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The Trial of The Joker

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Conrad Hamilton

After its release on October 4, Joker: Folie à Deux spawned a seasonally appropriate response: a moment of schadenfreude, in which critics competed to see who could do the most to slash its reputation to pieces. ‘So bad it’s almost laughable,’ blared Dana Stevens of Slate, in an abrasive notice that mocks its malign protagonist as ‘poor little clownsie-wownsie.’^[1] ‘Staggeringly stupid’ declared Christina Newland of The I, charging it with both squandering Lady Gaga and a stillborn attempt at self-revision.^[2] Not to be topped in this contest, RogerEbert.com’s Glen Kenny even admitted that he was so filled with ‘indignation’ after seeing the woeful work that he filed a ‘hastily-written review’ five hours before the publication ban was set to end by accident. It doesn’t disappoint: Folie à Deux is, he tells us, ‘nihilistic slop,’ the likes of which would deserve commendation for refusing to furnish ‘Joker Fan Service’ if not for the fact that the sheer existence of such fans attests to the ‘sick and […] twisted world in which we live.’^[3]

While the absence of fan service might not be a problem for Kenny, it is a problem for Joker’s sick and twisted fans. Indeed, if The Guardian is to be believed, Folie à Deux is currently on track to lose between $125m-200m—making it one of the biggest flops in film history.^[4] How did Philips 300m ‘art house ‘feature end up in this double bind? One where it’s snubbed by its would-be audience while still being an offense to liberal aesthetes?

When the first Joker came out in 2019, it attracted no shortage of critical derision...

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Conrad Hamilton is a postdoctoral research fellow at East China Normal University...