Why The Joker Needs Batman

*SPOILER WARNING* The following article contains spoilers for Joker about it’s characters and ending.

The new incarnation of Joker tries to do a lot during its two-hour runtime. Director Todd Philips attempts to tell a self-contained origin story surrounding the rise of the clown prince of crime, but with a different spin. Whether or not it’s successful at conveying certain themes such as class and mental health is up for debate, but one thing that isn’t arguable is how depressing this movie feels. Tonally, the movie is pretty straight across the board, adding in a splash of “humor” every now and then. Of course depending on what you find funny or not, those moments might just be extra uncomfortable for you. 

An entirely different aspect of Joker being heavily discussed, however, is the choice to include the Wayne family as a central plot point for Arthur’s origin story. For some, this was not necessary at all and took away from the smaller-scale story being told. Others might have enjoyed the nods to the greater comic universe. Ultimately, this inclusion felt necessary for Joker to avoid reveling in its dark themes. 

Before watching the movie, most audiences had no expectations of the Waynes being mentioned at all, let alone playing a key role in the story. After the credits rolled on some early screenings, the presence of the Wayne family became one of the main takeaways. Perhaps not the actual scene of Arthur interacting with Bruce at Wayne Manor, but definitely the (frequently redone) scene in which, presumably, Batman is born after seeing his parents gunned down. 

In this story, the violent act happens after Joker is arrested for killing talk show host Murray Franklin on live TV. His violent acts already sparked a protest with crowds of civilians donning clown masks lining the city streets, but after the incident, a violent riot sets off in Gotham. It’s in this chaos that Thomas, Martha, and little old Bruce Wayne evacuate a movie theater (why anyone would go to a movie theater when your city is in the midst of a violent protest I have no idea) only to be confronted by a mugger wearing a clown mask. The rest is history. 

In one of the final scenes of Joker when The Joker stands on top of a crashed ambulance with a crowd of people surrounding him, seemingly crowning him as the hero of Gotham, all I could feel was emptiness. This is when I realized that The Joker needs Batman. In this story, more than ever, the only sense of hope I could feel is that after this event occurred, Bruce Wayne would at some point save the day. Perhaps this is why we return to the image of Bruce standing over his parents’ limp bodies in the middle of Joker’s celebration.

Heath Ledger’s version of Joker said it best in The Dark Knight when being interrogated by Batman: “I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? You complete me.” If this were the beginning of a theoretical Batman Universe and we could see this version of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker go toe to toe with Robert Pattinson’s Batman, this might be the beginning of an interesting arc. But with no confirmation that Phoenix or any of the team behind Joker are set to return for any future Batman stories, the idea of this film as a solo one-off story with no larger connections to the cinematic universe makes this movie harder to like.

While Joker tries to tackle the themes of classism and mental health, they aren’t touched upon in any nuanced way. The movie’s belief that people who have been crushed by the system or people affected by their mental health may be inclined to become a “Joker-like” figure is ridiculous. If the story of Joker is how Arthur Fleck become the Joker and committed egregious acts of violence, and if we don't empathize with this character, all there is left to believe in is Bruce Wayne. This might not have been something Todd Philips and co-writer Scott Silver intended, but it is as clear as day to me. The idea to takeaway from Joker isn’t that we should be nice to people and treat them with respect (because that should be a given), but in a world where bad people unfortunately exist, there will always be those who stand up to defy evil.