The iconic Batman villain Joker has been one of DC‘s most notorious characters for decades. The ambiguous nature of the character has allowed him to be reimagined numerous times for comics, animation, and feature films among other mediums. Now, however, fans are theorizing based on the characterizations of the Joker to determine whether or not he’s actually bisexual.
The theories have started popping up just as promotion has started for the upcoming feature film Joker: Folie à Deux. Though not all of these theories are new, outlets including Pink News have been bringing them to the forefront. They mentioned one user on Quora that had the following realization that Joker’s obsession with Batman might have bigger implications than initially believed:
“I think the reason we’ve never really thought too seriously about the Joker’s sexuality before Suicide Squad is because doing so humanises him to some degree. We don’t like to think that the Joker can have human interests. We don’t like to believe that he experiences the same instinctual pull that the rest of us do.
“That being said, I do think that, if the Joker is portrayed as a sexual person, he should be portrayed as he was by (Jared) Leto, as being fluidly bisexual… I’m not a huge fan of the Jared Leto Joker, but I do think that the bizarre sexual tension that he injected into his performance was one of the few things he did right.”
A previous report from CBR also shared the following statement from Elena Shestakova in an expired Change.org petition to make the Joker not just gay, but “gay again.”
“The Joker is a character with almost 80 years [of] history, half of which he was portrayed as homosexual,” Shestakova claimed. “Neal Adams claimed that the Joker was and always had been homosexual [..] in the ‘Batman Files’ book. This opinion was shared by other comic book authors and artists for decades. That is why it’s so important to me and other queer readers to return his homosexuality.”
Though the Joker is pictured in a relationship with Harley Quinn in more recent DC media, Shestakova claims that this is a newer change to the character. As such, she’s not asking that he be made gay, but rather restored to the homosexual version that she suggests existed prior to Harley Quinn.
“The Joker repeatedly confessed his feelings to Batman and showed an interest in other men,” she also writes. “Also there was Joker’s unnamed boyfriend in the graphic novel Devil’s Advocate.”
It’s an interesting way to look back at the character and consider the possibility that he could have always been gay or bisexual. Of course, in a world where Harley Quinn has certainly been presented as bisexual, it’s quite possible that the Joker will be too sooner or later – if you don’t believe he hasn’t been queer already.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional theories and updates, including those regarding the character Joker, as we have them. Though it’s unknown if the character actually is queer, there are certainly plenty of opportunities to reinvent him as such. Especially given the iconic villain’s ambiguous nature, backstory, and motivations.