I love the DC comics, especially Batman, he is one of my all-time favourite heroes. And what's a Batman without his Joker? And I love the Joker. No seriously, I LOVE the Joker (like beyond Harley Quinn level of love). He is probably my favourite comic book character of all time, no matter when and where. I like every incarnation of the Joker, also the ones that might be considered "bad"; I can see something brilliant in every incarnation of this character because he's just so awesome! He gets all the cool lines, and, let's be honest here, many of the more brilliant Batman stories include the Joker. So that character means a lot to me and of course I was looking forward to see Jared Leto in this iconic role. I'm not here to talk about the pros and cons of Leto's portrayal of the Joker, that can cover another entire blog post. Just for the record: I thought he was alright. He's not gonna be my favourite (that'll always be Mark Hamill) but it was fun watching him. But this is about something else; this is also about the Joker but not only him, it's about these two:
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| (Source: mtv.com) |
What would Harley Quinn be without her Puddin'? Well, she as a character wouldn't even exist because this relationship is her quint-essence. Her obsession and twisted, crazy love for this man makes her so interesting and insane; partly even more insane than the Joker himself because Harley is crazy enough to love a man like this and would do anything for him. And she fell in love with him because he made her to; he manipulated her and made her feel special to have her on his side. She is so blind in her love for this man that she became crazy and a reckless bad guy (well, girl). And that brings me to the topic of this post. Let's start where Harley started as well, because this already begins to show my point:
Doctor Harleen Quinzel was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, she has always been interested in the human mind and really wanted a challenge. She wanted to explore the worst and most twisted minds of the Asylum and who else to go to but the Clown Prince of Crime himself to achieve this goal? The craziest of them all and Harley knows that, she wants to discover everything about that man's brain and so she goes down this road, which is going to take a dark and twisted turn. The Joker does indeed talk to Harleen and even opens up a little. But of course he doesn't do that without something on his mind, he's not just talking about himself to anyone. He sees something in Harleen and that's what he uses, he uses her heart, mind and interest from the very beginning. The manipulation starts right there, so early on. That's the point: the Joker manipulates Harleen on every level. He tells her sentiment stories so she starts feeling connected to him, he gives her some compliments and makes her feel special and before you can say "Batsy!" Harleen has fallen for the Joker and disappeared in his web to become Harley Quinn.
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But what about the Joker? Did he really mean all that? Does he love that girl too? Does he care for hear? Doubtful. I don't deny that there are moments in the comics and the animations when the Joker does feel jealous when someone else has Harley, and there are moments when he replies her advances and thanks her. But this is about some deep psychology and as we all know: the Joker's psyche runs deep. He doesn't purely love that girl; sure he seems to like her somehow, I know that there are actually kind of "sweet" and caring moments between them. But I'm doubting that he does really care for her on more levels than he simply uses her. This is some f-ed up shit we are dealing with. And when it comes to the relationship between Harley and the Joker, things go into some deep dark waters.
Let me come to the core of this whole story: I saw Suicide Squad and was looking forward to see the Harley x Joker scenes; two f-ed up people in an even more f-ed up relationship, that's exactly my thing. And don't get me wrong: it was fun watching these characters and the actors did a good job. My personal problem is that they portrayed this relationship in a very misleading way. At the end of the movie I was thinking "It was cool to watch, but that's not them!" And what's even worse is that there are now these (without wanting to be biased or too stereotypical) people who make posts about these two and absolutely adore them and say stuff like "Oh, they are so cute together! I want a relationship like these two! Joker x Harley, now that's what I want a relationship to be like!" And I'm just sitting there thinking "NO! YOU REALLY DON'T WANT THAT!!!"
My problem is that the Joker x Harley relationship in the Suicide Squad movie has been portrayed as too loving, too caring and two sided. The Joker is all about busting his baby out of the chaos she was put in, he almost appears "Romeo-like" in his "I'm coming to safe you, my love"-attitude. I had a hard time accepting this "Oh baby, I'm coming for you" part of the Joker character and that's (unfortunately) mostly all the Joker is about in this movie. Again: I know that there are the moments when the Joker does defend Harley when someone's pushing her around and he can get a little jealous ("Stop pushing her around. That's my thing!"). But that's not the Joker's dominant character in this relationship, in fact it's a side that we don't see often. Most of the time it isn't about love and he doesn't care for her. There are moments when he lets her drop like some useless tool, he would push her into danger to save himself and wouldn't move a bit when she got busted by the Batman or the police as long as he gets away to a good place to watch and laugh.
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| (Source: hollywoodreporter.com) |
The relationship can best be described by these words: dysfunctional, abusive and manipulative. It's by far not all "Aw, Puddin''!" and "Come here, tuts!", it's far more violent and dark. Remember Harley's story: the Joker talked her into liking him, he manipulated her from the very beginning so he could use her. That's what the Joker x Harley thing is all about: the Joker is one manipulative and abusive bastard towards Harley. He abuses her mentally and physically; he can push her off a cliff and she would still come back to him, smiling. Harley's mind has been broken into this reality where she still loves the Joker no matter what he does to her, in the end he can sweet-talk her into almost everything. That's mental abuse and manipulation on the highest and most dangerous level. You can say that the Joker's mind-plays are the whole reason Harley Quinn was born; if Harleen had never met and talked to him, she would never have heard his manipulative words and just stayed the psychiatrist she was. That's what the Joker did: he mentally abused her into becoming another person who is completely dependent on this man. And it doesn't stop with the mind, the Joker has always been known to never leave a body unhurt. He kicks her, he punches her, he strangles her. Anything you can think of, the Joker simply doesn't care, even when it comes to Harley! On multiple occasions he has physically abused Harley and also tried to kill her! This has driven her so far that even she has tried to murder the Joker but she has been so manipulated by him that he can sweet-talk her into lowering the gun and immediately pointing one at her himself. I think you're slowly getting the picture I'm trying to paint here, right?
If I had to point out one scene in the movie that got me thinking about this, it's the scene when Harley jumps into the chemical bath. Now, I didn't entirely have a problem with the scene as a whole; it shows us what really happened to Harley and what she would actually do to win the Joker's approval. What go me thinking was the bit after she landed in the chemicals: first the Joker wants to leave but then he stops, closes his eyes to think, curses and jumps in after Harley to save her. That had me frown because this showed that the Joker must have been thinking something like "Shit! I can't just leave her. She's has been kinda cool, I can't abandon her." (Might be a bit exaggerated) What upsets me is that they are implying that the Joker jumps after her because he actually seems to like and care for her so he feels responsible if something bad happened to her, so he has to jump after her to see if she's okay. Now, let's see how this plays out in the comics:
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| (Source: amazonaws.com) |
This is what I imagined it to be: he pushes her in (the rude bastard he is) and he does go looking for her but not to save her. He just goes to look what has happened to her, to see if he really could push her (literally) so far as to make her like him. And she is, she is even more crazy for him after this and that's how this f-ed up relationship is born.
Okay, I can't give the movie all the bad credit. Just as Batman v Superman, the Suicide Squad movie suffers from the fact that a lot of scenes got cut which could have added much more interesting detail. And some of the stuff I have mentioned is due to the fact that so many of the Joker scenes got cut. Among these scenes were actually these abusive and manipulative moments between the Joker and Harley. There is a scene where Harley actually points a gun at the Joker and he sweet-talks her into lowering it before slapping her. And in their last moments in the movie when he pushes her out of the helicopter, he originally doesn't do it to save her; they actually have a fight and he pushes her out in anger. Out of all the scenes they had to cut: why those?! Apparently because the studio thought such a dark relationship as Joker x Harley was TOO dark and not good for audiences, especially the PG-13 audience. Still, BIG MISTAKE! If they had kept those scenes, I wouldn't have to write all this now and we could all be happy. Those scenes would have added the details we needed about Harley and the Joker and would have given a far better portrayal of their psyche. Especially for the people who are not familiar with the comics, they need those scenes to properly understand! But no, we got this lovely, kind of psycho, badass relationship that makes girls longing for such a relationship although they really shouldn't! In fact, you can look up the scenes I described on YouTube and I'm pretty sure most of you will agree with me.
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(Source: gamezone.com) |
Okay, I think I have made my point clear. You really don't want a relationship like these two; it's fun to watch but horrible to imitate. I just want those people who don't know the comics or the characters so well to understand what actually lies behind Harley and her love for the Joker. I hope if we really do get that Harley Quinn movie one day, that we'll get to see the true side of this relationship and how destructive these two are for each other. Margot Robbie and Jared Leto are brilliant actors and I personally got the impression that these two really do love to portray these roles and I'm pretty sure they could be totally awesome if they were given the right material. But we are only at the beginning with these incarnations of the Joker and Harley, there's still so much to come in the future. I'm honestly looking forward to see more of Jared Leto and Margot Robbie and I would definitely love to see some more psycho Joker x Harley stuff!
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| (Source: wallpapercave.com) |
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