The People's Joker is a 2022 American queer coming-of-age parody superhero film directed by Vera Drew, and written by Drew and Bri LeRose. The movie premiered on September 13, 2022, at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, but planned screenings of the movie were canceled due to "rights issues". The movie unofficially parodies characters from the Batman comics, and the main character is a transgender woman based on the Joker, played by Drew. The film also features Scott Aukerman, Tim Heidecker, Maria Bamford, David Liebe Hart, Robert Wuhl, and Bob Odenkirk in supporting roles.
Plot
In a dystopian world monitored by Batman, a young child grows up in Smallville, Kansas idolizing the performers on a sketch comedy program, UCB Live. The unnamed protagonist's mother is disturbed when her child asks, "Was I born in the wrong body?" and immediately books a session with Dr. Crane of Arkham Asylum, who prescribes Smylex: a drug that forces its users to put on a happy face, even if they feel depression, anxiety, or gender dysphoria.
Fifteen years later, our hero has grown up and moves to Gotham City to join the cast of UCB Live, where a computer designates him a male Joker, who will be allowed to have an individual identity in the cast, unlike the women, who are all assigned to be nameless Harlequins that serve as back-up dancers. The process to become on-air talent includes paying $15,000 and enduring improv comedy classes from UCB cast member Ra's al Ghul. The hero strikes up a friendship with Oswald Cobblepot, another struggling comedian who cannot afford the entrance fee and the duo decide that they will instead make their own comedy troupe. To avoid rules that outlaw unapproved humor, they will call their act "anti-comedy".
They set up in an abandoned warehouse at a dilapidated carnival and are quickly joined by a number of law-breaking comedians with their own deliberately unfunny and uncomfortable acts. One of these is Jason "Mr. J" Todd, who dresses as a Joker of his own and tells Marxist observational humor. Mr. J and the hero immediately strike up a bond and go on a date that includes Mr. J's revelation that he is a transgender man who recently left an abusive relationship. This helps encourage the protagonist to articulate that she is a transgender woman and the two plot to have her dive into a vat of estrogen to gender transition.
As the duo evade guards at the chemical plant, a retired Batman appears to stop them and it leaves Mr. J shaken. While the protagonist finally feels happy for the first time after emerging from the chemicals, Mr. J reveals that his ex is Batman. The crimefighter adopted orphan Carrie Kelley and trained her to be his sidekick Robin, even assisting with a gender transition to the identity of Jason Todd, but their relationship became toxic and sexual, in spite of their large age difference and the fact that Batman was a father figure to the seventeen year old.
Batman continues to make public appearances, participating in a reality dating show contest, masquerading as a straight man and even hosting UCB Live, enraging Jason, who manages to make every event about him. His partner has now taken the name of Joker the Harlequin: a woman with a comedic identity of her own who is trying to be happy but is stuck in the abusive and self-sabotaging patterns of Mr. J. When Joker's mother comes to visit and explain that she wants to apologize for how she raised her child, it comes at a time when Joker is breaking up with Mr. J and decides to finally take on the comedy establishment by hacking into a broadcast of UCB Live, daring producer Lorne Michaels to let her host instead of Batman.
Michaels agrees, seeing it as a way to get good ratings. Batman tries to intervene, but the entire anti-comedy troupe fights him off, with Pamela Isley's enormous venus flytrap eating Batman. Joker manages to make peace with Mr. J before setting out for a grueling day-long training session with Ra's, who reveals that there is a prophecy of a people's hero who can liberate comedy from its constraints and believes it to be Joker the Harlequin.
On the night of the show, Michaels pumps Smylex into the crowd to ensure that they laugh no matter what Joker says and she finally has a moment of "supersanity" where she understands what she needs to be happy and how it cannot come from validation from outsiders. She materializes in the Fifth Dimension alongside the powerful Mx. Mxyzptlk who offers to rearrange the time stream for Joker. She asks that her old friend Oswald be given the fame and power of Batman and to have one happy memory from childhood: she has a vision of 1992, riding in the car with mom, as they sing along to "The Joker" and laugh.