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In a cinematic era dominated by superhero blockbusters, perhaps the biggest surprise is the variety within the movies themselves. Sure, they may rely on familiar formulas, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has succeeded in part because of the House of Ideas’ willingness to mix and match genres. Fans can meet Captain America in a throwback war picture before he’s dropped into a paranoid spy thriller. Thor can go on high fantasy adventures through Asgard in one movie and explore the stars with the Guardians of the Galaxy in the next. There are no limits, and that malleability gives the studio its sticking power.
Marvel’s “Distinguished Competition” hit paydirt with 2019′s Joker, an origin story for Batman’s archenemy in clown makeup that blended retro Scorsese features with a modern class consciousness. The film became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time and netted Oscar wins for star Joaquin Phoenix and composer Hildur Gudnadóttir.
Warner Bros. is currently producing a sequel, Joker: Folie á Deux, a jukebox musical co-starring Lady Gaga as the Clown Prince of Crime’s partner, Harley Quinn. Before its October release, however, filmmaker Vera Drew crafted her own parodic take on the Ace of Knaves: The People’s Joker, a queer comedic caper coming to Portland’s own Hollywood Theatre on April 19.
The project was inspired when Drew was commissioned by her eventual co-writer Bri LeRose to reedit Joker. A lifelong Batman fan, Drew found herself contextualizing DC’s heroes and villains through the filter of her own life. “I don’t know that I was necessarily gearing up to write my first feature or something,” she told The Daily Beast. “But I knew I needed to do some sort of big creative project around gender, comedy, and mom issues. The Holy Trinity, as I call it.”
The People’s Joker stars Drew as Joker the Harlequin, an aspiring comedian trying to make it in the alt-comedy scene while coming to terms with her own transgender identity. Unlike Joker, which only makes oblique references to its own source material, Drew’s film is stuffed to the gills with DC comics characters, lore, and shout-outs; our Harlequin hangs out with a puntastic Penguin (Nathan Faustyn), admires standup legend Ra’s al-Ghul (David Liebe Hart), and tries to stay one step ahead of the Caped Crusader himself (Phil Braun), reimagined as a far-right politician in a transparent closet.
As you might expect, Warner Bros. has taken issue with the unlicensed use of their characters, with Drew pulling several screenings of The People’s Joker over rights issues. However, Drew maintains the film is a parody and “100% protected by ‘fair use’…I think when people watch the movie, they’ll see this is clearly made by somebody who loves these characters,” she told The Daily Beast.
While that love shines through in the film, Drew isn’t afraid to repurpose heroes into some of the story’s darkest characters. Perhaps the most radically altered is Jason Todd (Kane Distler), a former boy wonder who, like Joker, crafts an identity as a transgender clown comedian—one modeled after Jared Leto’s tattooed troublemaker from 2016′s Suicide Squad. His and Joker’s romantic relationship seems based on a real experience of Drew’s, one that was formative and lasting, even as it turned toxic and manipulative. It’s a messy subject, and Drew earnestly embraces the mélange of anger, resentment, pity and doubt, making it one of the strongest and most personal aspects of the whole endeavor.
With or without some of the biggest names in modern fiction, The People’s Joker puts its indie roots front and center. Drew’s Gotham City is a hodgepodge of every other version put on film —the gothic architecture of Tim Burton, the neon camp of Joel Schumacher, the grit and grime of Christopher Nolan. Adding to the chaos is a mixed-media approach crowdsourced by backers and fans of Drew, with digital backgrounds and many of the characters appearing as animated figures or even puppets. Whether or not the experiment looks good is ultimately irrelevant. Rather, Drew’s style celebrates the Dark Knight’s storied history and wears its self-contradictory aesthetic with confidence and pride.
The People’s Joker is a lot of things. It’s a one-woman show. It’s a parody of and a tribute to superhero stories. It’s a satire of the entertainment industry. It’s a tragedy. It’s a comedy. It’s a parable. It’s discord incarnate. But more than anything else, it’s utterly unique. Through means of questionable legality but undeniable passion, Vera Drew has repurposed pop mythology into something personal and relatable, using the icons of a genre to speak her truth and share her story. Like the best projects from both Marvel and DC, Drew’s work has broadened what a comic book movie can be and given her audience a different kind of hero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9KlASSUq4M
see it: The People’s Joker, not rated, screens at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. Various showtimes Friday–Thursday, April 19–25. $10–$12.