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A Joker by the People, for the People
Comedian Vera Drew’s debut film is radical, moving, and definitely not affiliated with the DCEU or Warner Bros. in any official capacity.
Last Friday night at the IFC Center, a line snaked all the way to the Papaya Dog on the corner of West 4th Street, full of freaks and geeks bouncing with excitement for the 9:45 screening of comedian Vera Drew’s debut feature, The People’s Joker. Instead, indie distributor Altered Innocence picked it up, with the help of a legal team who are cheekily anonymous by choice in the film’s end credits, and ensured every step of the way that this work qualifies as “transformative” use of the character protected by law — the poster literally calls it a “fair use film.” Now, this landmark of queer cinema and the best Joker origin story ever told is finally with its People as it rolls out theatrically across the U.S. (It opens in Los Angeles today.) It’s funny how having a marginalized identity really can give you some social cachet to some degree, but only in this context of either: Let’s watch a queer person get dragged through the mud and canceled and called a groomer by Tim Poolor whatever or Let’s put them on this beautiful pedestal of rainbow capitalism.
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