Joker 2 Gets The Chance To Rewrite A Toxic Relationship

Before I get to my hopes for Joker 2, it’s important to address what makes the original Joker/Harley Quinn relationship so abusive. For one thing, there is plenty of literal physical abuse which is matched only by the nonstop torrent of verbal abuse, all coming from the Joker.

For another thing, the comic Batman Adventures: Mad Love elaborates on the tragic plot of how Harley was once the brilliant Dr. Harleen Quinzel until Joker’s abuse molds her into his submissive little sidekick.

With that preamble out of the way, why do I think that Joker 2 is going to rewrite this toxic relationship? In this new movie, Harley is a fellow patient when she meets the Joker (real name, Arthur Fleck) rather than a doctor trying to treat his madness.

That means they begin their relationship without any weird power differentials, and even if he wanted to do so, this is not a woman that Joker can drag down to his level because…well…she’s already there.

Additionally, while Joker 2 might have a violent climax where the title character turns on his new squeeze, all of the trailers so far have revealed a couple that is completely on the same page for everything from singing to serial killing.

Those yahoos who originally idolized the toxic Joker/Harley relationship of movies like Suicide Squad mostly like the abstract idea of crazy people falling in love. But in its quieter moments, Joker 2 seems like it will focus more on the brutal honesty of two broken people coming together in a genuine attempt to make each other whole.

Director Todd Phillips has previously claimed that he wants Joker 2 to feel like it was made by a crazy person, and if we take that idea to its logical endpoint, most (or all) of this movie is likely to be from Joker’s point of view.

That is significant because the first film portrayed Arthur Fleck as a man who longed for simple things, like someone to laugh at his awful jokes. The Harley Quinn of the trailer seems like someone who appreciates the Joker for who he is, meaning that we might finally get a version of these characters where neither is constantly trying to change the other. 

That doesn’t mean these two should be wilting flowers, of course—I fully expect Joker 2 to have a higher body count than the first, with both Joker and Harley sharing equally in the murder and mayhem.

But their violent toxicity toward the world doesn’t need to be mirrored in their relationship with each other. General audiences are here to see these two lovebirds tear the world down, and that’s more enjoyable if they aren’t tearing each other apart while they’re doing it.

Obviously, Joker 2 takes place in a very different universe from the comics and even other DC movies, so any changes to the Joker/Harley dynamic it makes may not exactly stick.

At this point, though, we’ve had decades of these characters being abusive and destructive, and we’ve endured what feels like countless posts of real-life toxic people declaring this duo #RelatioshipGoals. It’s time for a movie to give us a Joker and Harley who truly love one another—after all, what could be crazier than that?