The modern emphasis on individual identity hinges on the concept of authenticity. Today, we see people attempt personal transformations that would have been unthinkable only decades ago. Bruce Jenner, after years in the public eye as a biological man, announces that he is now a woman and implores us to “Call [him] Caitlyn.” Rachel Dolezal, a white woman accused of faking her racial identity as she rose up the ranks of the Spokane National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), rejects those accusations and claims that while she was born white, she “identifies” as black. Progressives embraced Jenner while ostracizing Dolezal, an inconsistency resulting from the differing demands such transformations place upon members of the public.
It is this public anxiety regarding issues of authenticity and identity that animate the new film Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role and directed by Todd Phillips. The first installment in the series, Joker, was a favorite of moviegoers in 2019. But while it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (Phoenix won the prize for Best Actor), it also caused consternation among tastemakers and the cultural elite for its representation of the classic Batman villain as an avatar of young, disaffected, white men: “incels” who attribute their alienation to the indignities forced upon them by a decaying social order.
Polite society’s concern over this group is twofold. First, we are to believe that their grievances are illegitimate—white men cannot be “authentic” victims. And second, we are told we can’t trust these men. After all, they sometimes try to take a pound of flesh as recompense for their suffering. That Joker resonated with this particular caste of deplorables was reason enough for critics’ hostility to what was, by any serious account, a very good film.
Joker was an origin story of how Arthur Fleck became the famous archvillain. It presents Fleck as a mentally ill clown-for-hire, living with his mother in tenement squalor. Decidedly unfunny, he fails as a stand-up comic. He is crushingly lonely, lacks career prospects, and is a perennial target of the random violence that plagues Gotham. One night, Fleck snaps while riding the subway, killing with a handgun three evidently wealthy young men who were harassing a woman. This precipitates his descent into madness. His transformation into the Joker is fueled by the public’s captivation with his crimes, which a burgeoning movement celebrates as a commentary on society. The Joker increasingly dominates his personality, culminating in the murder of a popular night show host on live television.
Folie à Deux—which, unlike its predecessor, is also a musical—picks up with Joker in Arkham Asylum, awaiting trial for his crimes. Fleck's lawyer wants him to say he was not in control of his actions, that the alternate personality of “Joker” was the culprit. Fleck, though, appears indifferent to the question of his guilt: He doesn’t seem to buy his lawyer’s explanation for his crimes, and he seems incapable of characterizing the relationship between Fleck and Joker. He falls in love with a woman in the asylum, Harley “Lee” Quinn (Lady Gaga), who is enchanted more by the idea of Joker than by Fleck. For his legal defense to succeed, he must be Fleck; but to maintain his relationship with Lee, he must be Joker. He can’t be both, and he can’t decide which personality is the authentic one. An identity crisis ensues, culminating in Fleck’s rejection of the Joker persona. At the end of the film, in an unexpected twist, he is murdered by an inmate in Arkham Asylum.
In a rare case of agreement, both critics and fans are trashing Folie à Deux. The critics, of course, were never going to like it. And fans are right that this installment is far inferior to the original; it certainly isn’t helped by its musical numbers. But more than that, fans feel betrayed by the conclusion, seeing it as a rejection of the thematic implications of Joker. Viewers call it “a slap in the face to everyone who enjoyed the first movie.” Others complain that the creators “hate the people who liked” the original’s sympathetic portrayal of the main character, so they “tried to ruin” the sequel, spending “190 million” “to mock, humiliate, and demoralize” their fans.
But the hyperbolic disdain for the film stems from a willful misreading of the ending. Folie à Deux does not negate the themes of its predecessor—it actually builds on them. Joker reminded audiences that social dysfunction has serious implications for the interior lives of those who must endure the anomie; it warned that the trauma society inflicts may eventually cause individuals to lash out, accelerating the decline. Folie à Deux is a meditation on the intersections of guilt, agency, and identity in a society that pushes individuals past their limits.
The legal matter of whether Fleck is competent to stand trial for his crimes segues into a consideration of various metaphysical questions. Who is Arthur Fleck, really? Is the Joker his “authentic self”? Are Joker and Fleck two sides of a single, integrated identity, or are they entirely dissociated? The (sometimes preposterous) events of the plot make more sense when understood as a vehicle for addressing these questions and their ramifications.
Taken as a whole, then, Folie à Deux reflects our current anxiety about personal identity and the public adjudication of its authenticity. Every time Arthur believes he has settled the matter of who he is, he encounters demanding expectations from other people that he cannot satisfy. Lee needs him to be the unrepentant Joker, which might earn him a death sentence. The court needs an Arthur Fleck that is repentant and sane, two qualities he does not have. And the clown-mask wearing hordes that worship him outside the courthouse—to whom Fleck is wholly indifferent—want him to lead a movement. Ultimately, they are more confused about his identity than he is.
In the end, Fleck’s demise doesn’t necessarily illustrate that he made the wrong choice, but rather that he would have paid a steep price no matter how he chose. And, of course, no choice would have been necessary at all if the pressure from the competing demands of third parties hadn’t forced a fragmentation of the self.
So why do fans see Folie à Deux as a betrayal of the first film? Did they think that becoming the Joker allowed Fleck finally to transcend the human need for connection and community? Was their appreciation for the first film rooted in mistaking the fantasy of this transcendence for reality, believing that Arthur had entirely freed himself from externally-imposed expectations and thereby attained a full integration of the authentic self? If so, their sense of betrayal may be warranted. But for audiences who prefer a human Joker, one who lives in our world, Folie à Deux achieves a realism that serves as a worthy coda to Joker. No one will celebrate Philips’s latest effort as one of the best films of the year, but it offers an apt rejoinder to the modern fixation on identity: The quest for personal actualization and authenticity is itself the source of the existential trauma that plagues the contemporary individual.
Adam Ellwanger is Full Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown.
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