New photos and videos from the set of Clayface appear to reveal the DCU film’s logo and a Joker Easter egg. Notably, Clayface is slated to be the third DCU feature after Superman and Supergirl. James Watkins (Speak No Evil) is helming the movie from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini.
Clayface set photos hint at movie’s logo, Joker easter egg
Production for Clayface began in late August 2025. Since then, new photos and clips from the set of the highly anticipated feature in Liverpool have surfaced on social media. A few of them feature the clapperboard, which gives viewers an idea of what the movie’s logo could be.
One photo depicts “the Jokers” graffiti on the wall of a property, indicating that the Crown Prince of Crime exists in some form in the DCU.
it’s so healing to walk round Gotham set dressing since last time when they shot The Batman my anxiety was so bad I didn’t get to see any of it :’) pic.twitter.com/z4sIb8JgLI
The DC Universe is a soft reboot of the previous franchise based around DC characters, the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), with James Gunn and Peter Safran serving as co-heads. It was in January 2021 that Flanagan publicly stated his interest in developing a Clayface project. There was no DCU at the time. In March 2023, after Gunn and Safran announced the DCU slate, Flanagan reportedly pitched a Clayface movie to them. The character made his DCU debut in the animated series Creature Commandos, with Alan Tudyk lending his voice to the role. Earlier this year, Tom Rhys Harries (White Lines) joined the cast as the titular character. He is reportedly portraying the Matt Hagen iteration of Clayface. Naomi Ackie is also part of the cast.
Clayface is a body-horror feature. Its log line reads, “A Hollywood horror tale centering on a B-movie actor who injects himself with a substance to keep himself relevant, only to find out that he can reshape his face and form, becoming a walking piece of clay.”
Clayface debuts in U.S. theaters on September 11, 2026.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on SuperHeroHype.
This post contains spoilers about the sixth episode of The Penguin, “Gold Summit.”
“People will tell you where they’ve gone / They’ll tell you where to go / But till you get there yourself, you never really know,” Joni Mitchell sings in 1976’s “Amelia”—words that Cristin Milioti found herself sobbing to at the 80-year-old’s triumphant recent Hollywood Bowl concert.
“I feel like I’m still recovering, because I cried for the entire three hours,” she tells Vanity Fair from her New York apartment. “‘Amelia’ is my favorite, and I couldn’t believe she sang it—I completely fell to pieces.”
Milioti wasn’t alone in her rapture. “Everywhere you looked, there was someone crying. Then you would catch each other’s eyes, touch your heart, and give each other a nod. It feels like witnessing a miracle—someone who changed music and has certainly whispered in my ear throughout my entire life helped me understand myself and the world. It felt very holy.”
While at the star-studded concert, Milioti received some admiration of her own. “I had a lot of really lovely interactions at that show from people who really are loving The Penguin,” the actor says of her lauded performance in the HBO series as Sofia Falcone, a mobster princess turned murderous villain facing off against an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb. “I feel very protective of her,” Milioti says of Sofia, who after being tortured for more than a decade in an Arkham prison for a crime she didn’t commit, kills the family members who lied to keep her confined. Homicide aside, “I am just in love with her.”
Bringing the role to life has been a dream assignment for the 39-year-old actor, who long before she ever auditioned for a comic-book film, dressed as Catwoman for Halloween. The idea of Sofias running around this year makes Milioti’s face light up. “I get emotional just talking about it. I would be so blown away,” she says. “That would be a lot to take in, but I would gladly take it in.”
Just as Joni sings of a winding journey in “Amelia,” Milioti has been charting her own path since dropping out of New York University after a single year. She launched herself into a Tony nomination for 2012’s Once, the Broadway musical based on the Oscar-winning Irish film. That star-making turn led to roles big (the titular mother in How I Met Your Mother) and small (30 Rock’s “Very Sexy Baby”), but always memorable. Juicy parts alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, Andy Samberg in Palm Springs, and Jesse Plemons in an episode of Black Mirror followed. It’s all led to the most high-profile project of Milioti’s career—no false alarms in sight.
It’s only been a whole week since Joker: Folie à Deux hit theaters, but the reactions and takes couldn’t be more divisive. Folks who saw it (or just read the synopsis online) have a lot of thoughts on various parts of the movie, mainly its ending. Director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix have already talked about it (and how they came up with it), so now it’s time for the film’s secret key player to share their thoughts on the matter.
After being fully rejected by Lee (Lady Gaga) and placed back in Arkham Asylum, Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) gets approached by a fellow inmate played by Connor Storrie, who’s been watching him in secret throughout the film. The inmate tells Arthur a joke, and then stabs him to death before carving that classic Glasgow smile onto his own face. Just like that, he’s taken the Joker mantle for himself.
Speaking to TMZ, Storrie said that he’s not really surprised the end’s got fans feeling some type of way. Like many, he was admittedly thrown by the news that this would be a musical, considering how “raw and grimy” the first Joker was. But as far as he’s concerned, the polarizing opinions were inevitable, and might be justified in some respects. “I’d rather things be polarizing than things be boring or squeaky clean,” he said. “You don’t make such a big swing like that without knowing it gives people the opportunity to not get behind your choices.”
While Storrie commends Phillips for “having the balls to make such a bold swing,” he said he never considered Folie à Deux as a secret origin story. (It seems he didn’t even know what else would happen in the movie beyond him killing Arthur.) He knows how big a deal Joker is, obviously, but he stressed to not “considering what that [ending] could mean or where it could go. It felt very clear that this is Joaquin’s movie, [and] this is my place in that. […] It is a part of Arthur’s story more than it is becoming anything else after that.”
While people have chosen to lambast Joker: Folie à Deuxfor all the wrong reasons (mainly because it doesn’t fit in any way with the fanboy expectation of the DC Universe—much the same fate that befell Marvel’s She-Hulk series), no one appears to be looking at all the very clear trolling Todd Phillips is doing. Not just of the so-called fans, but of a certain kind of person…as embodied by Harley “Lee” Quinzel. And while, obviously, Lady Gaga’s iteration of the character could never have been as iconic as Margot Robbie’s, Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver wield her for purposes beyond merely having Halloween costume cachet (which, by the way, this version of Harley does not).
To mirror the phoniness of everyone who claims to be a supporter of Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), it seems inevitable that Lee should turn out to be a total poseur as well. Accordingly, she initially tells Arthur at Arkham, “I grew up in the same neighborhood [as you]. Me and my friends used to take that staircase to school every day.” This said when Arthur steals a moment with her after being placed in the same B Ward music class, despite his assignation to the E Ward (a.k.a. where the dangerous and violent are relegated). Because, for whatever reason, one of the usually bullying security guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson, still bearing an Irish name in character, naturally), decides to get him into the class. (Based on certain information given later, who’s to say that Lee wasn’t the one to make that happen?)
Having encountered Lee while walking past that class a few weeks prior, Joker is only too eager to attend—especially since Lee flashed him a flirtatious sign by wielding her index finger and thumb as a gun and pantomiming killing herself with it. Talk about love at first sight. Or so she wanted to manipulate him into believing….
This comes complete with further laying it on thick with her “poor me” backstory so that Joker will feel even more “kindred” with her as she tells him, “My parents didn’t give a fuck about me either. My father beat the shit out of me.” And then died in a car accident. An elaborate sob story, to be sure. Along with her explanation for being at Arkham: “I set fire to my parents’ apartment building.” As a result, “My mother had me committed. She says I’m psychotic.” Per Lee’s version of events, anyway. But even before she expresses contempt for her own matriarch, Arthur, apparently feeling comfortable in her midst, confesses, “Nobody knows, but I also killed my mother.” Lee smiles at him fondly, as though he’s just told her the sweetest thing ever (though, based on some women’s mothers-in-law, the smile isn’t totally out of left field). She then makes him feel even safer about parading his crazy around her by responding, “I should have done that.”
Although Lee’s secret intention is to make Arthur bring out his “true” self—Joker—the effect she ends up having on him is quite the opposite. For he falsely believes that Lee loves the “real” him, not the man who took leave of his senses for a few days, culminating in the murder of Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on live television. To Lee’s dismay, that’s not who he is—because, like many of us, he gave in to a single moment that caused him to snap. A blind rage-sadness that made him do something he wouldn’t have ordinarily done. And now everyone, including Lee, wants him to be that guy. The one Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) describes on the news as follows: “His depraved acts of violence are only admired by his followers, not only in our city, but all over the country… And they are still willing to commit acts of violence in his name. Now these people, they believe Arthur Fleck to be some kind of martyr.”
Soon after Dent’s public declaration, Fleck appears on a TV special with interviewer Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan). This arranged by his lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), as a means to funnel a bit more goodwill in Arthur’s direction. Indeed, Maryanne seems to be the only one in Arthur’s life who actually wants him to “just be himself.” Paddy, on the other hand, wants to invoke the beast for the sake of his viewership. Even after Arthur firmly tells him of the person that killed five (er, six) people, “That’s not me anymore. That’s not who I am.”
When Paddy demands what’s changed, Arthur announces that he’s not alone now. Paddy, like most of Gotham, is aware of who he’s referring to, with Lee’s overt displays of affection for Joker making headlines everywhere—especially since she’s out of Arkham and ready to talk to whoever will listen. Of course, she tells Arthur that the reason she’s being “sent home” is because “they’re saying you’re a bad influence on me.” This after the two “escaped” (a.k.a. danced a bit outside the confines of the prison) together when Lee insisted they ditch a screening of The Band Wagon, with Phillips strategically homing in on the scene during which “That’s Entertainment!” is sung.
Perhaps not aware of just how meta that choice would be, it bears noting that The Band Wagon was initially regarded as nothing more than a box office disappointment before going on to garner the eventual respect it deserved (one can only hope the same might happen for Joker:Folie à Deux). The choice is overt in its pointedness, placing especial emphasis on the lyrics, “Anything that happens in life/Can happen in a show/You can make ‘em laugh/You can make ‘em cry/Anything, anything can go/The clown/With his pants falling down/Or the dance/That’s a dream of romance/Or the scene/Where the villain is mean/That’s entertainment!”
Making mention of a “clown” isn’t the only thing that applies to Arthur, with his own dream of romance causing him to be blind to the fact that, as Maryanne warns him, “She’s playing you for a fool.” And even though Arthur tells Paddy, “You’re just like Murray, you just, you want sensationalism. You don’t care about—you just wanna talk about my mistakes, you wanna talk about the things I did in the past, not about who I am now, not how I’m different now,” it’s something he could just as well be saying to Lee. After all, she just wants him to be the bad boy that will assist her in securing her own fame. A viable fear of Arthur’s that leads into one of Joker’s musical fantasies of the two doing a duet as Sonny and Cher (except they’re Joker and Harley).
Soon, Lee starts to get a little too interested in her solo—a rendition of the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody”—with the crowd going quiet when Joker stops singing to tell her, “You weren’t even looking at me anymore. You were making it all about yourself. And the song is about loving meeeee!” The two then make nice as Lee agrees, “You’re right, let’s give the people what they want.” Joker assumes this to mean they’ll take it from the top again with their lovey-dovey song and vibes, only for Lee to pull a gun out and shoot him. For that is, in the end, what the people want. Because the Joker they had in mind didn’t live up to the ideal, with Lee, too, feeling exactly the same way after seeing far too much Arthur shine through.
And, in the end, her only motive for checking herself into Arkham was for the purpose of “seeing” Joker, like some sort of private museum display meant solely for her to enjoy and exploit however she wants. In the end, she doesn’t “see” him at all though. Nor does Arthur really see her. Not for what she is. That unveiling is left to Maryanne, who informs her client, “She didn’t grow up in your neighborhood. She lives on the Upper West Side with her parents [this clearly being a nod to the frequent shade thrown at Gaga’s own real-life background]. Her father is not dead, he’s a doctor. She voluntarily committed herself to the hospital and then just checked herself out when she wanted to.”
Arthur is still insistent that the lies Lee told him are true, prompting Maryanne to then ask, “Did she mention she went to grad school for psychiatry?” Needless to say, she’s a mental illness tourist—someone who likes to pick and choose certain facets of the DSM and try them on to see if it might make them more interesting. Not to mention a lover of poverty porn (à la Nicola Peltz-Beckham with Lola). Incidentally, Arthur sings a lyric from “Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)” that cuts to the core of who Lee is even before he finds out the truth, singing to Paddy, “She’s a fool and don’t I know it/But a fool can have her charms,” then shrugging, “Lost my heart, but what of it?/She is cold, I agree.”
And it’s true, her coldness knows no bounds by the end of Folie à Deux, when she emotionally gut-punches him right on the very staircase that made him iconic, breaking the news, “We’re not going away Arthur. All we had was the fantasy, and you gave up… There is no Joker, that’s what you said, isn’t it?” In effect, because he doesn’t want to play along with the fantasy that she and everyone else has of him, she’s got to move on. This by way of singing “That’s Entertainment!” to convey that spectacle is all anyone truly wants—from him and in general.
Arthur begs, “I don’t wanna sing anymore. Shh. Just talk to me.” He tries to cover her mouth while urging, “Just talk, please stop singing.” But she can’t be stopped. “That’s Entertainment!” must be sung in all its glory. Even though Phillips opts to leave out the additionally applicable lyrics, “The world is a stage/The stage is a world/Of entertainment!” and “The dame/Who is known as the flame/Of the king/Of an underworld ring/He’s an ape/Who won’t let her escape.” Funnily enough, that last line speaks to the version of Joker that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn gets wet for. The one that Lee wants to enjoy, too.
Only she’s instead saddled with this flaccid incel type who hardly lives up to previous images of Joker played by the likes of Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and even Jared Leto (panned as Suicide Squad was, Leto still delivered on being the kind of “sexy” Joker Lee wants). A disappointment that effectively ends Lee’s “tour” of how the other half lives.
Joker: Folie à Deux may have been a surprise damp squib at the box office this weekend, but its ending has gotten people talking regardless if they went out to see the sequel or not. And as controversial a conclusion as it is, apparently we almost got something similar in the original film’s climax… if not for a purported refusal from Christopher Nolan himself.
Folie à Deux climaxes with an imprisoned Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), his trial concluded and awaiting the death sentence, being stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. As Arthur bleeds out, in the obscured background we see the inmate begin to cackle in a Joker-ish manner, before taking the knife to their own face and seemingly carving a smiling scar along their mouth, akin to the appearance of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. As one Joker falls, another metaphorically rises. But a new report suggests that a version of that controversial moment almost came to pass in Todd Phillips’ original Joker movie.
As part of a new report at the Hollywood Reporter discussing the fallout of Folie à Deux‘s box office flop, the trade cites a source that alleged that the original script for the first Joker concluded with Arthur, standing before his gathered supporters, scarring himself in that familiar smile pattern. However, the idea was scrapped—not at Phillips’ behest, or even Warner Bros.’, but one of the studio’s other premier directors at the time, Christopher Nolan, who purportedly believed that only the late Heath Ledger’s incarnation of the Joker should be distinguished by the smile scar.
At the time of the first Joker, Nolan and Warner Bros. had an incredibly tight relationship—a relationship that would then distinctly sour in the wake of the 2020 covid-19 pandemic, when the director balked at Warner Bros.’ plans to put its 2021 theatrical slate on streaming day and date through the studio’s platform Max (then known by its full name, HBO Max). Already frustrated by the theatrical rollout of his time-bending film Tenet through Warner in 2020, Nolan was one of the most vociferous and notable directors who publicly lambasted the decision. Breaking his traditional distribution relationship with Warner Bros., he took his critically acclaimed smash hit Oppenheimer to Universal last year.
All that means that by the time that Folie à Deux was rolling around, Nolan wasn’t exactly in at Warner Bros. with the sway to nix at least someone getting scarred in the movie’s climax. Would the moment have been more controversial if it was Arthur’s Joker scarring himself, or is the wild ending twist more about how it sharply takes him out of the picture? We’ll never know now, but one thing’s for certain—don’t ask Chris Nolan how he feels about it, he almost definitely won’t tell you.
That was the message Francis Ford Coppola tried to get across in a social media post on Saturday. As his new film Megalopolis continues to bomb at the box office, he praised Todd Phillips for making Joker: Folie à Deux, which is likewise struggling.
The Joker sequel, which is launching in theaters around the globe this weekend, is opening well behind expectations after becoming the first Hollywood comic book pic in history to receive a D Cinemascore. The audience backlash isn’t a huge surprise, considering that the follow-up is a musical, making for an unusual hybrid that fanboys might not have wanted.
Coppola says Phillips’ films have always amazed him and provided enjoyment. He also suggested that moviegoers may not be ready for a film such as Joker: Folie à Deux. “Ever since the wonderful The Hangover, he’s always been one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux,” Coppola wrote on Instagram.
That’s only slightly worse than the D+ awarded to Megalopolis when it opened in cinemas last weekend. Coppola’s dystopian epic debuted to a mere $4 million against a production budget of $120 million before marketing. No major studio would touch the movie, so Coppola raised the funds himself, including putting up some of his own money. Lionsgate came aboard at the 11th hour to distribute the movie, which is on course to earn less than $1 million this weekend.
Joker: Folie à Deux — a hybrid antihero pic and a musical that stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga — had no trouble getting made after Phillips’ Joker grossed $1 billion globally in 2019 and earned numerous Oscar nominations, as well as a best actor win for Phoenix. The first Joker cost $55 million to make before marketing; the sequel cost a net $190 million to $200 million, upping the stakes dramatically.
When Folie à Deux first came on tracking three weeks ago, it looked like it would open to $70 million. While still behind the first film’s $96 million domestic opening, it was a respectable number. However, as reviews started coming in and the film was screened for influences, interest waned and there was a notable dip in tracking. Heading into this weekend, the forecast was $50 million to $60 million.
Joining the D CinemaScore club isn’t the only thing that Coppola and Phillips have in common, as it turns out.
Coppola said in his Instagram post he’s honored that Joker 2 cinematographer Lawrence Sher has talked about how Coppola’s infamous 1981 musical One From the Heart— a critical and commercial flop, which nearly put his Zoetrope studio out of business — provided inspiration for Folie à Deux. (In recent years, critics have revisited One From the Heart, turning it into something of a cult classic.)
Reviewers haven’t been kind to either Megalopolis or Joker 2, which have a 46 percent and 33 percent critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes.
In many ways, the real reason the sequel to Joker is called Joker: Folie à Deux has little to do with a shared delusion between Harley Quinn and Arthur “Joker” Fleck, and more to do with Todd Phillips and Scott Silver calling out the delusions that fans have about those they worship. A delusion that can be shared by both parties in the situation only so long as the “revered” obliges the projections being cast onto them (see: Taylor Swift). Once they stop, however, the fans’ “love” for them suddenly disappears, turning often to hate—hence the expression: “there’s a fine line between love and hate.”
In Harleen “Lee” Quinzel’s (Lady Gaga) case, the love she claims to feel disappears as soon as Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) refuses to be “the guy” (read: Joker). The one she fell “in love” with when she watched him blow Murray Franklin’s (Robert De Niro) brains out on live TV. Or the one who was portrayed in the “really good” (Lee’s words) TV movie about the entire course of events (presumably including dramatized scenes of Fleck’s hyper-shitty early life). So it is that, like fans with celebrities, Lee’s first connection with Arthur is entirely parasocial.
At first, of course, he’s only too willing to play the part she expects of him, knowing on some level that her attraction is rooted in what she knows of him through the media’s portrayal—which only focuses on his “Joker era.” As such, he’s often reluctant to be “full Arthur” around her, while simultaneously being amazed that she could possibly be interested in him in any capacity—Joker or otherwise. And yet, like many who have been glamored by lovebombing, Joker falls for Lee’s flattery easily, letting her beguile him with the notion that they’re both two broken souls who can “mend” one another. To boot, that he is powerful and can do anything he wants—a feeling that becomes even more adrenaline-boosting when buttressed by notions of “two against the world”-type love. As for Lee, she sees in Joker someone who can be her diabolical savior. The “sexy” solution to all her “psychotic” woes because he accepts them, is unfazed by them. And because his are so much worse.
Accordingly, it doesn’t take long for the pair to start projecting all of their unhinged ideals and fantasies onto one another—with Joker in particular constantly fantasizing about Lee in various musical settings that often remind one of a sort of “macabre La La Land” (particularly that sequence when they’re dancing with a giant moon behind them). Indeed, in one of many contrasts to the usual telling of Joker and Harley’s story, it is so clearly Joker who is more obsessed and smitten with Harley than the other way around (as Margot Robbie’s version elucidates in Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey). Because, as he tells his interviewer, Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan), he’s a changed man now thanks to “not [being] alone anymore.” Falling prey to the old adage, “You’re nobody until somebody loves you” (which really should have been a musical number in the movie at some point). Or until you create a sinister alter ego and go on a killing rampage like Joker. Thereby becoming a magnet for freaks and faux freaks alike. Lee, as it turns out, subscribes to the latter category—ostensibly looking to Joker to make her “legitimate” on the disturbed and deranged front. As it transpires though, she’s ultimately more fucked-up than Joker in terms of callousness and plotting. Discarding him with ease once he renounces his Joker identity on live TV.
Up until that moment, however, she was willing to do whatever it took to be with him based on her false projection, hoping against hope that he’ll take her cues about how he’s “supposed to be.” Case in point, she even insists upon Arthur wearing the Joker makeup she smuggles into his prison cell. So committed is she to upholding this projection of hers. Joker, meanwhile, is still too blinded by his “love” for her (read: his own false projection), dumbly remarking, “You brought makeup.” Lee asserts, “I wanna see the real you.” She then starts to apply the signature Joker colors to his face. This apparently getting her “wet” enough to not be totally repulsed when Arthur asks her, “Can you do it?” before they start to fuck. As in: can she guide him/his penis on how to even “do sex”? The scene is among the grimmest in the movie, with no fantastical/musical elements added to it as a means to mitigate the drab, grotesque “consummation” of their “relationship.” A relationship that is a folie à deux in that each person has their own separate but shared delusion about the other.
Perhaps one of the most overt examples of this from Lee is her wording of the phrase, “When I first saw Joker—when I saw you on Murray Franklin… for once in my life, I didn’t feel so alone anymore.” That she has to remind herself that the pathetic, maquillage-free person in front of her is “technically” Joker—not Arthur—seems telling of the fact that she’s already noticed a disconnect between the man on the screen and the flesh and blood man in front of her. Who, if she’s being honest, can’t quite measure up to the projection she already saw and then built further up as her own.
Arthur’s parallel belief in Lee as a kindred spirit (especially since she lies to him and says she’s from the same neighborhood and also had an abusive childhood) is also doomed to be dashed sooner or later. Particularly since his “living in a fantasy world” tendencies start to ramp up as he dreams of the two of them together in various musical scenarios, singing such love songs as “Folie à Deux” (one of the original songs on Harlequin) and “To Love Somebody” (originally sung by the Bee Gees). The lyrics of the former are most telling of each person’s respective projection as Lee lackadaisically sings, “In our minds, we’d be just fine/If it were only us two.” This line indicates that without the inevitable outside influence of others, maybe their delusions about one another could stand a chance and the relationship could still survive…albeit on a bed of lies.
Lee then adds, “They might say that we’re crazy/But I’m just in love with you.” And yes, it is an adage widely disseminated in various art forms that the word (and act of) “love” is synonymous with “crazy.” To name a few examples, “The things we do for love,” “Love makes you do crazy things,” “Your love’s got me lookin’ so crazy right now,” etc. But the “crazy” in Joker: Folie à Deux is all about the insanity of projection rather than true love itself being the thing that makes a person go “crazy.”
Then again, isn’t every form of falling in love ultimately a product of projection? People fall in love with the version of someone they build up in their head only to unearth some form of disappointment after they’ve already convinced themselves it’s love. Gone too far down the rabbit hole to turn back. But for Lee, it isn’t too late (as it never is for rich girls) once she realizes that Arthur refuses to be “who he really is.” Or rather, who she and everyone else so desperately wanted him to be: Joker.
It was Todd Phillips himself who said that Joker was never intended to have a sequel. In many regards, that’s not what Joker: Folie à Deux is, so much as a “second act” or “companion piece” that follows up the rise of Joker with the fall of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). Regardless, a large majority of viewers and critics haven’t been able to receive Joker: Folie à Deux in the spirit with which it was intended.
From the beginning of the announcement of the movie’s existence, the automatic reaction upon hearing that a “sequel” to Joker would arrive in the form of a musical was met with more than slight hesitancy on the part of many “purists.” That Lady Gaga was going to be cast in the role of Harley Quinn—brandishing the diminutive “Lee” instead, as though to differentiate from Margot Robbie’s untouchable performance—was meant, perhaps, to assuage those who were nervous about the film’s viability. Granted, there are just as many who lost even more faith in it upon seeing Gaga’s name next to Joaquin Phoenix’s. And yet, it is not really supposed to be taken seriously as a musical (those who do are naturally going to pan the movie). That genre merely being a tool to exemplify the artifice and spectacle that ensues after a person achieves notoriety-turned-laudability/“respectable” fame. As Arthur Fleck does in Joker after going on a killing rampage spurred, ultimately, by his total ostracism from society.
Ending up at Arkham Asylum at the end of Joker, Arthur has developed more than a mere cult following for his presumed anti-Establishment, anti-wealthy, generally anarchic tendencies. Whether he wanted to or not, he becomes a symbol. Something that the alienated and disenfranchised can project their disillusionments onto. And, although Arthur was seemingly happy to become that symbol at the end of Joker, his reluctance about being some kind of figurehead for chaos and misanthropy has waned in Joker: Folie à Deux, as he realizes that, once again, no one is actually seeing him—Arthur. They just want Joker, and he’s no longer sure if that’s who he “is,” or if it was who he became during a moment of weakness/a general nadir.
Taking place two years after the rampage he went on in 1981 (even though five years have lapsed since Joker came out in 2019), the movie, nonetheless, has a decidedly 1970s feel and aesthetic, complete with sartorial choices—particularly during the fantasy sequences—and a blatant nod to The Sonny and Cher Show (hence, calling it The Joker and Harley Show) when Lee and Joker are singing the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” on a TV stage in front of a live audience. By this point in the movie, Arthur has fallen hopelessly and blindly in love with Lee, forced to question that love when his lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), reveals to him that everything she’s told him about herself is a lie—particularly the fact that she grew up in the same neighborhood as Arthur with similarly abusive parents when, in fact, she’s from the Upper West Side (a meta detail considering Gaga’s own origins there) and her father is a well-to-do doctor. It is after this moment that he not only has The Joker and Harley Show fantasy (wherein said fantasy is tainted by the reality that she might not be all that she seems), but also starts to comprehend that maybe the only reason anyone is interested in him at all is because of their false projections. Much as he falsely projected onto her the ideal of a perfect “other half” who might save him from his misery.
The misery that Phillips and his co-writer, Scott Silver (who also co-wrote Joker), highlight in the very first few minutes of the movie via an “old-timey” WB cartoon called “Me and My Shadow,” in which Joker struts into the Franklin Theater (in ironic honor of Murray Franklin [Robert De Niro], one imagines) with his shadow starting to act out in ways far more sinister than Peter Pan’s. Eventually, the shadow self overtakes the real Joker long enough to go out onstage, wreaking havoc before and during the performance so that when he finally is subdued by the real Joker again, it is that real Joker who is blamed for everything his shadow self did.
It also bears noting that, in the title card of “Me and My Shadow,” while the flesh and blood Joker is wielding his index finger and thumb in the shape of a gun, his shadow self is toting a real gun—this being the ultimate clue that Joker is merely Arthur’s id, not who he really is a.k.a. who everyone, including Lee, wants him to be. That musicals themselves are entirely rooted in fantasy and fantastical elements further accentuates the idea that Arthur is now living in a distorted reality, a nightmare that he didn’t entirely create. For it is the public that has perpetuated this image of him as Joker…even if he’s no longer necessarily certain that’s who he wants to be (hell, if that’s who he ever was). And even if that acknowledgement means not getting the girl in the end as a result.
And yes, it becomes increasingly difficult for Arthur not to notice what a “social climber,” for lack of a better word, Lee is. Which is ironic considering she’s already at the top of the social stratum. But what gets her off is “slumming it” with Joker, who she visits in prison at one point to wistfully encourage him, “You should see it out there, they’re all going crazy for you” (Gaga loves a Madonna reference, after all). Only they’re not going crazy for “him,” but rather, “Joker.” A man who doesn’t really exist. When Arthur finally admits that to everyone in the final courtroom scene, any “public sympathy” he might have had by pleading some “insanity defense” by way of the “it wasn’t me, it was my alter ego” excuse disappears entirely. And with it, his devoted following who wanted him to be “that guy.” The guy that could represent all of their ideals and beliefs because he, too, possessed them. In the end, however, Arthur is still the confused, emotionally insecure incel that audiences first met in Joker (even if he does get to give Lee a few pathetic thrusts during an impromptu conjugal visit).
Yet, even though this very public admission should have been the death of Joker and all that he “means,” it instead opens the door for those who simply want to cherry-pick various “tenets” of his message to form their own factions, leaving the title available for a new, truly nefarious Joker who will take the helm without hesitation or any “pussy” qualms about doing what “needs” to be done. Because the Joker can be anyone, everyone. In some sense, it’s akin to how Trump is the latest symbol for white supremacy and fascistic conservatism, yet his “acolyte,” JD Vance, is the next-generation, more extreme version of it, poised for a takeover with Trump being too decrepit (and concerned with being “liked”) to maneuver his so-called beliefs toward an “optimum” level.
In another sense, Arthur’s reluctance to accept his notoriety without questioning why people are so obsessed with him (or rather, his false image) also echoes another au courant occurrence: Chappell Roan renouncing fame and insisting she’ll abandon music altogether if her fans keep acting batshit. Arthur, too, has these same kinds of feelings, but doesn’t have the, let’s say, “likeability” aspect that Roan has going for her to carry it off. What’s more, Roan has yet to be knocked off her “pedestal” the way Joker is in Folie à Deux. Though that does seem inevitable since, to loosely quote Madonna, there is nothing the public loves more than elevating and then desecrating those they “worship.”
This, in part, is what makes the reaction to Folie à Deux so predictable, with critics lining up to condemn it despite how in love they were with Joker in the first film. And perhaps that was Phillips’ intent in making Folie à Deux: to show something to the world about itself and the way it treats their “gods.” Even if they still can’t seem to see it.
Sean is joined by Van Lathan to discuss Joker: Folie à Deux, the off-putting sequel to Todd Phillips’s 2019 Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga (1:00). They discuss the jukebox musical format’s successes and failures, the filmmaking vs. the experience of watching it, and whether they ultimately liked the movie. Then, they zoom out to discuss the state of moviegoing and movie watching (43:00) and explore whether we’re in a uniquely strange place with the reception of movies and the conversation social media inspires about divisive films and filmmakers. Finally, Sean is joined by director Greg Jardin to discuss his debut feature, It’s What’s Inside, an all-in-one-night sci-fi thriller with some unexpected twists (spoilers!) and fresh filmmaking choices (1:05:00).
Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Van Lathan and Greg Jardin Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders
Here at The Ringer, Megan Schuster and I have spent years ranking things like movie monsters, sharks, and dinosaurs, all of which have a reputation for terrifying people. But we’ve never had a task as daunting as putting together a list of what are arguably the single-scariest figures in pop culture: clowns.
In real life, clowns are meant to entertain children at birthday parties and circuses —to spread joy with laughter. In pop culture, however, clowns are primarily depicted as nefarious figures who torment and kill people. In fact, the biggest challenge while coming up with this ranking was trying to find good pop culture clowns. (Spoiler alert: It was slim pickings out there.) No wonder as much as 42 percent of Americans have at least a minor case of coulrophobia.
Unfortunately, this ranking will not help the public perception of clowns as nightmare fuel—this exercise even led to many sleepless nights for your intrepid bloggers. (Clown-related trauma will be brought up at my next performance review.) Before we get to the ranking, a quick overview of the criteria: We capped the list at 30 entries, and if there were multiple interpretations of a character, they’d be roped together—also known as the Joker Clause.
All right, Megan, time to send in the clowns. —Miles Surrey
30. John Wayne Gacy
Surrey: In the many years Megan and I have been doing these rankings, there’s never been an easier call to make for last place. One of America’s most notorious serial killers, John Wayne Gacy was responsible for 33 confirmed murders around Chicago, where he also performed at children’s parties as Pogo the Clown. (Remind me to never hire a clown for my nephew’s future birthdays.) Gacy’s atrocities have been covered in docuseries (Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes) and film adaptations (Gacy), and there’s no escaping the fact that one of the reasons he’s received a ton of media attention is because he moonlighted as, of all things, a clown. Professional clowns already have to deal with bad PR from all the sinister characters in fiction; Gacy turned those fears into a terrifying reality.
Schuster: The first time we’ve ever had a serial killer in these rankings—what a massive, horrible milestone.
29. Happy Slappy, Air Bud
Schuster: Happy Slappy’s real name (at least in the Air Bud–verse) is Norman Snively, and let me just say, the movie’s writers couldn’t have come up with a more appropriate moniker. Norman is a sniveling, creepy man who’s abusive to his dog, cruel to children, and all around a pretty terrible clown. He’s Buddy the golden retriever’s first owner, but after the dog embarrasses him at a children’s birthday party, Norman tries to drop him off at the pound. Snively only tries to get Buddy back once the dog has achieved local TV stardom for his play on the basketball court.
Fortunately for all involved, Buddy winds up staying with Josh and his family; Norman is arrested; and, god willing, no one ever has to see the clown ever again. Though I admit I’ll continue to think about this thread from Norman’s Disney wiki page, in which someone earnestly asks, “If Norman hates being a clown, why can’t he just quit the job and find something else to do?”
Surrey: This is the problem with getting a bachelor’s degree from a clown college.
28. Jangles the Clown, Inside Out
Surrey: A child’s mind is a place like no other, which Inside Out conceptualizes as a trippy workplace where different emotions take turns running the show. When Joy and Sadness enter a chamber containing the darkest fears of 11-year-old Riley, they encounter tree-sized stalks of broccoli and—gasp!—grandma’s vacuum cleaner. But the scariest sight of all is Jangles, a clown who traumatized Riley at her third birthday party and has been reimagined as a hulking, kooky monster. Jangles is the perfect embodiment of an irrational childhood fear, and in true Pixar fashion, he’s also got a wagon:
Disney/Pixar
Don’t shoot the messenger—I’m just calling it like it is!
Schuster: In the Garfield comic extended universe, Binky the Clown is known for being loud and obnoxious and for having possibly the worst timing ever. In fact, in the show Garfield and Friends,Binky has a segment titled “Screaming With Binky,” in which his sole purpose is to disrupt situations that require precise movement or masterful concentration by screaming his signature catchphrase, “Hey kids!”
Binky isn’t a particularly substantive character in either the original comic or the TV show—he’s more of a running bit, à la Itchy and Scratchy in The Simpsons. (Jon could be seen drinking out of a Binky the Clown mug at times, and Garfield once competed in a game show called “Name That Fish” that Binky hosted. Sidenote: how is “Name That Fish” not already a network show?) But Binky frequently serves as a comedic foil to Garfield, which is enough to get him on the list.
26. Doink the Clown, WWF
Schuster: Doink the Clown went through a number of iterations during his time in the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE). He was originally played by Matt Borne as a technically proficient heel—a sad-clown character who squirted children with fake flowers, attacked opponents with prosthetic limbs, and used tripwire in some of his many pranks. But over time Doink went through an evolution, and in later years he could be seen showing a kinder side: making children smile and teaming up with a miniature version of himself named Dink to battle WWE’s infamous villains.
Sadly, though, after Matt Borne’s death in 2013, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against WWE claiming that the culture of the sport led Borne to suffer “illnesses and injuries, including depression and drug abuse, which ultimately resulted in his untimely death.” The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in a U.S. district court, and Doink is only sporadically portrayed these days by other wrestlers on the independent circuit.
25. Captain Spaulding, Rob Zombie’s Filmography
Surrey: There are two things you need to know about Rob Zombie movies: He will put his wife in every single one of them, and they’re gonna feature some seriously fucked-up characters. One such figure is Captain Spaulding, the proprietor of a dinky gas station and roadside attraction who first appears in House of 1000 Corpses. Named after a Groucho Marx character and played by the late Sid Haig, Spaulding is, in Zombie’s own words, a “lovable asshole,” which is, uh, certainly one way to describe a sadistic killer caked in clown makeup. To quote a gas station robber moments before Spaulding blows his head off: “I hate clowns.” Hard agree.
24. Loonette, The Big Comfy Couch
Schuster: Millennials, this blurb is for you. If you, like me, were a child and a PBS viewer in the mid-’90s, then you may remember The Big Comfy Couch and, more specifically, the clown (Loonette) and her doll (Molly) who hosted it. Now, I’ll admit that I’m fuzzy on many of the show’s finer details—was it just … about a couch that was comfy? Why did a clown need to host it? And what was the deal with said clown’s Wicked Witch of the East stockings?—but I will always vividly remember trying to re-create Loonette’s clock stretch on the floor of my living room. (Spoiler alert: It never went well. And yes, I did try it again just before writing this.)
23. Circus Clowns From Dumbo
Schuster: It’s wild how many clowns on this list are cruel to animals. The clowns in Dumbo, for example, are largely silent creatures, but they humiliate Dumbo during a circus performance in which a clown dresses like Dumbo’s mother and encourages the elephant to jump out a window. Dumbo is hesitant at first, but another clown comes up from behind him and smacks him with a plank, forcing him to fall into a tub of random goop.
Dumbo eventually gets one over on the clowns in the end by flying and sending their whole routine into chaos—serves you right, jerks!—but this crew gives circus performers a bad name.
22. “Crazy” Joe Davola, Seinfeld
Surrey: Seinfeld is many things; scary isn’t one of them. But the six-episode arc of “Crazy” Joe Davola, an unhinged writer who blames Jerry for his script being rejected by NBC, feels like something out of Mindhunter. When Elaine unwittingly dates Joe and visits his apartment, she discovers an entire wall of photos he’s taken of her—including when she’s showered. (Unsurprisingly, Elaine pepper-sprays Joe and gets the hell out of there.) Later, Joe dresses up as Pagliacci, beats the crap out of some hooligans in Central Park, and reminds Kramer of his childhood fear of clowns. For a network sitcom, it’s genuinely freaky stuff. This is what my sleep paralysis demon would look like if I turned on the lights:
Castle Rock Entertainment
21. Flunky the Clown, Late Night With David Letterman
Schuster: Flunky was a depressed, chain-smoking clown who first showed up on Late Night With DavidLetterman in 1985 to help Dave answer viewer letters. In his original appearance, the clown is described as the “flunkie who actually reads these letters for Dave”—only for viewers to be introduced to a literal clown backstage played by longtime Letterman writer Jeff Martin. In the letter, Dave is asked whether the author (who also goes by Jeff!) should go to Europe for the summer. Flunky responds: “Yeah, I got some advice. Don’t go to Europe, Jeff, stay in school or you’ll wind up like me, a pathetic old clown reading somebody else’s mail.”
Good advice for us all!
20. Laughing Clown From Happy Gilmore
Schuster: Deep into the greatest movie of all time, a.k.a. Happy Gilmore, our titular protagonist is struggling with his short game. Who among us can relate? So Happy’s intrepid golf coach, Chubbs Peterson, takes him to Happy Land, a miniature golf spot that looks cute and fun on the outside but is actually filled with impossible holes designed to break your will to live. There, Happy knocks a ball over a fence, breaks various signage, and disappoints Lee Trevino. And that’s all before he squares off against The Clown.
I’d like to think all of us have been personally victimized by a mini golf hole at one point or another in our lives. But more than 20 years after seeing this movie for the first time, I’m still haunted by this clown’s laugh.
Honestly, “You’re gonna die, clown!” is probably the nicest thing Happy could have said in that moment.
Surrey: I have a clown question, bro: How do you even get past this hole? Happy was putting perfectly and the clown kept closing its mouth on the ball. I’m all for obstacles, but this clown ruined the sanctity of one of America’s great pastimes.
19. Jack, Jack in the Box fast food chain
Surrey: I had no idea a fast food mascot could have fascinating lore, but the titular Jack of Jack in the Box has been through it. In the ’80s, Jack’s clown head was blown up in a commercial in which a sweet old lady shouts “Waste him!” in a truly deranged bit of marketing. (Considering the decade, I can only assume ad executives everywhere were tripped out on certain … substances.) However, when Jack in the Box’s reputation took a hit from an E. coli outbreak in the ’90s, Jack was rebranded as the “CEO” of the company and sought revenge against those who’d wronged him. Jack walked so Heath Ledger’s Joker could run:
I’m not sure committing domestic terrorism is a great way to promote fast food, but I’m invested all the same. Megan, just imagine what Jack would do to his employees if they unionized.
Schuster: I like that the rebrand is supposed to make him seem more competent, and then in the end the suit just makes him look like a knockoff Patrick Bateman. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that ad agency.
18. Homey D. Clown, In Living Color
Schuster: Homey D. Clown was an incredible invention from In Living Color. The character, played by Damon Wayans from 1990 to 1994, is on a prison work release program where he is forced to clown for children—all while getting his thoughts out about “Whitey” and The Man. Rather than my trying to explain the full magic of Homey, I think we’d be better served by reading and hearing a collection of some of his best quotes.
Obviously there’s his signature catch phrase: “Homey don’t play that.” But there’s so much more. During a birthday party episode hosted at “Home E. Cheese,” Homey welcomes the group to a place “where a kid can be a kid—unless he gets on my damn nerves.” Then there’s the time he stars in a commercial for “Homey Wheats” cereal: “So remember, little childrens, do what The Man says: Go out and buy yourself a box of new Homey Wheats, the only cereal made from cookies, marshmallows, sugar cubes, and other nutritional pieces of candy.” And finally, there’s the episode where he’s reunited with his son, Homey Jr., and sings him this lullaby:
17. Twisty the Clown, American Horror Story: Freak Show
Surrey: I was already conditioned to be freaked out by John Carroll Lynch thanks to Zodiac, where he played the man suspected—but never proved—to be the infamous serial killer. But then Ryan Murphy cast Lynch on American Horror Story and had him looking like this:
FX
Even in a ranking consisting (mostly) of clowns that’ll keep you up at night, Twisty’s appearance is no laughing matter.
16. Sweet Tooth, Twisted Metal
Surrey: There are a lot of unsavory characters you’d want to avoid in the postapocalyptic wasteland of Peacock’s Twisted Metal, but Sweet Tooth takes the cake. With a clown mask, the body of professional wrestler Samoa Joe, and the disarming voice of Will Arnett, Sweet Tooth is nothing if not unique: a chaos agent who gleefully kills people as often as he invites them to attend his one-man show in the ruins of Las Vegas. (True to his name, Sweet Tooth also drives an ice cream truck.) For what it’s worth, if we put together a Royal Rumble and threw all the pop culture clowns into the ring, my money’s on this guy.
15. Fizbo, Modern Family
Schuster: One of the best scenes of Modern Family is the introduction to Fizbo. It’s midway through Season 1: Luke is having a birthday party, and Cameron oh so innocently asks whether a clown will be performing.
Cam’s told that no, there won’t be that kind of entertainment at the party. And Mitchell begs Cam to let it go, saying that if Luke wanted a clown, his parents would have already hired one. But as Cam stares at himself in the mirror and gets ready to celebrate his nephew’s big day, he can’t help himself. He whips out the makeup, puts on a red nose, and says, “Hello, old friend.” Enter Fizbo, the attention-seeking clown.
From there, things take a twist. Fizbo threatens a man who was rude to Mitchell at a gas station; unintentionally terrorizes Phil, Luke’s dad, who has a previously undisclosed fear of clowns; and eventually saves the day via a cake delivery to the hospital where Luke ends up due to a rogue escaped scorpion. Fizbo may not have been properly appreciated in his time, but we support him—one of the actually nice, benevolent clowns on this list.
14. Clown Doll, Poltergeist
Surrey: Before malevolent spirits attack the Freeling family in Poltergeist, viewers will notice a clown doll kept in the children’s bedroom. This is its face:
MGM Studios
You don’t need to be a horror movie expert to understand that this thing is bad news, and sure enough, the possessed doll ends up attacking little Robbie Freeling. (The clown’s cheery smile also turns into an evil grin, which absolutely traumatized me as a child.) In fact, the image of Poltergeist’s sinister clown is so iconic that the 2015 remake led with it in the promotional material. One could say Poltergeist’s marketing wasn’t … clowning around. Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
Schuster: How dare you, Miles; we all know clowns aren’t things to jest about.
13. Buggy the Clown, One Piece
Surrey: In the fantastical world of One Piece, the popular pirate manga recently adapted into a live-action series on Netflix, there are “devil fruits” that, if ingested, give someone special abilities. The show’s protagonist, aspiring pirate king Monkey D. Luffy, can stretch his body à la Mr. Fantastic; meanwhile, one of the first villains introduced in the series, Buggy the Clown, is able to split his body into pieces. (Like all the major characters in One Piece, Buggy is a pirate … who just so happens to dress like a clown.) As you’d expect, having Luffy and Buggy square off using their respective powers—one guy stretching like a giant stick of gum, the other intentionally turning himself into sashimi—makes for cartoonishly entertaining television. A favorite of One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, Buggy captures the series’ offbeat tone in a nutshell: a little bit goofy, a little bit disturbing, and unlike anything you’ve seen before.
12. Zeebo the Clown, Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Schuster: This may be a good place to explicitly disclose that I am a journalist and have a massive phobia of clowns. (A conflict of interest, you say? Too bad!) Zeebo the Clown is a big reason why. I mean, LOOK AT THIS:
Nickelodeon Productions
Not only is he a terrifying figure, but he also had the crypto-bro eyes before that was even a thing. Hardest possible pass.
Surrey: It happened to me: I’ve laid my eyes on Zeebo, and now I’m afraid of the dark.
11. Pagliacci
Schuster: The Pagliacci meme has been around for decades—and its roots can be traced back to the 1800s. For those unfamiliar, the meme stems from the story of a man who goes to see a doctor because he’s depressed. The doctor’s suggested treatment? “The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him! That should sort you out.” The man then bursts into tears and responds: “But doctor, I am Pagliacci.”
The story was referenced by a number of comedians after Robin Williams’s death in 2014. But the meme took on a life of its own in 2022—to the point that Wired wrote a detailedstory about it. Over time, the meme has spawned many new iterations on social media. For example:
MAN: I’m depressed
DOCTOR: ok we can try lexapro
MAN: hmm I was hoping more for like a clown recommendation?
Another one says: “Man goes to see Pagliacci, goes backstage. Tells Pagliacci he thought the show would cheer him up, but he’s still depressed. Pagliacci says, ‘Oh well I’m just a silly clown. Shouldn’t you go see a real doctor?’ Man bursts into tears. Says, ‘But Pagliacci,”
The meme isn’t quite as prevalent today, but for nearly a decade, the sad clown was an important internet reference point.
Surrey: But Megan, how could you omit the greatest Pagliacci reference of them all?
I may or may not have spent years doing a Rorschach impression because of this. It may or may not have gone down well with my (former) friends.
10. Art the Clown, Terrifier
Surrey: You have to be a sick bastard to seek out the Terrifier movies, so naturally … I have. For the uninitiated, the Terrifier franchise follows the twisted exploits of Art: a psychopathic, potentially unkillable clown who revels in finding increasingly creative ways to murder people. The deaths in Terrifier 2 were so gruesome that people apparently vomited and fainted during screenings, which didn’t stop the movie from becoming one of the greatest indie success stories of 2022. (For any curious sickos out there, here’s a link to one of Art’s most iconic kills; be warned, it’s gnarly.)
Art has done for on-screen deaths what Stephen Curry’s 3-point shooting has done for basketball: He’s changed the game. The Christmas-themed Terrifier 3 is set to come out later this month, and if Art continues to one-up himself in the killing department, we’ll have to consider moving him up the rankings. Seriously, Megan, we have to. I really don’t want to get on his bad side.
Schuster: Can’t believe we got a Steph Curry comp in a piece about clowns. Honestly, bravo to us.
9. Bozo the Clown
Schuster: “The World’s Most Famous Clown” came into existence in the 1940s; by the late 1950s, the character himself had become a franchise and was appearing in television markets across the United States. Bozo became a touchpoint for a number of future TV clowns, and he was even the inspiration for Ronald McDonald—fun fact: The first Ronald McDonald was played by Willard Scott, who’d previously played Bozo on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. (More on Ronald later!)
8. Killer Klowns, Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Surrey: I mean, the title speaks for itself. Probably the only film in existence that could be described as “clownsploitation,” Killer Klowns From Outer Space is set in a small town that gets invaded by—wait for it—extraterrestrial clowns who capture humans for sustenance. The killer klowns have all the (circus) tricks in the book: cotton candy cocoons, balloon bloodhounds, pies apparently made out of sulfuric acid, and popcorn guns. They might not be nearly as scary as some of the other clowns on this list, but the killer klowns endure as B-movie royalty. (Be sure to check out Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game, and yes, that is a real thing.) Also, they’ve got a theme song that has no reason to go this hard.
No joke, I’d put this on my wedding playlist.
7. Ronald McDonald
Schuster: As ubiquitous as the golden arches themselves, Ronald McDonald has become a worldwide fast food icon. The hair; the yellow jumpsuit; his crew of Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese—these are all things many of us have been exposed to since we were children running around in PlayPlaces.
Now, whether it’s a positive thing that a clown has lured children into consuming fast food is certainly something we could discuss. (Seeing an image of Ronald McDonald still makes me crave a Happy Meal, like I’m one of Pavlov’s dogs.) I suppose we could just pretend that millions of us haven’t been conditioned over the years by a multibillion-dollar corporation. Yeah, let’s go with option no. 2.
Surrey: Is it just me, or has McDonald’s marketing basically abandoned Ronald and his crew? I’m worried this is a Five Nights at Freddy’s situation just waiting to happen. (To be clear: would watch a horror movie about Ronald taking out McDonald’s executives—and a crossover with Jack from Jack in the Box.)
6. Insane Clown Posse
Surrey: I have only nice things to say about Insane Clown Posse—because I’d hate to incur the wrath of the Juggalos. Great hip-hop duo, totally normal clown gimmick. Crank up that “Boogie Woogie Wu.”
5. Harley Quinn
Surrey: Going back to her first appearance in Batman: The Animated Series in the early ’90s, Harley Quinn has long served as the sidekick and love interest of the Joker—a worthy supporting player, but one who’s always ceded the spotlight to the Clown Prince of Crime. But one of the (few) good things about the 21st century’s superhero boom is that it’s allowed Harley to become a star in her own right. On the big screen, Margot Robbie has memorably inhabited the character in the DC Extended Universe (RIP), bringing a chaotic, charismatic energy to everything from fight scenes to a romantic montage with a fictional South American dictator. (Lady Gaga’s Harley has big shoes to fill in Joker: Folie à Deux.)
Not to be outdone, Max’s Harley Quinn animated series is a hilarious love letter to the Batman universe, full of misunderstood villains just looking for acceptance—title character included. (Season 5 can’t come soon enough.) Even as superhero fatigue sets in, the strongest endorsement I can give to Harley is that her antics are never tiresome. What can I say? When she’s not snapping femurs, Harley just knows how to hit your funny bone.
4. Krusty the Clown, The Simpsons
Schuster: Here is a brief (or not so brief) list of some of my favorite Krusty the Clown plotlines on The Simpsons. In no particular order:
The time he’s investigated for tax fraud and fakes his own death by crashing his plane into a mountain, only to return after Bart reminds him that he’s “more respected than all the scientists, doctors, and educators in the country put together.”
The time he offers up Kamp Krusty as a summer getaway for kids, only to allow it to be run into the ground to the point that the kids are starving, they revolt against the authoritarian counselors, and Krusty is forced to make amends—by taking everyone on a trip to Tijuana.
The running bit where Krusty will endorse anything so long as it pads his bottom line.
The time he has an Alaskan timberwolf on his show and is told the wolf is spooked by loud noises. “Loud?” Krusty shouts. “That’s our secret word for the day!” The wolf goes on to maul Bart before losing in a fight to Groundskeeper Willie.
The time Bart becomes Mr. Burns’s heir and the two pay Krusty $400 to deliver them a pizza while his show is scheduled to go live; Krusty airs a rerun, saying “no one will know the difference,” only for it to be the episode where Krusty talks about the Falkland Islands being invaded.
Fox
Krusty forever.
3. Charlie Chaplin
Schuster: Charlie Chaplin didn’t clown in the way many of us are used to. He didn’t have a crazy wig, or a red nose, or a flower that squirted water into unsuspecting faces. Rather, his character, the one he played throughout his silent films, was much more simple—but no less effective. “That character wore the same baggy pants, the same black hair and knotted suspenders, in a 1914 skating rink as it did on a 1936 assembly line,” wrote Alistair Cooke in a 1939 edition of The Atlantic. “In the intervals between a score of pictures, the same cracked boots have been preserved in ether. Chaplin’s creation is a clown, and like that of all clowns his make-up is ageless.”
The makeup was indeed ageless, as was Chaplin himself. His legacy in the world of clowning remains strong.
2. Pennywise, It (2017)
Surrey: The titular monster of Stephen King’s It has existed for millions of years, can shapeshift into any form, manipulates reality, and preys on its victims’ worst fears. So what does it say about our collective coulrophobia that this ancient, primordial evil spends most of its time as … a clown?
Pennywise is responsible for the most memorable moments in It, including the opening scene, in which the monster goads little Georgie Denbrough into sticking his hand down a sewer drain before chomping down on it. Pennywise draws power from the fear of its victims; as a reader (and viewer), it’s easy to understand why the creature has successfully terrorized Derry, Maine, for centuries. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared shitless if a grimy sewer clown was making eye contact with you from across the street?
Warner Bros.
The good news is that, for all its supernatural abilities, Pennywise does have a fatal weakness. In It: Chapter Two, the Losers Club defeats Pennywise by confronting their innermost fears and belittling it as “just a clown.” That’s right, Pennywise suffered death by shit talking. Kids, take note: Bullying works.
Schuster: I know who I’m seeking out if I’m ever confronted by Pennywise: the teens. Save me, Gen Z!
1. The Joker
Surrey: Is anyone surprised? One of the greatest villains of all time, the Joker has spent decades as a cultural phenomenon, which has been bolstered by the many talented actors—and also Jared Leto—who’ve played him. He’s the ultimate foil to Batman, and what’s most unsettling about the Joker is how many iterations of the character are nihilistic, unpredictable agents of chaos. The Joker cannot be reasoned with, and you can’t appeal to his humanity. He is, to paraphrase The Dark Knight’s Alfred Pennyworth, someone who just wants to watch the world burn.
Really, putting the Joker at the top of the clown ranking was a no-brainer; the bigger debate to be had is which actor has given us the best version of him. Cesar Romero was a campy icon, Jack Nicholson set the standard for comic book villains, Mark Hamill is the definitive Joker in the world of animation, and Joaquin Phoenix has an Oscar and the second-highest-grossing R-rated movie on his résumé. But for all these worthy contenders (and also Jared Leto), it’s tough to compete with Heath Ledger, whose Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight managed to be menacing and mesmerizing in equal measure. (See: the pencil trick.)
No matter how many times the character is revived, we can’t seem to get enough of the Joker terrorizing the innocent civilians of Gotham—and so the cycle continues with Joker: Folie à Deux. As a result, the Joker isn’t just a mainstay in popular culture: He always gets the last laugh.
The big promise of Todd Phillips’ Jokerwas stripping out the titular character’s comic book elements and showing what would happen if a regular guy in 1980s Gotham decided to put on clown makeup. (Turns out, things didn’t go well, mainly for everyone else around him.) A young Bruce Wayne is in the original movie, and you may be wondering what would happen if an adult Batman met this version of his nemesis. According to director/writer Todd Phillips, he thinks Arthur Fleck would just think Batman’s neat. (You’re shocked, I’m sure.)
In a recent IGN interview, Phillips explained how Arthur would “be in awe of the alpha male that is Batman. I think [he’d] look up and appreciate it.” In his read, Arthur is “fascinated by men at ease,” such as his own coworkers and Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin from the first movie. Those men are everything he’s not, and why wouldn’t that extend to Batman? Presumably, this Batman knows Arthur’s responsible for his parents’ murder, but maybe they can move past that.
The original Joker ended with Arthur eventually losing his cool so bad he shot Murray in the face on live TV, so that fascination clearly has a limit. Still, Phillips’ comments get at something, namely how Arthur has been very quick to fall in love, either romantically or platonically. But Warner Bros. is probably not interested in making the decades of subtext between Bats and Jokes into actual text, or at least no more than what Lego Batman already did back in 2017. Considering Arthur’s luck with people he crushes on, anything between this Clown Prince and a Dark Knight old enough to punch his face in would likely end in a bad romance.
Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris, Jonathan Kermah, and Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal
The world has gone mad, and the boys are back to make sense of it all. Van, Charles, Jomi, and Steve break down their thoughts on the maddening trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux (09:13). Then they take a look at the fifth explosive episode of X-Men ’97 (33:29). That’s all before they dive into this week’s episode of Shogun (57:43).
Hosts: Charles Holmes, Van Lathan, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran
After what feels like years of waiting—mostly, because it has been—we finally have our first extended look at Joker: Folie à Deux in action, bringing laughs, sorrow, and music to Todd Phillips’s vision of the Batman’s most legendary foe.
Spoilers of the Week | June 17th
It stars Joaquin Phoenix, reprising his Oscar-winning role of Arthur Fleck, now fully transformed into the clown prince of crime known as the Joker after the events of the 2019 film. Folie à Deux—which, in a surprising turn, is a jukebox musical—also introduces pop-sensation-turned-actress Lady Gaga as another iconic DC character in Harleen Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn.
Joker: Folie à Deux | Official Teaser Trailer
Joker: Folie à Deux also stars Zazie Beetz, returning from the first film alongside Leigh Gill and Sharon Washington, as well as Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, Steve Coogan, Ken Leung, and Harry Lawtey. It’s set to hit theaters on October 4.
After a few legal setbacks from Warner Bros., The People’s Joker has made its way to theaters this weekend in New York. The parody film sees director/writer Vera Drew as the Harlequin, a trans woman trying to make it in comedy after recently moving into a small town. With a number of other Batman villains also getting the parody treatment in the film, you can guess why WB would try to stomp it out—and why folks wanted it to get a fair shot at life.
Spoilers of the Week | June 17th
For Drew, the film is deeply personal and practically autobiographical. As a trans woman, she felt a connection to the actual Jokermovie in 2019. Along with Joaquin Phoenix’s outcast-turned-criminal Arthur Fleck, she found something relatable in the film being about “city structures and government systems [that] are completely failing. My family system failed me,” she told Variety. “My government is still failing me constantly, and for some reason, I still have to pay them taxes next month. I related to that core element of just wanting to make art and put myself out there. How can I do that in a system that is so rigidly gatekept and so much of it is just an arm of propaganda?”
Superheroes are “big, grand, bold, colorful archetypes,” and people already reflect themselves onto them. As a lifelong Batman fan, People’s Joker allowed Drew to tell her trans story, something she herself only really processed in 2019. In using comedy to explore some “false ideas” about herself, she eventually realized she “needed to process not only coming out as a trans woman in alternative comedy, but how this informed my identity.”
Drew was equally candid about the criticism that’s come her way over the last two years. There’ve been critiques—mainly from “well-intentioned allies”—asking if it’s a good time to have a queer villain headline a movie. As far as she’s concerned, she’s a villain already, so may as well accept it. “I’m villainized and politicized, and I’m turned into a symbol, just because of my identity,” she said. “Some people think that just because I was assigned a gender at birth that doesn’t match me, and then embraced that, I’m somehow a political activist or a symbol of their oppression. To me, I could only make a movie about a queer villain at this point in my life, because I’m completely villainized and my community is completely villainized. So it was important to me to do that.”
The People’s Joker is now in theaters, with more screenings opening up around the US in the coming weeks.
Get ready to see Todd Phillips send in the clownsin Joker: Folie à Deux—the jukebox musical! Though we’ve long heard the DC Studios film starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker will be a musical, we now know a bit more about the off-kilter romantic showdown.
Spoilers of the Week | June 17th
Variety cites insider sources as revealing Joker 2 will be “mostly a jukebox musical,” with at least 15 covers of “very well-known” songs with room for original music. I mean they have Lady Gaga so one would hope some original music will be in the mix. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, who won an Oscar for Best Original Score for 2019’s Joker, is also aboard the sequel, and Variety’s source notes her “haunting” musical cues will have a presence once more.
Among the cover songs is “That’s Entertainment” from The Band Wagon, a 1953 musical starring Judy Garland (which just so happens to open with the lyric “A clown with his pants falling down”). We can imagine that the music will harken mostly to old Broadway showtunes as opposed to a broader playlist of classic and modern hits like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. There’s definitely an old Hollywood romance vibe to all the imagery we’ve seen of the duo in their dreamlike mad love story.
Joker: Folie à Deux from DC Studios Elseworlds is set for release October 4.
Now that we’ve entered the final few days of 2023, the year’s bumper crop of new game releases has slowed to a trickle. With long, lazy days looming ahead, it’s a lovely time to cuddle up with one of the biggest, beefiest games in your backlog. And if you’re looking for beef, RPGs are the way to go. On December 15, Atlus announced that Persona 5 crossed a major sales landmark. The modern fantasy RPG and its spinoffs have now sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. Nowadays, the Persona series seems like a sure bet. But just a few years ago, itwas a niche fascination for a few devoted weebs. If you haven’t checked it out already, now’s your chance.
6 Things To Know Before Starting Persona 5 Tactica
Back in 2017, when Persona 5 first debuted outside Japan, critics and audiences had largely soured on turn-based role-playing games, waving them off as dated and passé. The previous year, Final Fantasy XV ditched menu-driven gameplay for rapid-fire action combat that was flashier and faster than the venerable Square Enix series had ever been. It seemed like turn-based RPGs were a thing of the past—until Persona 5 set the world on fire.
The game takes place in modern-day Tokyo, and follows a group of teen vigilantes known as the Phantom Thieves. By day, they’re just conspicuously attractive high school students. By night, they summon demonic Pokémon known as Personas to fight crime and corruption in supernatural dungeons known as Palaces. P5’s stylish, anime-inflected presentation stood out in the late PlayStation 4 era, which skewed heavily toward realism. Innovative combo mechanics kept enemy encounters feeling snappy and unique. The game drew sky-high review scores and currently sits at an enviable 93 on Metacritic. Not too bad for a genre past its prime, right?
Persona 5 Royal – Take Over Trailer – Nintendo Switch
An expanded and enhanced edition, Persona 5 Royal, was launched worldwide in March 2020. Royal came to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox consoles in October 2022. And like any good video game phenomenon, Persona 5 spawned a heap of crossovers and spinoffs. In addition to a dedicated anime series, the cast appeared in a rhythm game (2018’s Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight), a Switch-exclusive action RPG (2021’s Persona 5 Strikers), and this year’s strategy RPG, Persona 5 Tactica. Oh, and protagonist Joker also joined the roster of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Persona 5 isn’t without flaws. Okumura’s palace, which you’ll encounter late in the game, is an absolute chore. And the game’s portrayal of same-sex relationships is about as subtle as a sack of hammers. Oh, and it easily takes more than 100 hours to beat. If you can forgive those shortcomings, it’s an excellent way to wile away the final hours of 2023—whether you play the vanilla version or Royal.
Persona 5 Royal is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, and is often on sale for $30 or less. (Used copies of vanilla P5 on PlayStation 4 are even cheaper!)
I love Persona 5, but over the years, Atlus’ stylish, supposedly socially-conscious RPG hasn’t loved me. Queer Persona fans know the series to be fraught, and even the most passionate among us treat it like the fun uncle who claims to love everyone and still says something extremely out of pocket each holiday. I figured Persona 5 Tactica, the tactical spin-off launching on November 17, would follow all the previous games and find some way to throw a jab at queer people for no reason. But after years of feeling like one of my favorite series has been trying to push me out, Tactica opened the door for me, if only for a moment.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Super Mario RPG
We aren’t going to get into any big, overarching story spoilers as I explain how, but a brief scene in Tactica’s first chapter does require a little table-setting. If you want absolutely no context, maybe minimize this tab and come back when you’ve finished the first chapter.
Persona 5 Tactica opens with the Phantom Thieves, the teenage superhero vigilantes heading back into the supernatural world called the Metaverse. This time they’re facing Marie, a tyrant bride who has repurposed an entire town to hold her dream wedding. There’s no need to get into the why and who here, as it’s a spoiler, but this serves to set up the scene we’re here to talk about. It’s called “The Ideal Marriage,” and you can find it in the Talk menu in Café Leblanc after you find out Marie’s plot.
The Phantom Thieves discuss Marie’s plan in their home base, and the conversation moves on to the team’s own ideas of “dream weddings.” Ann excitedly talks about how she can’t wait to wear a white wedding dress, and it’s all very cute. Eventually, Ryuji turns to our mostly silent protagonist, Joker, and playfully asks which of the Phantom Thieves he would marry.
I went through a few stages of subverted expectations here, so hold my hand, Phantom Thief, and let me walk you through. When Ryuji asked the question, I fully expected my options to be limited exclusively to the women in the room, as that would reflect the original Persona 5’s extremely limited view of romance. These spin-off games don’t import your P5 save, so games like Persona 5 Strikers find ways to ask you who your paramour in the first game was so you can experience a little continuity.
But much to my surprise, Tactica allowed for everyone in the room to be an option, including Ryuji, who I have headcanoned as my Joker’s unrequited crush since first playing Persona 5 in 2017. Even still, my trepidation wasn’t gone, as any time a dialogue option gave me a chance to suggest how my Joker felt a door was instantly slammed in my face. Persona games haven’t just denied characters’ possible queerness at every chance, they’re often eager to turn any gesture toward it into a mean-spirited joke.
I braced myself as I chose Ryuji, ready for Tactica to hit me with the metaphorical backhand in the form of my would-be boyfriend jolting away in the opposite direction…but it never came.
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Instead, what I got was a really sweet scene of Ryuji in a stylish white tux, saying he couldn’t believe the person of his dreams had been right by his side the whole time. It was a reference to one of the best interactions between Ryuji and Joker in OG Persona 5, one often pointed to by fans as a moment that implies some level of romantic trust between the two. But here in Tactica he also acknowledged sparks had been flying between the two since they met at the beginning of Persona 5, and I thought to myself it was about damn time he wisened up to this.
As Joker stops pondering his dream wedding it’s back to reality, where he and Ryuji aren’t dating, despite those sparks. The scene then ended, and before a wave of excitement hit me, my first feeling was a sense of relief.
Persona 5‘s homophobia problem
Persona 5 has always positioned itself as a story about standing up against oppressive forces in the name of standing up for the little guy crushed under their boots. The Phantom Thieves use their supernatural powers to fight crooks as small-time as an abusive high school coach and climb up until they reach a major politician. The game tackles power imbalances, class issues, and corrupt law enforcement, but queer identity has always been its blind spot. Even as it stumbles in advocating for victims of abuse by putting those same people through the same violence after the fact, at least Persona 5 does, at some point in its 100+ hours, take a stance.
But when it comes to how identity is a marginalizing factor, Persona 5 has always been willing to shun, or even point and laugh at queer people. Men, especially. Playing the original Persona 5 as a gay man was an incredibly disheartening experience as it both refused to let me go down a romantic path with any of my male friends, and also bombarded me with assumptions of who Joker, and by extension, myself, was in its dialogue.
Image: Atlus / CloverWorks
On top of this, Persona 5’s treatment of its sole canonical gay men, two harassers assaulting Ryuji in the middle of a crowded street, remains one of the lowest points in the series. The English localization team stepped in for the definitive Persona 5 Royal version by making these characters enthusiastic drag queens eager to show Ryuji the ropes rather than predators, but even that can’t make Persona 5 an inclusive game when it’s entirely uninterested in telling a story about queer characters, even if the player is trying to push it in that direction. Sure, you can tell a random shadow in a buried battle menu that you like men, but in terms of living as a gay teen in supernatural Tokyo? Persona 5 won’t let you.
It’s frustrating because I’d argue the social link arcs between Joker and Ryuji or Joker and his rival Goro Akechi still enjoy the most romantic tension in the game, far more than most of the women the player can pursue. But really, it didn’t come as a surprise that Persona 5 was dismissive of queer identity, because Persona almost always is.
Persona 3 has weird transphobic jokes that I’m curious to see handled in Persona 3 Reload. Persona 4 nearly has interesting conversations about queer identity with party members Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane initially being presented as possibly working through male attraction and gender fluidity respectively, only for the game to handwave those conversations, fall back on the status quo, and engage in some casual queerphobia along the way. Shoutout to Persona 2, which had a gay romantic interest in 1999. I wish your successors followed suit, but maybe they can moving forward?
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Persona 5 Tactica doesn’t make good on the series excluding queer people, and it definitely doesn’t fix that it made us the butt of the joke for almost 20 years. But it does hint that maybe the future’s looking brighter for queer Persona fans in the future. Now, even if the love stories that should’ve been there aren’t, those of us who spent years playing as Joker pining for Ryuji or Yusuke (apologies to the Akechi lovers but he isn’t here, R.I.P. to you) have something in hand to beat the headcanon allegations.
I didn’t flirt with any of the women in any of these games because I was truly committed to the self-insert bit. Now I finally have at least one scene in this whole series that acknowledges that my Joker wants to smooch his golden retriever best friend. This leaves me a little more hopeful that whoever I play as in Persona 6 might get a boyfriend of his own.P
With2023 marking the year of Luc Besson being legally cleared of all sexual misconduct charges brought against him by Sand Van Roy, perhaps it’s ironic that the movie he should choose to come out with posits that, in this life, you can only trust bitches. That is to say, dogs. And sure, there are some male ones in the film, too, but nonetheless, the antithetical-to-his-denial-of-misconduct quality is there. And yet, dichotomy and duality is at the heart of Dogman, which marks Besson’s twenty-first film since he began releasing them forty-two years ago (with the short film, L’Avant-dernier, serving as his 1981 debut). And it seems with this one, Besson is determined to have it characterized as a “return to form,” which, certainly, it is. Even if a form that borrows heavily from many other recent tropes. Not least of which is Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in 2019’s Joker.
Caleb Landry Jones, who delivers the performance of his career thus far, is only too ready to emulate that trope as Douglas Munrow a.k.a. the eponymous “Dogman” himself. And yes, like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman (or even Danny DeVito’s Penguin), he gravitates toward this particular type of animal because it is the only living creature that has ever shown any type of kindness or affection toward him. This starts from an early age (as it did for Penguin with his penguins), which we learn about through the device of retelling it from the present to a psychiatrist named Evelyn (Jojo T. Gibbs). It is Evelyn who is called (in the middle of the night, of course) into the New Jersey detention center where Douglas is being held until they can decide, first and foremost, what his gender is. Initially arrested while wearing Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” getup (adding a dash of Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey into the pastiche), the police are too confused by Douglas to understand that he’s merely a cross-dresser who happened to be on his way to perform at a drag show that night before he was so rudely interrupted by someone seeking to destroy the perfectly imperfect insular world he had built with his coterie of dogs.
Naturally, we don’t get to that portion of the story until the end, after Douglas has rehashed his entire harrowing ordeal of an existence to Evelyn. Somewhat surprised that he’s so willing to talk to her (and often confess to various crimes in the process), he eventually tells her that the reason why he does is because pain recognizes pain. And for Evelyn, whose own story goes far more unexplored, that pain threatens to return in the form of her physically abusive ex-husband, who’s been skulking around her house to try to see their son, even though he’s been forbidden by a judge from doing so. But again, Besson isn’t making this movie about a Black woman. It is, as usual, the story of an alienated white man. But, at the bare minimum, Besson didn’t take the Todd Phillips approach by making him a conventionally straight incel. Granted, Douglas has his own romantic desires for a woman go unfulfilled, but it says something that he’s at home among the drag world after spending much of his youth in a cage studying women’s magazines. The ones his mother had to hide from the sight of Douglas’ violent father, Mike (Clemens Schick), behind the wall of the dog cage.
It is this cage where Douglas will be forced to make a home when Mike exiles him there. This because Douglas’ traitorous older brother, Richie (Alexander Settineri), snitches on him about feeding the dogs when they’re not supposed to be. For, in case you couldn’t guess, the only reason someone as hateful as Mike would own dogs is to use them in fights. Ergo, starving them just before one so that they’ll be extra bloodlusting. Incidentally, the word “Dogman” can also refer to a person who raises dogs for the sole purpose of dog fighting.
In a certain sense, that’s what Douglas ends up doing, too. For he raises his fellow brothers and sisters (telling his father he prefers the dogs to his own family, which is how he ends up being exiled to the cage in the first place) to fight for him. To serve as the protectors he never got in his parents—the people who are supposed to love and protect you at all costs. Instead, Douglas must receive that from the family he “makes” in his canine brethren. Retreating entirely into the pack after his father shoots a gun at him, not only clipping a finger off, but lodging a bullet in his spine that 1) can’t be removed without risk of death and 2) permanently paralyzes Douglas.
As the rest of his youth unfolds, Douglas is shuffled around, landing in a home where he meets the only woman he’ll ever love: Salma Bailey (Grace Palma). It is she who teaches him about theater, and how it is the gateway to being anything and anyone you could ever want to be. This is, undoubtedly, what affirms his love of dressing up as women, ultimately leading him to performing once a week at a drag club. But only for songs that allow him to remain stationary (he can stand without a wheelchair for the length of a song), thus performing as “old-timey” women like Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich (this being a very Besson touch). In the scenes leading up to Douglas’ eventual discovery of the club as a haven that will allow him to make some (legal) income, he admits to Evelyn that it was hard, at first, to find work. What with his wheelchair-bound status. This is part of what leads viewers to believe that it might have been a more discriminatory time in the U.S. (i.e., the 90s). But, to that end, perhaps the oddest aspect of Dogman is its sense of time. Although Douglas tells Evelyn he’s thirty years old, the year of his birth is shown as 1991. Theoretically, that ought to mean we’re in 2021, and yet, the use of VHS tapes for the security cameras that show his dogs stealing from rich people makes it feel like it’s meant to be set in some earlier time, when it was so much more difficult to catch a criminal (and, again, so much easier to discriminate in the workplace). But then, other details, like Evelyn talking on a cellphone with headphones while driving, continue to suggest a more current time period.
And yet, just as we don’t really question how or why his dogs can understand and react to the words Douglas is telling them, we don’t much question the holes in the fabric of Dogman’s space-time continuum. Besson is too good at delivering a filmic feast for the eyes to distract from such an anomaly. This includes using the Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” to soundtrack Douglas’ fruitless job search before finally showing us a man in Annie Lennox drag (the suit and cropped orange hair, obviously) singing along. Eventually, Douglas finds himself in that same club where the Lennox impersonator is lip syncing and implores the owner for some work, declaring that if you can perform Shakespeare, you can perform anything.
But it isn’t just a Shakespearean or even Joker influence at play as the plot of Dogman progresses. There’s also some notable Home Alone booby trap action going on in act three, as Douglas rallies his canine army to defend him against a gang boss he enraged at the outset of the narrative. And all because he was trying to do a good deed for a sweet old lady who was being milked for too much “protection” money by these New Jersey goons. But, as it is rightly said, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Douglas has learned that time and time again, yet can continue to tolerate existence because of the purity and goodness he sees in dogs. And they, in turn, show him the loyalty and devotion he’s never found in any human. Indeed, they’ll go to the ends of the Earth to stick with their “master” (even if Douglas probably sees himself as more of an equal). In this regard, one could even bill Dogman as something like a deranged Homeward Bound. As another recent dog movie, Strays, also happens to be.
During the expectedly violent (because: Besson) denouement occurs, it’s apparent that Besson seeks to make his character Shakespearean in his fatal flaw of being a romantic, even after all he’s experienced to know better. And, because Besson loves martyr figures, he lays the Christ imagery on thick at the end, as though we needed to be reminded that Douglas most certainly possesses a bit of the Balthazar (though a donkey, not a dog) from Au Hasard Balthazar characteristic: being consistently beaten down by life despite doing no harm, yet continuing to persist in the face of his often literal bruisings. Unlike the Joker, however, this hardening of the spirit doesn’t turn him evil, per se, only makes him yet another threat to society and its insistence that “being a good boy” will get you far.
As filming wraps on the long-awaited Joker: Folie à Deux, more set photos have been released. An Instagram post made by director Todd Phillips features Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, and Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck. While some people have been taking a measured approach to expectations with this one, the excitement is everywhere. At first, some were caught off-guard by the fact that its a musical, but a risk like that could have a serious payoff if it goes over well. Especially after Gaga’s performance in A Star Is Born.
It’s unclear how exactly the movie could really even exist given the ending of 2019’s Joker, but there are a few ways to get around that. In the last film, we only really saw the beginning of Fleck’s career. Then, there’s also the fact that he hallucinated an entire relationship. Could he not hallucinate a life outside the walls of an asylum just as easily? Or a relationship with Gaga’s character?
Phillips’ post revealed two new images of Gaga and Phoenix in costume as their DC characters.
Todd Phillips captioned the post with the following text:
That’s a wrap. Thanks to these two (+ the entire cast) and the BEST crew that the film industry has to offer. From top to bottom. Gonna crawl into a cave now (edit room) and put it all together.
This sequel will exist in an interesting new space for DC. It’s being branded an Elseworlds title, which essentially means that it isn’t canon to any other kind of shared universe. Matt Reeves‘ The Batman also exists in the same kind of liminal space.
The New DC Universe of Movies and Shows
All the projects announced by DC Studios as the start of “Chapter 1” of the company’s new universe of movies and shows.
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