'Joker 2' and AAA - Oct 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I watched the ‘Joker 2’ movie, and it might have given reality a run for its’ money – in a bad way. Compared to it, the AAA mini-series is merely hollow and pointless instead. Pause.

Taking a breath. The first ‘Arthur Fleck-Joker’ film was good. It was about a marginal member of the American/Western society who got his hands on a gun/handgun/firearm with bullets and suddenly his demands for respect couldn’t be dismissed out of hand, without consequences – the modern Protestant society hates that, and fears that, and so the Gotham society split into two by the appearance/manifestation of the Joker – the patricians (or the elites) hated and feared him, while the plebes (or the proletarians) made him their banner. This resulted in a social eruption in Gotham quite comparable to what happed in real life NYC during the 19^th century during the American civil war… and ‘Joker-2’ completely left it behind.

No, seriously, what the ‘Joker-2’ is about? ‘Joker-1’… see above, plus the titular character’s interactions with the Wayne family, which resulted in the tragedy that would enable Bruce Wayne, (just a child in the initial film) to become Batman and the Joker’s arch nemesis. More specifically, Batman and Joker are two halves of a whole, they work best when they’re dealing with each other, and when they don’t – say, the first Suicide Squad film – then it’s something else, and not for the better, either. The first Suicide Squad showed this, and so does the second JP Joker movie.

To make matters worse, it is a musical. Musicals – singing and dancing and what else have you – do not combine with live-action movies too well. Those who work are usually animated, as ‘Encanto’ was, or are just tolerable, like the ‘Mean Girls’ reboot. Most others, even such magnificent ones as the ‘In the Heights’ or the ‘West Side’ reboot, fail, and ‘Joker 2’ is certainly not ‘In the Heights’. Rather, it is a love story of Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga’s character, who is not Harley Queen; rather, she is Lee.

Yes, the two women share a name – Harleen Quinzell, but nothing else. There is a saying: ‘How you name a boat, that’s how it will float’. Names do matter, and since Lady Gaga’s character was not named Harley Quinn, she did not become Harley Quinn, and so JP’s Joker fell in love with an OFC.

Let us elaborate. JP’s Joker himself is something of an OMC, but the truth is that there is no canon Joker origin story; the closest we have is ‘The Killing Joke’ story, a one-time comic book story, but even that is not always accepted by the DC-verse as the one true origin. More precisely, no one – not even the Joker – cares about the Joker’s origin story; he just is and that is it. He can both be and not be Arthur Fleck at the same time, it will not matter.

Conversely, Harley Quinn is Dr. Harleen Quinzell, the female psychologist, who fell in love with the Joker and became a Gotham Rogue herself. Her origin story is well established and well used, and so for the ‘Joker-2’ scriptwriters to reject it out of hand, it smarts, and it shows that whoever Lady Gaga’s character is, she is not Harley Quinn. In addition, for most DC comic-book fans to watch a variant Joker flirt with an OFC (and little more happens in this film), it just is not kosher, and so they turned on the film, just as the critics did, (though perhaps for different reasons). The result is a flop… onto AAA?

…What about AAA? This week’s episode, (‘Hour/Power’) is yet another episode where another OC dies; we are introduced to Agatha’s mum; and in general are we supposed to care for those people? The witches, starting with Agatha, are turning upon each other, and are killing each other…big whoop. This is the modern post-Protestant/neo-Pagan society, concisely. The Teen is Billy Kaplan the Wiccan, Wanda’s gay son… people suspected it all along. The miniseries are only halfway done, so Agatha and Rio should survive for a while yet, everyone else is up for grabs… who cares? ‘Joker 2’ came out, and it makes the remake of TLM look almost palatable. Sad, given just how good the first movie was. Ah well, real life sucks, just ask the barred and the spotted owls – but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!