What is Love to the Joker?

I recently stumbled on a question on the DC page, and I was going to comment on it, then found myself doing what I usually do, writing way too much for a casual comment.  So rather than do that, I thought I’d address this here.

Question: Do you think the Joker is gay?

At first this is a very “left field” question because just about everyone, even the most causal DC fan knows who Harley Quinn is.  The Joker has to be straight because she’s the Joker’s girlfriend.

Or is she?  In the cartoon it’s all but explicitly stated that the Joker uses Harley as a means to an end, and even when she’s trying to make overt sexual advances on him he pretty much keeps her at a distance.  His relationship towards her goes from playful banter, to neglect, to outright physical abuse at one point nearly killing her.  There’s no indication that they have any kind of relationship beyond that.  He spends at least one episode discussing the “relationship” he and Batman have, but never once addresses his “relationship” with Harley.

Now the problem with trying to pigeon hole the Joker’s concept of sexuality is he doesn’t necessary play by the same psychological rules as you and I do.  Most conventions dictate that for a human to be psychologically sound they need to have a secured source of food, a safe place to take shelter, and a means to let off sexual frustration.  This last part is because there is a huge mess of chemicals that swim through the brain when someone climaxes sexually.  Even the worse of living arrangements are deemed acceptable due to this flood of momentary ecstasy.  But the Joker doesn’t play by those rules necessarily.

The Joker takes shelter in seemingly random locations, usually abandoned factories or carnival locations.  These are not secure or safe.  We don’t really know about his source of food, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of character to frequent grocery stores or restaurants, especially with a fluctuating income, so he probably doesn’t care about having a secured source of food.  Given that the first two of the trifecta aren’t being met the same way we meet them, chances are he’s given the same kind of attention to the third.

It’s possible that the way the Joker’s brain is wired; these conventions are awkward and uncomfortable to him.  People with Asperger’s or high functioning autism don’t function the same way socially that other people do.

*For the record I am in no way saying the Joker has Asperger’s or autism, it’s just an example.

Physical intimacy for some people is just uncomfortable.  The Joker just appears to have a ramped up version of this where all social conventions are uncomfortable.

We do know one thing that the Joker is always going to return to though, Batman.  He wants Batman’s full attention.  He competes with other criminals and even the Robins to keep Batman’s focus.  So what is a fundamental part of any sexual relationship?  Attention.

We want attention from our partners.  We want to be their entire focus.  Many new fathers go through a period of intense resentment towards newborns because their wives spend so much time focusing their attention towards the baby that the dad goes unattended.  Is this resentment deliberate?  No, it’s entirely subconscious, but it also states what we want on a very basic level.  We want to be our partner’s focus.  That’s what the Joker wants.

So does that mean the Joker is gay?  Not necessarily.  He wants Batman’s attention and it’s likely during the beat-downs, the violence that occurs during apprehension, that the same chemicals that go off in our brains during orgasm go off in the Joker’s brain.  Notice that he always ramps up his crimes, getting bigger and bigger, with a higher and higher destructive toll or body count.  That way the violence will be equal or greater to what he received the last time.  In a sense, the Joker’s crimes are his version of foreplay.  However the real question is, would this be the same if Batman was “Batwoman?”

I theorize yes.  If Bruce had been born Beatrice Wayne and she grew up to be the first Batwoman and delivered the same level of violence towards the Joker, he would have the same response. 

To ask if the Joker is gay is the same as asking if his brain works the same way ours do.  Clearly it doesn’t.  The entire base for his psychology is way off.  Also it’s not like any superhero could replace Batman for him.  It starts with Batman, which is why if Batman were Batwoman, she’d have to be the first hero he faced off against in order to establish that same connection.

Does that mean, since Joker received sexual pleasure from violence, that’s how he sees Harley and when he abuses her that’s his way of having sex with her?  No.  Joker has a clear understanding that violence is violence.  He knows that if he throws Harley or any of his henchmen into oncoming traffic, he’s not having sex with them; he’s trying to kill them.  He doesn’t have sex with violence; he has sex with violence from Batman.  Further in books like “Arkahm Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth” and “The Killing Joke”, he has a clear understand of sexuality, and its corrupted forms such as rape.  He uses jokes and attacks to get a rise of out Batman in these stories, again to illicit the violence he craves.

Well, this certainly has been a dark one.

Thanks for reading.

Gotham: Series Overview

Well, it was only a matter of time before I talked about this series.  I was going to get to it, but I don’t like doing episode by episode reviews, I tried that a while back with Once Upon a Time season 2, and it didn’t work within my schedule.  So, rather than try to tackle this show one piece at a time, let’s look at it one character at a time and see how they’ve grown over the course of the series.

The overall plot of Gotham is to follow the adventures of the last good cop in the city, Detective Jim Gordon, played by Ben McKenzie.  Former military, Gordon approaches his police work with a single minded focus on the traditional model of law enforcement; police should be pillars of the community, an example for the public to aspire to, and to have the protection of the public be their number one goal.  This mindset clashes heavily with his fellow officers who are caricatures of corruption.  Notably his partner, Harvey Bullock and Captain Sarah Essen seem beaten down by the corruption in the city, until Gordon’s example lifts them out of their funk.  Still fearful of the hostile environment, rather than slam head log into their opposition, they use the twisted system to engineer justice in a place where justice was a fantasy.

This doesn’t mean that everyone loves Gordon.  They like his results, most of the time.  As he attacks each case, he rubs people the wrong way, and they are numb, if not outright hostile towards him.  When he collars the perpetrator, however, or saves the city from this-that-or-the other, they salute him and treat him as a hero.

What is ironic is that while Gordon is arguably the most interesting character in the show, he’s also the least interesting of the show.  I say that because you know how he’s going to act.  We’ve seen his phases when dealing with relationships, cases, co-workers, and outright villains.  He’s got to be the most interesting portrayal of the character because he’s very competent in his job, unlike say some movie versions, and has taken down at least two major villains on his own, most notably the Electrocutioner.

He’s shown he can do his job without the aid of a lunatic dressed as a bat.

Speaking of which, we also have David Mazouz as young Bruce Wayne, and not far behind him Sean Pertwee as Alfred.  I link these two characters because this is the time in Bruce’s life when Alfred is his guardian and Alfred takes that responsibility to heart, even going super soldier mode when assassins target Bruce and Selena Kyle (more on her in a minute).  Sean Pertwee’s take on Alfred is absolutely fantastic.  He rides the fine line between parent and servant to Bruce Wayne.  I’ve read it in comics where Bruce and Alfred’s relationship was described as Bruce values Alfred, seeing him as the only family he has, but also its very clear Alfred works for Bruce and, more often than not is subject to Bruce’s orders and whims, whether he agrees with them or not.  That’s very well portrayed in this show, as Alfred offers council, advice, and training as requested, and will even voice his concerns, but will do whatever it takes to see his employer’s requests are met.  Alfred loves Bruce and will kill to protect him.

Bruce’s side of the relationship is complex as well.  The series picks up almost at the moment of the Wayne’s murder, so we are thrust right into Bruce’s life scarring event.  I don’t think I’m out of line saying that Bruce is suffering from PTSD, and the combination of the writing and Mazouz’s performance really bring out the more subtle accents of the disorder.  Bruce is seen suffering from nightmare, obsessing over various topics, self-destructive activities, and a lot of unfocused aggression.

It’s made clear that Bruce is seeking something to fill the void left by his parents’ murder.  He becomes an amateur detective in an attempt to find meaning behind their deaths, thus holding on to the last shreds of his parents.  He also looks to Alfred as a father figure, but at the same time maintains their traditional employer/employee relationship, so no matter how close they grow, there will forever be a distance.  Basically Bruce could really use some counseling…

Unfortunately as we find out in the season finale, Dr. Leslie Tompkins has limited crisis counseling experience.  Otherwise she could have, and probably should have, filled her comic book counterpart’s role as counselor to the young Bruce Wayne.  Instead she starts out as a staff physician at the newly re-opened Arkham Asylum, and later takes over as the medical examiner and Jim Gordon’s love interest.  When she first appeared in Arkham, I was hopeful because Morena Baccarin has a very soothing on screen appearance and could easily portray a counselor.  I honestly thought that was the role she was going to fill.  Baccarin does a wonderful job in the role anyway, but I think the character could have been taken a different direction.  Yet it’s entirely possible that Tompkins will take on the crisis counselor role later after experiencing the trauma of facing off with a crazed Barbra Kean.

Comics are, in general a twisted knot of ret-cons, with multiple writers trying to put their own mark on the history of iconic characters.  No set of characters suffer more from this than Jim Gordon’s immediate family.  It is a mess and I’m not even going to try to compare the comic version to what we see in Jim Gordon in Gotham.  That said Barbara Kean was Gordon’s first girlfriend in the series before she left after Gordon had run afoul of Police Commissioner Loeb.  When she returned after his reinstatement, he had already moved on to Leslie Tompkins and Barbara sent herself on a self-destructive spiral that culminated in her encountering the serial killer known as “The Ogre”, her murdering her parents on his orders and eventually trying to kill Tompkins, only to be stopped by her ex-boyfriend.  Everything I just said there, that’s simple compared to the comic book counterpart.  Erin Richards plays the role well enough, I never really liked the character, but I don’t think we were ever meant to like her.  Richards plays the transition from emotionally wounded socialite to full on psychopath with a great deal of believability, and I look forward to what direction they take the character post-psychotic break.

Edward Nygma is the next character that is worth talking about because he himself as a very interesting transition.  Nygma is set up as the GCPD’s forensic expert who likes riddles.  He really likes riddles.  He likes them so much he tries to bring his information to the officers investigating the case in the form of a riddle, much to their annoyance.  His relationship to Gordon is interesting because he seems to almost admire Gordon.  Gordon was, apparently, the first detective he’s worked with to rattle off the answer to a riddle right away.  Played by Cory Michael Smith, he’s shown to have more than a few sociopathic personality traits, tries unsuccessfully to woo the affections of records specialist Kristin Kringle, and later murders and brutally disposes of the body of her lover.  His first foray into his comic book counterpart’s psychosis is when he forges a letter from the deceased boyfriend, but arranges the sentences so that the first letter of each line spells out “NYGMA”.  He has a psychotic break later, berating himself for leaving an obvious clue.  It’s hard to gauge where this character will go next.  My guess is that he’ll continue to work with the police, only to watch as they try to decipher the clues from the crimes he commits.  This actually plays well into the character from the comics as he always held himself intellectually superior to those around him and it seems logical he would place himself in a location where he can watch people run themselves ragged trying to decipher his clues.

However there are wasted and unnecessary characters as well.  Part of the problem with most American television programs are filler episodes.  These are episodes that provide no information towards the overall arc of the season, only put there to fill an episode quota and provide a “villain of the week”.  Smallville was notorious for this, but I’ll get to them later.

Gotham doesn’t necessarily have any “filler episodes” per say.  Everything is designed to reveal or, sometimes, force feed us characterization, letting us get into the mind of the characters.  If the A-plot doesn’t cover something significant for the overall story, then the B-plot usually adds something, usually by establishing relationship ties.

Ivy Pepper, our proto Poison Ivy for the show, is a unnecessary character.  They literally could have written her out of the entire show at this point and not missed anything.  Midway through the series they introduce a character named Jerome, who again, has no business in the show other than to tease us with a possible Joker origin.  I’ve read that there will be more Joker build ups later, but that’s to come.

Finally under the tent of unnecessary is Attorney Harvey Dent.  He’s set up as a young, up and coming lawyer, with possible dissociative identity disorder, show when he rages at a suspect, and then is promptly dropped.  He’s depicted as a contemporary of Jim Gordon, which is sometimes comic book accurate.  What isn’t comic book accurate is how Dent later becomes Two-Face in the comics, in which his face is scarred by acid thrown by gangster Sal Maroni…

Which brings me to wasted characters, the top of which is Sal Maroni, who is played by David Zayas.  Zayas’ had a spot on portrayal of this rough and uncouth mobster, reminding me of DeNiero as Al Capone from The Untouchables.  If you took Carmine Falcone (John Doman) to be Don Vito Corleone, ala The Godfather, then the pairing of these two legendary mobsters was a fantastic example of two-sides of the same coin.  Which was ruined by Fish Mooney.  Not to knock Jada Pinket-Smith’s portrayal, she actually reminded me of Eartha Kit from time to time, but the inclusion of Fish Mooney was just not necessary, at least not in the capacity in which she was shown.  They could have set her up as a rival crime lord, not an Falcone lieutenant with high aspirations, and they could have focused on her conflict with them more than the Dollmaker plot thread.  That felt forced and actually plugged in some sub-par computer generated effects, which we could have been sparred if they had gone a different direction.

Finally, there is the Penguin, played by Robin Lord Taylor.  I really don’t know what to say about him.  I can’t give him too much praise as I feel he did what was expected of him, and I can’t knock him because he did his job well.  He made you watch him every time he was on screen, but I didn’t love the character.  He was dangerous, but that danger wasn’t out of left field, you always knew it was there.  I think, he’s kind of an anti-Gordon.  His arc is predictable, but well portrayed. 

I suppose I should talk about Selina Kyle, played by Camren Bicondova.  Again, she did a good job, but she didn’t have the same caliber of material Mazouz did.  She wasn’t anything we haven’t already seen before, but that’s not the actress’s fault.  People have been doing their spin on the orphan thief with questionable ethics for generations, so the odds were against her.  She had a good, if subdued screen presence, with a dangerous-bad girl vibe.  She ended the season showing Selina had a violent streak in her, so it might be interesting to see where they take it from there.

Overall, it’s a pretty good prequel series, easily in my top 10, but maybe not directly in my top 5.  Give it a watch and see for yourself.

Batman 1989: Thoughts...

I can’t tell if I’m just bored or if I’m just feeling starved for some quality Batman related media.  I can’t claim to be overly excited about any of the new Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice footage that came with their supposedly “leaked” trailer this past week.  Maybe I’m in a funk, I don’t know.

I do know, however, that there was a lot more unspoken in the 1989 Batman film that what we saw.  Like, why did Boss Grissom order a hit on the Wayne’s?

Yeah that came a little out of left field, but when you want some quality stuff and there’s nothing on the market, you have to sometimes go back to the beginning.

Tim Burton’s Batman tried to mark a new era in superhero films.  Christopher Reeve’s Superman back in 1978 dared to not play up a superhero story just for laughs, which was actually rather common for Superman franchises.  Even the George Reeves television show in the 1950’s wasn’t a straight laugh riot.  For some reason, up until Superman III, and one abysmal musical, Superman was always played straight.

1960’s Batman, however, was not.  For some reason Hollywood took a man wearing blue tights and a red cape more seriously than they did a man wearing grey tights, a blue cape and a bat mask.  As I type that sentence, I can kind of see why, but still, Batman did nothing to deserve that.  So Tim Burton came along and took a shot at the Dark Knight, emphasizing the Dark.  Here the Joker killed, Batman took hits, and there was collateral damage.  While Batman never out right murdered anyone, actually actively trying to save the man who killed his parents at one point, all the death’s attributed to Batman were circumstantial at best and negligent homicide at worst.  Aggravated assault which caused crippling bodily injury on the other hand, Batman was completely fine with that.

But as I was thinking about this movie, I was recalling some complaints heard about the story, even ones that I once raised myself.  Take the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  It’s revealed in a flash back that Jack Napier, one day to be the Joker, actually gunned them down in that alley.  People got so pissed about that.  “Joe Chill killed Batman’s parents!”

But maybe he did here to.  Remember, there was a second robber at the scene.  He’s the guy who actually takes the pearls from Martha Wayne, enters into the ensuing fight with Thomas Wayne and looks on in shock from the side when Jack guns both of them down.  Then, as Jack threatens young Bruce, the second robber calls for them to get out of there as the police are on their way.  I believe this guy was Joe Chill.

So what do we know about the crime based on the information presented in the film.  Jack and, we’ll call him Joe, did not just randomly run into the Wayne’s but rather followed them from the theatre down the alley.  They were waiting for these two very specific people.  Joe attempts to rob them, trying to intimidate them, and when Thomas fights back, Jack shoots them both.  Shocked and probably appalled, Joe calls for them to retreat.  Jack, being the psychopathic showman, gives a parting threat to the now orphaned child, and leaves. 

Let’s look at how these two men were dressed.  Nice suits, tailored overcoats, well-groomed hair, and at least one very nice hat.  These are not muggers, they are mob enforcers.  Further, we have to look at where this fits in with Jack Napier’s time line.  By the time Batman is running around, Napier has made it to second in command of Grissom’s criminal empire.  The young Bruce in the flash back looks about 11 or 12 years old, and the grown up Bruce looks about 30, which gives us about 18-19 years between flash back and the narrative proper.

For context, when Al Capone entered the employ and became the second in command of crime boss Johnny Torrio he was about 20 years old, however he had known Torrio since Capone was 14, which means in order to become the right hand man of any crime boss, you need to know that guy for a long time.  We can assume that by the time the movie starts, Napier has been Grissom’s right hand for more than a few years, possibly 8 or 9, leaving 10 years to move from enforcer to under boss, which given what we can gleam from history, isn’t that hard to believe.  Now roll the clock back.  He’s been Grissom’s hand for 8 or 9 years, and before that he had to be working his way through the ranks of Grissom’s criminal organization, meaning that at the time he shot Thomas and Martha Wayne, he was under the employ of Carl Grissom, and by association so was Joe Chill.

When you are under the employ of a crime boss, you do what you are told, and given that, we can safely connect the dots that Carl Grissom ordered the attack, if not the death of the Wayne’s.  But why?

Here too is where the movie actually fits in well with the comics, because Batman never solves the murder of his parents.  Here, he knows who, and he can connect who ordered it, but since at the end of the movie Grissom is dead and so is Jack Napier (not that we could have relied on the Joker to give us a solid account of what happened) the only other option is Joe Chill, and he’s nowhere to be seen.  After the flash back, he literally disappears from the story.

I’ve searched and searched, and for the life of me I can’t find a fan theory that addresses this topic.  So I’m going to make one, based on an early draft of the scrip.  Originally Carl Grissom was going to be mob boss Rupert Thorne, you know, someone actually in the comics.  He was going to put a hit on the Wayne’s because Thomas Wayne was running against him for a seat on the city council.  So here it goes:

Thomas Wayne was a staunch opponent of Grissom’s corruption of the city, going so far as to run against the suspected mob boss for a seat on the city council.  Grissom orders two of his enforcers, Joe Chill and Jack Napier, to track Wayne and put a scare into him.  The high priced thugs corner the Wayne’s behind the Monarch Theatre, Joe Chill just wants to intimidate them and makes it look like a robbery.  Jack sees Thomas isn’t so easily spooked and that Chill’s plan is going to not only implicate them, but Grissom as well, which could make things far worse for their boss.  Napier decides that its best to eliminate Thomas all together pulls his revolver and guns him down.  He then eliminates the next credible witness, Martha Wayne.  Seeing their young son as just a kid, he levels his weapon and gives a catch phrase to put a scare in the boy before Chill, who is shocked and horrified at what’s just occurred, hears police responding to the gun shots, calls for Jack to flee.

Back at Grissom’s, Jack is reprimanded for killing Martha.  Grissom isn’t all that concerned about the death of Thomas, but killing Martha not only makes Wayne look like a martyr, but also violates one of the tenants of early organized crime: Don’t kill them if they don’t have to die, don’t leave orphans.  Jack justifies it saying that with the Wayne’s fortune, the kid will be fine, and martyr or not, a dead man can’t hold a political office.  Grissom waves it off and reprimands Joe for such a stupid plan in the first place, gunning him down in the office and making Jack his new right hand man.

Then there is the often complained “Alfred let Vicki Vale into the Batcave.”  Oh I have heard this cried out from internet reviewers and people I personally know alike.  “Why would Alfred just let her into the Batcave?”  My response, he was probably told to.

Alfred loves Bruce like a son, and isn’t about to let a reporter, even one his charge knocked boots with, blow his cover.  When Vicki Vale came knocking, she already had a suspicion that Bruce was Batman.  Also note, he didn’t look terribly shocked when Vale entered the cave.  More of an “Oh, you’re here.” Rather than “My God, how’d you find out?”  I think when Vale came calling, she said “Where’s Bruce?  I know he’s the Batman.  Take me to him.”   Alfred probably called down to the Batcave and said “Master Bruce, Ms. Vale is here and she’s figured out you are the Batman.”  Bruce still focused on the biggest case of his life probably said “Fine, bring her down here.”

And, no, I’m not totally forgetful about “Batman Returns” where in Alfred makes a comment about upping the bat-security and Bruce quips “Who let Vicki Vale into the Batcave?” with Alfred giving a reproachful look.  The way I see it, Bruce probably feels Alfred should have been a little more stalwart with Vicki’s deduction “Batman?  That’s ridiculous young lady.  He’s just an emotionally scarred man with billions of dollars at his disposal, a top notch physique, and happens to like hanging upside down…”  Basically Bruce was just being a dick.

Its all conjecture, trying to plug up plot holes where I see them.  You might have a different opinion.