I got a Harley Quinn bomber jacket that says "Property of Joker" on the back. He also let me pick out a belated birthday gift and I got Harley Quinn's baseball bat (something I feel much more comfortable with having as a home protection weapon than a gun... probably because I'm much more effective with a bat than a gun).
After all of the research I have done in an almost obsessive manner on the Joker and Harley Quinn both as a couple and as individuals, I felt it was warranted that I identified with her and saw parts of my own relationship in theirs. And yet, at least once a week, some jag off with a hard on goes to the DC fandom in search of a like by putting down the couple and maintaining that their relationship was abusive and anyone who "ships" on them is mental.
I disagree. Violently so in recent weeks. I can't keep my mouth shut and I explode bombs of dissent upon people who only know their relationship through lore and not canon.
Before I go into exactly why Joker and Harley Quinn are worth shipping, I think we need to go over how I feel in sympatico with them.
So let's start with the disclaimers and admissions of bias.
DISCLAIMER ONE - Sandman and I are currently in a formal BDSM relationship. It looks "vanilla" to the outside world (or "traditional") but the crux of the dynamic is BDSM in nature. It's me doing service for him to keep him happy in the form of chores (primarily) and him rewarding me for good behavior by beating me into Subspace. Most people wouldn't even know what lies in the drawer if I didn't tell them. They also don't see the stern look he gives when he's tired of my antics (I'm what they call a "brat" in the BDSM world), the corner I have to kneel in if I'm REALLY bad, or the playful pats on the behind when I made him smile.
Formally, we are participants in "Domestic Discipline." He is a Dominant and I am a submissive. Underneath that umbrella, I am a brat (THIS is a good article, though it was written by a Dom for a Dom) and a "Taken in Hand" (also called TiH). He is a Democratic Dominant and a "Head of Household" (or HoH). I would say that our kinky sex life is about 25% sensory deprivation, 65% impact play (spanking and the toys associated with hitting), and 10% psychological play.
DISCLAIMER TWO - My mother is a clinically diagnosed sociopath. Much as with Joker, there is a lot of nuance to having a relationship with someone that has Anti-Social Personality Disorder, nuance that usually fails the average viewer of the DC Universe. Until you meet a bona fide sociopath (and not just your average dick hole) and have a relationship with them, however toxic, (or you're a board certified psychiatrist who specializes in Sociopaths) you cannot fully comprehend the lunacy of the disorder. So I will not be throwing around lightly the term.
DISCLAIMER THREE - One of the things to keep in mind about the DC universe that is so different from the Marvel universe (or really any other fandom) is that no single character is purely good or purely bad. Most characters (including Joker and Harley Quinn) hover in the grey area because humans exist in a grey area. It's also important to note that EVERYTHING related to the DC characters IS canon. You don't get to cherry pick what is and isn't canon just because it doesn't play into your narrative. As I stated in a previous blog, Joker himself has admitted to having several back stories and preferring it this way. That being said, "Suicide Squad" (the movie) HAS to be admitted into evidence because it is canon, even if the narrative was slightly different for the characters. This blog will not only pull from the comic books (which I have read), but also from the wealth of visual media (movies and TV) on the DC universe, including "Batman: The Animated Series," "Suicide Squad," and more. If you can't handle that the movie is canon, you're going to need to move the fuck along and come back when you actually spend time with the canon.
DISCLAIMER FOUR - For this blog especially, I have consulted with members of the BDSM lifestyle, rabid DC fans, and people who have shipped on Joker and Harley Quinn in a much more eloquent manner than I ever could imagine. My knowledge base is what I have seen, learned online, read, and discussed with others, both the fans of and the fans against. Now, unlike the last entry on the matter, I won't be covering the fan fiction aspect of this ship. I made that decision because there is just far too much fan fiction to go through to accurately represent the couple. It's a lot of fun to read though and definitely worth the time for someone who ships on them.
DISCLAIMER FIVE - I was involved in a very heavily abusive relationship. He physically assaulted me in the name of BDSM, raped me, and caused endless psychological torture that would continue to this day if I wasn't so insistent on calling him a rapist to his face and to everyone who knows him. So I have first hand knowledge of the inner workings of a psychologically and physically abusive relationship.
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I think Joker is as good a place to start as any.
"Joker is a sociopath, incapable of love."
Joker is an interesting guy. It's been said, by a writer of the comic books, that he had so many origin stories because all of the electroshock in Arkham left him without clear knowledge of his life prior to then. The working theory put forth by the writers is that Joker does in fact have an origin story and the only one who knows the real one is Harley Quinn. Arlene Sorkin, the woman who voiced Harley Quinn in several Batman movies as well as many of the games, stated "Everyone else sees the Joker laugh; only Harley has ever seen him cry." This gives a fascinating perspective on their relationship and allows that the sociopath can feel a flutter of love that for them is significant, but for those of us without ASPD can seem hollow and selfish.
Canon is clear that Joker did possess some feelings for Harley Quinn. In "Suicide Squad" we see him fighting to get her back in his possession, something he did numerous times in the animated Batman movies as well as the comic book. Joker very obviously cared for no one - except her. In several instances of "Batman: The Animated Series" we see him sitting in a cell at Arkham, pining away for her. This also happens frequently in the comic books as well. There is no doubt that he did love her, even if that love looked different to the "vanilla" crowd.
Why her? Well we don't really know other than the brief tidbit we have been told through "Suicide Squad" and the comic book "Mad Love." Even then, what we know is limited to the confines of Arkham Asylum. She was his psychiatrist, she tried to cure him (leading to the revelations of his lost memories), but fell in love and the rest is canon history.
True sociopaths can indeed feel flutterings of love, though usually in a more selfish manner than Joker expressed in his numerous tomes on Harley Quinn. Deadshot stated, in "Suicide Squad" that "One doesn't kill as many people as I've killed and still sleep like a kitten if they feel shit like love." There is no evidence that Joker slept like a kitten and has been suggested several times in the movies that, although he was deranged and insane, Harley Quinn awoke something primal in him that prevented him from sleeping "like a kitten" unless she was back in his arms. "Batman: The Killing Joke" shows very clearly a Joker who cannot sleep and is obsessed with getting back to his lady love (who interestingly enough gave him passage out, as she has done several times in canon). The reason this is par for the course is that a true sociopath does get obsessed with someone they claim to love. Even Deadshot had love for his daughter despite his claims to the contrary.
My own mother does indeed love me, in her own sick and perverted way. And I love her. But her love took the form of trying to harden me against the world and make me her sidekick when I wanted to do my own thing. My mother is a barrel of poison, wreaking havoc on anyone that claims to have an affinity for her. She will lie, manipulate, abuse, emotionally blackmail, and psychologically torture to get what she wants. It is my experience that sociopaths do this because they simply don't understand the concept of free will, due in large part to the fact that they don't really have it themselves. Many are bound by their anti-social mindset that largely sees other people as a means to an end.
Interestingly enough, Joker did not ever view Harley Quinn as a means to an end. He fails to check off many of the boxes that would make him a true sociopath (though one could argue psychopath instead). He largely viewed her as his left arm, almost as if she was a part of him that he needed for his escapades.
Which leads to point two....
"Harley Quinn was an innocent with Stockholm Syndrome."
Things Harley has done on her own, without involvement of Joker, include training a group of children to be her lethal foot soldiers ("Suicide Squad" Ep. 12), kidnapping and almost-murdering a patients family when they didn't visit often enough ("Harley Quinn" vol. 4), she threw Two-Face's daughter into traffic for being too close to Joker and claiming to be a more perfect version of HQ ("Suicide Squad" Vol. 1, No. 3), she did most of the manipulation of Robin to turn him into "Joker Boy" ("Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"), she distributed lethal and explosive video games to kids ("Detective Comics" Vol. 23.2), getting banned from Hell for liking it too much ("Harley Quinn" Vol 20-22), decapitated her own grandmother with a chainsaw ("Justice League: Gods and Monsters"), and put the removed face of Joker (he decided to become anonymous and left his face at Arkham where she broke in and stole it) onto Deadshot's head in order to have sex with him ("Suicide Squad" No. 7).
She's not an innocent.
She's also not prone to taking shit from Joker. She has beaten him ("Batman: Assault on Arkham"), bit his lip off ("Harley Quinn" No. 25), pointed guns at his head (there are like 15 references of her doing this), slitting his throat at their wedding ("Injustice") and so much more. Harley Quinn doesn't exhibit ANY of the signs of Stockholm Syndrome at any point during their relationship. She is always free to go (something she does with more regularity in the comic books than in the movies and series), she does not take his bullshit, and she breaks up with him over and over.
She didn't have "Battered Wife Syndrome" or "Stockholm Syndrome." She was simply his pairing, something writers of the comic books have always said about her. She wasn't originally designed to be anything more than a henchman but when she took off in popularity, there was no way the writers could have kept her from being just as crazy as The Clown Prince, because he needed a mate, an equal, and someone he could at least respect.
This whole argument shows a complete LACK of knowledge of the DC universe. Harley Quinn willingly signed up for Joker, willingly stayed by his side (until she didn't), and was - in her own way - just as deranged and homicidal as Joker. If you know anything about Joker, you know that he has a ton of minions. He didn't need yet another minion. He needed a partner. And he found that in Harley Quinn, who time and time again, consented to his hand.
"Their relationship was so dysfunctional that it was abusive."
And then there's the 10% of the time when he was throwing her out of seven story windows.
Now, I need to be clear on some things. If you can actually believe that not one but TWO human beings could survive an acid bath, basically unscathed, then fly out of a seventh story window and land on some boxes, walking away with just a small limp, you need help. Like serious professional help. In the reality of FICTION, things are greatly exaggerated for comedic or strategic value. To believe that what is happening to a cartoon character can happen to a real life person is a boatload of Cognitive Dissonance. In the case of Harley Quinn and Joker, "Batman: The Animated Series" took a lot of liberties with the characters. Harley Quinn, who is known in the books to be very intelligent, manipulative, violent, and independent, is reduced to a more palatable version of the submissive female (which is a gender inequality common to the male dominated world of comic books). Joker himself is reduced to the comic book equivalent of that nasty bitch neighbor from "The Wizard of Oz" ("I'll get you! And your little dog too!!!).
In the books, Joker is more sophisticated and cunning. He is hyper-intelligent. Some say that his only true mission is to make Batman laugh. But it's important to note that Batman almost never catches him. The few times Batman DOES catch the Joker, it's because Joker WANTS to be caught. Joker uses Arkham Asylum as his own personal Mar-a-Lago: he goes in when he needs a break from life as a villain and he comes out when he pleases.
Did he hit her? Yes. A resounding yes. There were several times that he placed his hands on her in a violent manner. But speaking frankly as someone in a 24/7 dynamic, people see BDSM through the filter of the act, not through the filter of the relationship as a whole. I'm not in any way excusing his behavior in "Batman: The Animated Series." I just happen to think there is nuance.
I have been grabbed and assaulted by someone I loved. It's not a pleasant feeling. But when Sandman grabs me and throws me around like a doll, I am a consenting participant in every way. Joker rarely hits Harley Quinn without some kind of after care, an act that very few outside the BDSM community will see. Though Harley Quinn is very bratty and willful, Joker is also very controlled with her. He smacks her when she gets out of line, not because he lost control, and then makes sure she is okay after her punishment. The very same thing happens in my own marriage. Sandman has left bruises, caused bleeding, and taken me mentally to places I could not get on my own, all while making sure I was okay and giving my enthusiastic, informed, and ongoing consent. While I recognize my own dynamic as being almost like diet-BDSM, I still have many friends in D/s relationships who take it to the level that they do. It is all consenting and it is all private. Without an inside into the world of BDSM, one cannot accurately describe their dynamic.
I have seen BDSM dynamics very similar to those between Joker and Harley Quinn in "Batman: The Animated Series." My own dynamic is such that sometimes he gets in my face and tells me to stop or I'm going to get a beating (well in my world, it's corner time). While grossly exaggerated for comedic and thematic value, theirs does not look much different from a Dominant/submissive dynamic. The part that is missing to the "vanilla" world is the nuance.... again. They don't see her constantly giving her informed, enthusiastic and ongoing consent. They don't see the after care. They don't see how, in many cases, BDSM creates a couple so solid that there is nothing to break them apart. BDSM requires a level of trust and relinquishment of power. I feel infinitely closer to my husband after a trip to Subspace, while I am resting in his arms afterwards. We're not unique either. The entirety of the BDSM dynamic is to evoke trust, vulnerability, and bonding. Without this filter, one could easily overlook these very small pieces to the overall puzzle.
Pieces that make it sane.... not INSANE.
"There are plenty of better ships in the DC universe,
less toxic ones."
less toxic ones."
So when it comes to two VILLAINS having a relationship, there has to be an added oomph to the already unhealthy dynamics of everyone in Gotham. You're not going to get a Clark Kent/Lois Lane dynamic out of two villains, just as you're not going to get their flavor of love story in a reality based world where nobody is all good and nobody is all bad. I think this is the point people are missing. Harley Quinn is a VILLAIN. Joker is a VILLAIN. Poison Ivy is a VILLAIN. If the writers of the DC universe can't even keep Batman, who is canonically a good guy, from being an abuser to Robin throughout the duration of the series, there is almost no hope for the bad guys, who aren't allowed to be all good because they're villains.
And again, you HAVE to allow for "Suicide Squad" to become a part of the canon because it IS canon. It wasn't just a one off from outer space. Joker and Harley Quinn have been together for the better part of the last 25 years (though she sleeps around quite a bit - namely with Batman) and most of that time, they were equals and partners in crime. The movie, with the deleted scenes, paints a much clearer picture of Joker and Harley Quinn that moves them from the "all good/all bad" camp into one with a fair bit more nuance. Joker kills randomly. He kills to end a problem or just because he feels like it. So does Harley Quinn. Several times in the movie, she states that she is a bad guy and that she is not capable of having the "normal" life, especially with Joker. The movie shows both of these characters proclaiming to be bad guys while doing honorable things, just as Captain Flagg is shown to have a couple of dark skeletons in his past, tarnishing his image as a permanent good guy. El Diablo is another character who has done both good and bad. These themes are very apparent all throughout the DC universe. Superman himself was tarnished, as was Batman. So to limit a ship because a character is abusive to their partner in the comic books is a radical notion to me. What makes it INFINITELY worse is when people who clearly have no grasp on the DC Universe start to tell people who saw "Suicide Squad" that they are ignorant of the universe and need to "read a fucking comic book" if they ship on this particular twosome.
Well, I have. And I still ship on them.
Joker and Harley Quinn are villains in the DC universe so of course their relationship is going to look demented and abusive to the outsider. And maybe it is. It's not incomprehensible though for a person to ship on the 90% of their relationship that was functional and grand instead of the 10% that was furthering the idea that villains don't ever truly get a happy ending.
What Joker and Harley Quinn have is a standard BDSM relationship. When things are functioning, they have a very "Us vs. The World" headspace and are a formidable team. When things are not, he kicks her out of a seventh story window with a fish. None of us can say that our relationships are functional 100% of the time and the DC writers have made it clear that this is true in their world as well. They have created characters who are exaggerated but also very relatable. Many fans will ship on one of the characters at some point or another. But the big thing is to remember that this is a world of fiction. Even if it looks like abuse to you (and as someone who has survived an abusive relationship and is presently in a consenting BDSM dynamic), it doesn't look abusive to someone else with different eyes.
I hope that I have given you some talking and thinking points to focus on the next time you want to tell someone not to ship on Joker and Harley Quinn or make the assumption that they don't have a broad enough knowledge base to accurately ship on the King and Queen of Gotham City. Most of the time, we let your ignorance stand because to accurately hit all of your talking points... it would take a whole blog to do that.
