After Todd Phillips’ Joker made over a billion dollars at the box office, a sequel was inevitable. The gossip mill rumbled that Joker 2 was all but ready to go, and Phillips confirmed the news with a post on Instagram that showed Joaquin Phoenix readying the script titled Joker: Folie à Deux. And now that we know that is indeed the title of the upcoming sequel, thanks to the fascinating new trailer that’s been released, let’s have the conversation: Is Arthur Fleck the real Joker?
Why Folie à Deux Means More Than We Think
According to Dictionary.com, folie à deux, which literally translated from French means ‘the folly of two’, is “the sharing of delusional ideas by two people who are closely associated.” Joker briefly touched upon this by showing how Arthur Fleck (or whatever Joker’s real name is) influenced Gotham City’s people to rise up and revolt. When they bought into his ideas and persona, they were willing to follow him to the very ends of the earth and do his bidding. However, it’s important to discern that Gotham’s citizens weren’t delusional per se but frustrated by how the city had failed them, and so there’s clearly more at play.
As we now know, the trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux shows Harley Quinn as the second person in this equation, something that we initially thought was unlikely given that we assumed DC and Warner Bros. Discovery had greater plans for her. So, fans of Harley Quinn, rejoice. What we can deduce from the trailer, without this fact being given away, is that Fleck and Quinn will be up to no good together, but the big question is: who will be influencing whom? In other words, who will have the controlling interest in the film’s events and plotlines?
Joker: Folie à Deux is likely to be a game of power, where we may see one of the two main characters try to get the other to do what they want. The trailer doesn’t give too much away, but there are delightful teases within it, hinting at a relationship that is as much about love and compassion as it is about danger and living on the edge. We are, after all, dealing with two dangerous, highly disturbed villains here, so it will be exciting to see what games are afoot between these two.
Folie à Deux strongly suggests the presence of a second Joker, but this Joker may not come in the form we expect. It’s possible that Phillips might have had a look at The Dark Knight Trilogy and applied some symmetry to his own storytelling. If Batman is a symbol that anyone can wear, why can’t the same apply to the Joker? Like the concept of evil, the Clown Prince of Crime could be more than a singular identity, and now that we know that Quinn is involved, would it be crazy to imagine her inhabiting some element of the Joker persona?
Harley Quinn As The Second Joker? What?
Going back to the psychological concept of a shared delusion, Harley Quinn’s presence throws a fascinating wrench into Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness. In the context of the film, I have to admit that it’s tempting to see Harley as simply a fellow traveller on Arthur’s path of anarchy. After all, the trailer portrays them in a seemingly co-dependent way, two damaged souls finding solace in chaos and in each other. As the trailer’s opening voice-over says so beautifully, “We use music to make us whole, to balance the fractures within ourselves.” What if music is a metaphor for these two – or one of them – using each other to achieve a specific end?
Could Harley, fueled by her own unique brand of crazy, be the one influencing Arthur now (“Let’s get out of here”, she says in the trailer), effectively unseating him as the real Joker? Maybe she sees the potential in Arthur’s rage, a darkness that mirrors her own. Perhaps she wants to manipulate him so that they can create more mayhem. If we look at it that way, their alliance is no real alliance but a game in which Harley is the puppeteer, pulling the strings of Arthur’s fractured and hurting psyche for her own twisted goals.
So, Arthur Fleck Is Not The Real Joker?
Thinking about these possibilities is exciting and starts to make me question whether Arthur Fleck will be the real Joker when the dust settles. It’s just a matter of time before we know if their ‘folie à deux’ is a twisted romance or a catalyst for total destruction.
The other possibility here is that Arthur is playing Harley, and she is the one who will lose. Keeping in mind how the Joker is meant to be the master deceiver, it wouldn’t be outside the realms of possibility for him to make her (and us) believe that he is at her mercy, only to pull off some kind of masterstroke at the end. That, too, is a tantalizing possibility and will make it all the more jaw-dropping if he is able to emerge as the true Joker.
Tell us, do you believe Arthur Fleck is the real Joker? More importantly, will Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker fight Batman in Joker 3?
