I think that the Lego Batman Movie perfectly portrays the gay-ness that the batman comics/movies/games had in a more "in your face type way". they have the "i hate you" type of relationship where "fight" is a replacements for sleeping around and "hate" is used as a feeling of admiration. ya know, the whole "i like to fight(sleep) around" statement made by batman in the beginning of the movie as well as the lovey-dovey "i hate you/ i hate you too" statements made by both batman and joker at the end of the movie. they cannot live without each-other which has been a consistency through most of the franchise. of course very early in the franchise there was not gay subtext, but gay domtext (quoted from an article) mainly between batman and the robin. this is just to prove that not only does the franchise have the capability of portraying queerness, but so does the batman. the batman franchise is riddled with queerness, ok. shout out to DC, because they have a lot of large characters that are queer. The Riddler is canonically bisexual no joke. now, about the joker. out of the 80 years he has been portrayed, at least half of those have been mega fruity. i feel like there would be more of this, but because of the time period and the mainstream view of queerness, it was subdued or left to interpretation. a big historical detail is the amount of censorship in the 50s. this effected other things, but most notably for this blog, it restricted/ banned representation of homosexuality in media. a common loophole a little while after the law was introduced, was portraying villains as queer either to demonize them or in a lot of cases, represent queer people the only way they could be portrayed legally. the joker as a character is/was very flirty and has very flamboyant tendencies. not that that makes someone gay, but for the time, that could be interparated very few other ways. joker had pet names for batman and occasionally asked for kisses in what was basically a verbal "/hj". all of these advances of course are unrequited as the batman hates everything and has commitment issues. remind you of anything? Perhaps Joker in the lego batman movie trying to get batman to admit he hates him but batman not realizing he has the abillity to be attached to people in any form perhaps??? now is the joker good representation? well, it depends on what you view as good representation. villains being queer isn't inherently bad and his queerness has never been connected to his crimes or murderous tendencies, however he is also the joker, who really is a terrifying character especially in the comics. he's gross, abusive, looks crazy, IS crazy, but so are some gay people. as much as we want to have good positive representation, we also have to admit that not all of us are good people and so not all of the queer characters in media have to be. (ofc the majority should be as the majority of us are good people, shout out to heartstopper) so i guess whether or not he's good rep is up to the person. ofc lego joker is really just a fluffball, so i have no issue with people seeing him as queer. same w mega mind. i dont even think anyone died in the lego batman movie.
as much as i hate typing things, i will type out a convo in the comics just for the like... 0-3 people who read this.
Batman: you're crazy
Joker: I'm focused.
i know EVERYTHING your going to do before you do it.--
(similar to the scene in the lego batman movie before batman puts him in the phantom zone.)
-- but you've done things lately that... SUPRISED me.
And i love surprises almost as much as i love you.
like dude, that's gay. like you cant even argue that. and thats just one of SO MANY examples. now the joker should not be romanticized, but he should be humanized. and i think that part of that humanization is allowing ourselves to see that his desperation for batman is something deeper than a silly grudge. its deep. several years deep, and on some level, desperation and a need to prove oneself to another is a bit of a mentally ill way of loving someone. and joker is, well, mentally ill. im tired of typing, so im done i think. leave your opinions stated nicely and be prepared to defend them. this is a discussion not an argument, this character is up to interpretation and thus no-one has the right answer.
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G0thShr!ne
real,this kids movie screams "im a kids favorite hero and i make this movie queer!" which makes it somehow interesting!!
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