In DC Comics’ recently published The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing, the titular character finds himself in a predicament; he is pregnant. This essay will focus on what happened in the fictional series, why it provoked a response, and the ramifications of such responses.
Matthew Rosenberg, author of the new Joker series, brings the Joker around in a story arc that hasn’t ever been done before: The Joker doesn’t know if he’s real. The series follows two different characters who have assumed the title of the Joker; one is now a crime lord in Los Angeles, while the other, the main protagonist, struggles to make his way through a Gotham City that doesn’t believe he is real. The latter is also being hunted by The Red Hood, a resurrected and vengeful former sidekick of Batman who the Joker killed back in the 80s.
The Joker, classically known as Batman’s nemesis, is also the Batman’s antithesis. While Batman is characterized as vigorously orderly, intransigent, and unwilling to show emotion, the Clown Prince is perfectly in tune with his feelings, no matter how chaotic and violent they may be. The Joker is an insane person who loves his lunacy; the Batman is constantly fighting for his own sanity in the Hellish city he has vowed to protect.
The backup story in The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing features the Joker trying to woo various superheroines in the DC Comics Universe. It is not canonical to the universe that the main story represents; it takes place in the Joker’s mind. The story features Joker repetitively killing some of his henchmen in each chapter - a talking gorilla and a dwarf, who both show up alive in chronologically later chapters.
In the recent chapter of the comic (Chapter Four), the Joker attempts to profess his love for Zatanna, a magical superheroine. Zatanna responds by placing a curse on him; the Joker wakes up the next day with a swollen abdomen, something that leads him to conclude that he is pregnant. He later vomits mud, leading him to conclude that he was not categorically “pregnant” at all. The mud, now sentient, takes the shape of a smaller version of himself, leading the Joker to conclude that the mud boy is his own son.
Several right-wing commentators, talk show hosts, and even nationwide news outlets reported the comic book’s phenomenon, labelling the Joker as a “trans(sexual) man”, with others labeling the comic as “grotesque” and “woke garbage”.
Todd Pirro, one of Fox News’ commentators, displayed clear outrage after discovering the phenomenon on air. “There is a bizarre new Batman storyline…” he claims in the interview, “that has the Joker becoming pregnant and giving birth…instead of reading the market and stopping the Woke garbage strategy, they’re doubling down on woke!” Despite the Joker not actually being transgender and instead feeling the ramifications of a magic spell in an imaginary world he has dreamt up for himself, Todd Pirro encourages his colleagues to also speak up against the comic book. Joe Concha follows by acknowledging that the Joker is not transgender, but still claims that everything is impacted by “woke”, and that media outlets are attempting to force leftist agenda upon the people through this story. Joe Concha concludes that the protagonist is “no longer the Joker; he’s the Woker.”
The Joker is categorically insane; the comic takes place in his own mind, and his actions regarding an imaginary pregnancy are similar to how an elementary school boy will place a ball under his shirt and call himself pregnant. No agenda was displayed in the book, yet the comic book has taken America by storm, being featured in articles from Fox News, the New York Post, Hypebeast, Forbes, TheDirect, Yahoo, TMZ, and more.
Share This Post On
0 comments
Leave a comment
You need to login to leave a comment. Log-in
