"The People's Joker" is an indie film that uses DC comics characters with questionable legality to tell an incredibly weird and incredibly moving story about a trans person discovering who they are.
The film was originally slated to premiere in 2022 at the Toronto Independent Film Festival, before receiving a strongly-worded legal threat from DC / Warner Brothers about the unlicensed use of its intellectual property. It finally saw a limited nation-wide release back in April 2024 — and after receiving widespread praise from Variety, Paste, RogerEbert.com, and more, it's coming back for more. What makes this re-release even more special is that will kick off with a one-night only special event featuring the wedding of writer/director/lead actress Vera Drew and the Joker. From the press release:
We invite you to join us for this heartwarming and historical one night only event on July 24th. Witness the bond of eternal love and the fair use defense, as indie darling Vera Drew legally ties the knot with The Clown Prince of Crime himself, The Joker. As everyone knows for the past 4 years, Vera Drew and the Joker have been romantically and creatively involved with many describing them as "the dynamic duo of love, laughter, and (parody) law." Now, the two lovebirds are ready to make it official in a house of God, and before the eyes of the world. Guests from afar can join us online LIVE via Eventive, but we'd prefer to see you all in the theater if it's accessible to you.
I finally got a chance to watch the movie the other night, and it is easily one of the most memorable and moving comic book-related movies I've ever seen. It's also weird as hell, chock-full of bizarre animation and lo-fi gags. It's one of the most punk rock movies I've seen in a long time, too—not just because of the unlicensed use of comic book characters, but because of its full commitment to a scrappy, low-budget DIY aesthetic (and that chef-kiss Say Anything joke). Characters interact awkwardly in front of green screens of elaborate CGI backgrounds that look like they were pulled straight out of a video game. Some characters are played by human actors; some are CGI; some are claymation; some are illustrated; and they all just sort of weirdly co-exist in this beautifully bizarre little world together. It's a story about outcasts and found family, both thematically, and visually. It's as if Adult Swim became sentient and created a queer TikTok mashup for the superhero age.
It's genuinely glorious.
To hear writer/director/star Vera Drew to tell it, The People's Joker began as a sort-of COVID-lockdown joke about remixing the Todd Phillips movie The Joker into a trans narrative. As she explained:
That movie did a good job showing where America was at that point in time. For me, it was crazy seeing this movie that was about class consciousness and the mental-health crisis, and here's a character who's mentally ill and doesn't really know what that means. He just wants to be funny, and he's trying to make that his life purpose, and his family system is failing him, his government is failing him, and then he gets turned into this politicized figure, and he's like, "Why? I don't get it. I'm not political." I watched that as a trans person and was like, I relate to this so much. I feel left behind by my family structure and by the medical industry. Everything that he dealt with in that movie is very close to my experience as a trans woman, and trying to get access to support and care, and relating to being a comedy person that some people don't understand, and wanting to carve out your own space. That really resonated with me. It speaks to the mythic status of Joker and Batman, that somebody with completely opposite politics than mine can watch that and have a whole other take on it. It could be about white disenfranchised males.
But the project transformed into something else entirely: the coming-of-age tale of a young "boy" from Smallville, who goes on an epic journey to become the Clown Princess of Crime in Gotham City.
Meta-jokes about DC Comics abound. The protagonist pursues a comedy career under the tutelage of Ra's al Ghul at UCB — the United Clown Bureau — and begins exploring her trans-ness as an anti-comic called Joker the Harlequin. She hangs around with a bunch of other Bat-villains, too, and even has a relationship with a clown named Mr. J who has some clever ties to not one but two different Robins. Batman himself is a public figure who sort of runs the world as an authoritarian billionaire douchebag; the protagonist first realizes she might be trans while watching The Caped Crusader Forever, a Joel Schumacher-directed biopic about Bruce Wayne, complete with rubber nipples. (Get it??)
But for all of those jokes — and oh, the green screens are crammed with gags-upon-gags — The People's Joker works because there's such a compelling heart at the center of it. Joker the Harlequin is someone who's been pushed to the margins of society — not just by the family, who tried to drug her gender dysphoria into submission, but also the Batman and the draconian laws (sponsored by Wayne Enterprises) that regulate the entire entertainment industry. Sure, Joker the Harlequin is ostensibly a villain, but you can't help but root for her. Her story is a hyper-specific confessional about a transitioning and toxic relationships. But the core of it so beautifully, painfully universal: it's about someone trying to find their place in the world; someone whose family refused to see them for who they really are; someone who felt forced to seek validation in something outside of themself, before coming to terms with their own internal acceptance.
If the movie's not playing anywhere near you right now, you can always pre-order the Blu-Ray, which comes out next month. If you're not convinced yet, here's the official blurb for the film:
In the absurdist autobiographically-inspired dark comedy that boldly reimagines the Joker's origin, a painfully unfunny aspiring clown (Vera Drew as Joker the Harlequin) grapples with her gender identity while unsuccessfully attempting to join the ranks of Gotham City's sole comedy program in a world where comedy has been outlawed. Uniting with a ragtag team of rejects and misfits, Joker the Harlequin forms an illegal anti-comedy troupe that puts her on a collision course with the devious caped crusader controlling the city.
The film features cameos from comedy multi-hyphenate Tim Heidecker, award-winning actor Bob Odenkirk, Maria Bamford (Netflix's Big Mouth, Adult Swim's Teenage Euthanasia), and Scott Aukerman (Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis co-creator and host of the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast), with Vera Drew, Lynn Downey (Amazon Prime Video's Daisy Jones & The Six), Nathan Faustyn (SADDLED), and Kane Distler, in his film debut, making up THE PEOPLE'S JOKER's core cast. With Drew's own life as a trans woman and artist motivating the film's story and theme, the script was co-written by her and close creative collaborator Bri LeRose (Netflix's Magic for Humans and Chad & JT Go Deep).
Shot entirely on green screen, the work of over 200 independent, predominantly queer creators —artists, musicians, and animators— elevates the instantaneously illustrious feature beyond genre pastiche to an overflowing richness of mixed-media visuals across 2D, 3D, stop-motion, and more forms of animation.
THE PEOPLE'S JOKER is in no way created by, endorsed by, or affiliated with DC Comics or any of its related companies.
Previously:
• We're officially getting a Joker sequel
• The best Joker is the woman Joker who snaps after a lifetime of being told to 'smile, baby' by shitty men
• Kevin Smith reveals Joker's much darker alternative ending
