No one expected the second Joker film to be a musical. But with the inclusion of a few songs, some dance sequences, a romance and a female co-lead, the sequel aims to flush out the first film’s incel fanbase with bleach-like efficiency. And this isn’t the only progressive stride “Joker: Folie à Deux” intends to make. Director Todd Phillips sat down with the Squeaky Wheel to reiterate that this, like the first film, will be a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of mental illness.
“Well that’s what the first film was,” Phillips tells us through a cloud of cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes. “And that’s totally what this one will be too. Y’know, the Joker is just some poor guy who goes absolutely fucking nuts sometimes. Blowing people’s heads off, cracking skulls open, grinning like a loon — those are just normal everyday things people suffering with poor mental health have to go through.”
But this isn’t the first time the Joker has been used to portray disability and mental health issues with empathy and nuance. In the 1989 “Batman” film, the character was the unfortunate victim of both an acid bath and botched facial surgery, which led to him massacring a whole bunch of people. In 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” he had even more severe facial scarring and consistent memory problems, which also led to him massacring a whole bunch of people. And cut scenes from the 2022 film “The Batman” showed the character with the greatest level of disfigurement yet, bearing a series of grotesque deformities which, presumably, would lead to him massacring a whole bunch of people. Audiences had a little less empathy for his depiction in 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” possibly because he wasn’t horrendously disfigured in any way or maybe just because he was played by Jared Leto.
All of this is a far cry from the wacky trickster gremlin of the original 1940s comics, but great filmmakers over the years have given the Joker an increasing number of disabilities for reasons they haven’t fully explained. On film, the character has been a consistent reminder of the struggles one must face living in a world without adequate support for murderous psycho clowns.
When we asked Phillips if he consulted anyone with mental health problems to inform his newest depiction of the character, the director spat out his whiskey and stated, “Christ, no! You think I wanna be alone in a room with a total psycho? What do you think I am, crazy?!”