbit Fire (Chuck Jones, 1951), Rabbit Seasoning (Chuck Jones, 1952) and Bedevilled Rabbit (Robert McKimson, 1957).
[6] I wrote in more detail about Ledger’s Joker as featured on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008) in my original essay.
[7] An article about the pregnant Joker controversy and the comments from writer Matthew Rosenberg can be consulted at this link.
[8] The story of how Tim Curry was considered originally to voice the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series can be read in Fixing the Laughter: Voice Casting the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series by John Trumbull, The Man Who Laughs (2023) published by Crazy 8 Press.
Is The Joker Queer, Straight Or Something Else
A petition on Change.org started by Elena Shestakova calls for DC Entertainment to "Make The Joker Gay Again," compacting the long-running speculation about the DC villain's sexuality into a clear call to action.
"The Joker is a character with almost 80 years [of] history, half of which he was portrayed as homosexual," Shestakova states.
He makes sexual innuendos, coyly asks for kisses and revels in any attention the Dark Knight pays him. In the movie, the actor Jack Nicholson is magnetic as the charismatic, psychotic and farcical Clown Prince of Crime. The pet names which he uses for Batman are most likely a try to unnerve Batman.
With everything said, to confirm the notion of Joker being gay we need to go to his roots Neal Adams in his Batman Files book claims that Joker was always gay.
His compulsion to Joker-fy his victims also feeds the homophobic myth of a gay conversion agenda.
Frank Miller once summarized the Joker and Batman has a "homophobic nightmare." But "being queer doesn't make someone a bad person," Shestakova points out, "therefore, fictional characters don't need to be good and righteous to be gay.
These are cases of the Joker as a Trickster figure [4], and he acts very similarly to Bugs Bunny in various animated shorts, where the rabbit dresses as a woman to confuse or mock his antagonists [5]. He makes no secret that his ultimate desire is driven by a violent domination fantasy.
Thus, by antagonizing Batman into breaking his One Rule, the Joker longs to dominate the Dark Knight by allowing Bruce to dominate him -- by taking his life.
What could be said about that grueling film? "DC's queer villains are almost all bisexual women," the petition notes.
The Queer Prince Of Crime: A History
Ultimately, Shestakova isn't calling on DC to graft something new onto a beloved character, as some fans have interpreted, but to "restore" something that was already there. This is understandable, since it was made without permission from DC Comics, and appropriates the characters of that company for an act of cinematic subversion.
Shestakova's campaign rests on the issue of equal representation as well as combatting erasure, after all. The director and main actress, Vera drew – a trans woman herself – retakes the queer and transgressive roots of the Clown Prince of Crime, and in doing so, appropriates the character.
He is strangely fixated on Batman, at one point he claims to have had his heart broken by a former boyfriend (Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan’s Devil’s Advocate). More unexpected was that I was genuinely surprised by some of those. Not all people can relate to heroes, many of them love villains."
There's also a case to be made for ambiguity.
I took the occasion to revisit, augment and correct my original essay. To prevent the audience from empathizing too much with the villain, the Joker was already a criminal before transforming into a monster in Tim Burton’s version, in contrast with Alan Moore’s where he was just a common man.
The second difference is that, in classic Hollywood melodrama in which all conflicts have to be personal, the murderers of the parents of the future Batman is the criminal who will become the Joker.
The reason is that he is a very macho Joker, in the style of the sixties version. This part of their relationship has been highlighted in some of their biggest stories together, in comics or on-screen.
RELATED: The Joker: 10 Looks That Slay Us (And 5 That Just Look Funny)
In Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's "Death Of The Family," which Snyder called a "love letter to Batman from Joker," Joker describes their battles as "dances," calls Batman "darling" and refers to himself as "yours" during their interactions, echoing his flamboyant, love-lorn portrayal in "Batman: A Death In The Family," which Snyder's story pays homage to, if only in name.
Snyder also has Joker tell Nightwing that he "always smell[s] so good," proving that -- as Shestakova points out -- the Clown Prince of Crime doesn't just have eyes for Bats.
Maybe in a few years it might be worth revisiting him again!
About the Author:
Robotics engineer boy by day, cinephile comics fangirl by night, Valentina Rossi is a queer genderfluid Latinoamericana currently living in Switzerland.