The People’s Joker

The purpose of fan films is to play in someone else’s sandbox. They’re about paying homage, sure, but they’re also about inserting yourself into a world you love. As such, they tread a very thin legal line, which is generally summed up as “as long as you’re not making any money, the studio’s tend to not care.”

That’s why Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker begins with a lengthy pre-title card that reads less like an intro and more like an opening in her legal defense if DC Comics decided to drag the film through the courts. Drew states that she believes that her very much unlicensed reenvisioning of Batman’s greatest nemesis is fair use, citing Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 and saying the references are “for purposes of relevant criticism, social commentary, or education.” Which, in fact, Section 107 does not actually do (most especially the ‘social commentary’ part, which never appears in the legislation). Moreover, it’s hard to imagine that any judge would side with Drew in claiming that there’s anything educational under the law’s terms in what is basically a trippy biopic of Drew’s experiences as a trans woman that grew up with body dysmorphia and a fixation with Batman.

The legal side is separate from the quality of the film – or at least it should be. However, The People’s Joker has become a cause célèbre after Warner Bros. sent a letter that briefly derailed its 2022 festival run and led to a light re-edit. Put those legal questions to one side, and Drew’s project is a mix of a singular artist’s vision and a crowdsourced experiment, à la Star Wars Uncut, Our Frasier Remake. It’s all amplified by a long list of cameos by familiar faces of alternative comedy that the writer/director/star knows through editing Comedy Bang! Bang! and as a regular collaborator with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Through a mishmash of live action skits and animated sequences, all pulled together by Drew’s narration, she tells the story of Joker the Harlequin, an anti-comedian who navigates a dystopian version of Gotham: from a repressed childhood warped by prescription Smylex through a dysfunctional relationship with Mr. J (Distler) to a cathartic showdown with Batman and a final speech that underlines everything a little too heavily.

The People’s Joker feels like it would work better as a one-woman show, a monologue that seems weighed down by the burden of its own metaphor. There’s an exhausting need to turn everything into a Batman reference, and to reference every era and iteration of Batman, when in reality Drew is funniest and most pointed when she’s not under the Joker’s makeup. As fanfic, it’s even more prone to heavy-handed wish fulfillment than is the norm. As commentary on the mythology and cultural ubiquity of Batman, it lacks the subversive wit and genuine sense of danger that surrounds Randy Moore's guerrilla attack on Disney, Escape From Tomorrow. If anything, the deepest observations come from the broad jabs at the stranglehold of the Upright Citizens Brigade on L.A.’s comedy scene, and the moribund nature of Saturday Night Live, as expressed through a show called UCB Live, run by a CG Lorne Michaels voiced by Maria Bamford.

Ultimately, it feels like the reason that we’re finally seeing The People's Joker is very much like what happened with Moore’s film: Warners realized they don’t want to Streisand Effect more publicity onto the project. Drew is an intriguing artist, but The People’s Joker is most interesting as a legal case study. Let’s see if Warners’ legal department stays as phlegmatic if Drew makes her teased A Nightmare on Elm Street-inspired sequel. To misquote Oscar Wilde, to have one IP spoofed may be regarded as a misfortune; to have a second undergo a low-budget lampoon looks like carelessness.