Harley Quinn and Joker: Mad Love or Abusive Grooming?

There have been a variety of opinions surrounding Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship, debating whether it is merely the mirror image of a classic heroic romantic protagonist coupling, in the same way that The Addams Family (Morowitz, 2007)was created as an inversion of the ideal American nuclear family values; or if the psychological analysis that renders it a harrowing depiction of psychologically and physically abusive relationships is well-founded, and how the topic has set Harley Quinn’s canon on the path it follows today. Depictions of Harley Quinn’s mental health and apparently abusive relationship have evolved during her tenure as an ever-popular character in the DC Universe comic books, such as in Chuck Dixon’s Birds of Prey, and the Gotham City Sirens; as well as in screen adaptations, which, having brought the character even broader public awareness and greater popularity, cannot be side-lined in this discussion.

The character of Harley Quinn has always bridged the Atlantic divide, due to the fact that in comic book culture American and British fans have inevitably, with their common language and increase in media connectivity since Harley’s conception in the early 1990’s, been able to communicate without necessarily requiring cultural translation for context in discussion of comic book pop-culture: Harley Quinn and Joker’s relationship has never known a world without the interconnectivity of the internet fandom.

Historical Comics for Women and Girls

It is important to look at the beginning of women in comic book settings. Initially, female comic book readers were not expected to read the same comics as male audiences. Comics marketed for girls began with the intention of guiding and influencing the stamina and resolve of its readers, and moulding them into well-rounded young women who would impersonate and replicate the grounded, resourceful woman of a post-war, ration-enduring Britain. While men and boys in comic books had long been represented as “supermen with a lower-case ‘s’” (McNab, 2014), as in Wilson the Wonder Athlete (1943-1984), the publication of comics such as Girl and its associated publications of Bunty, Judy and Mandy (published in 1958, ’60, and ’67, respectively, and merging into the former finally as one in 1995) meant that women in comic strip form were no longer merely damsels or cheesecake pin-ups, but active participants in the comic landscape, able to play out their own adventures – albeit, confined to their own niches. For example, Girl (1951-1964) was a bestseller, often outselling its brother publication, Eagle, throughout its decade on the shelf. Its budding popularity and marketing to girl readers was focussed on the middle-class teenager, and often featured the settings of boarding school. This grounded adventure world building allowed for a cross-over of the imaginary into reality, which is inevitable in eliciting an independent exploration of an adult-free environment in a girl’s real life. Imitability of character became a base quality of comic books aimed at girls; fortunately for parents, the Girl comic books were intended to be ‘Good quality reading for girls (Chapman, 2011, p. 111).

There was, however, a roughly fifty-year gap between the Superhero males and the rise of their female counterparts. Finally, in 1977, artist Douglas Perry published the first depiction of heroine Supergirl, and the female embodiment of the British Superhero (this time with a capital ‘S’) was born at last, complete with a secret identity and super-human powers just as in the now long-established American formats of Marvel and DC’s superhero men and women.

Hench-Wench

Also arising in the late 1970s, there was a new reader demand for more sophisticated, adult themes in comics – Dez Skinn, who worked at Marvel, created Dr. Who Weekly and Hulk Weekly (both 1979), and there was a broadening market for the kind of adventure comic that could be both “for mature readers [and] credible” (Chapman, 2011, p. 231). This tonal shift could arguably have been the genesis for the realistic revision of historically whimsical characters, such as Batman and The Joker, as well as re-introducing the Suicide Squad in 1987, which hadn’t appeared since the 1950’s, and the “New Earth” into the DC Comic Universe, which lasted all the way until the New-52 re-boot of the DC Cinematic Universe in 2011.

Soon to join these revised renditions of classic characters came the creation of new characters, such as Harley Quinn, with adult character designs and accompanying plots maturing these Silver Age young readers into New Age-ready forms. The male characters remained the mantles through which world-weary readers could escape and live out fantasies that were both heroic as well as darker and more villainous – a depiction of catharsis that had already developed millennia before in Aristotle’s tragic hero format, that engages all soap-opera viewers, and now engaged the comic book realm via tragic backstories for both heroes as well as villains. However, female reader audience numbers were still not particularly high (Facciani, 2015) and so female characters were still written and drawn in accordance with the male gaze, such as the initial depictions of Harley Quinn almost spoofing the classic pin-up, ‘cheesecake’ characters of the 1950s.

Harley Quinn was specifically introduced as The Joker’s love interest and hench-woman, and appeared in television first, in Batman: The Animated Series – Episode 22, “Joker’s Favor” in September 1992. Initially, her character was unnamed, simply written as a Joker “Hench-wench” in the script (Jirak, 2020) as she was intended to appear as a one-time secondary character. However, thanks in great part to her voice actor and inspiration Arleen Sorkin (from whom the name was a clear inspiration and led to the backstory name of “Harleen Quinzel”), Harley was ignited with personality – and her reception was predominantly positive. Her character gave the Joker a new dimension of character with which the creators could weave new stories, and develop a new sense of humanity for the Clown Prince of Crime. Bruce Timm, who co-created Harley with Paul Dini, stated: “[Joker’s] relationship with Harley is obviously very complicated. I couldn’t honestly tell you what the Joker’s actual true feelings for her are, but there were times when he seemed to be affectionate toward her, or at least he would use her affection as a way of controlling her. It definitely brought different dimensions to The Joker than we had anticipated.” (Couch, 2016)

Mad Love

With Mad Love (Dini & Timm, 1993) being published as a one-time comic in 1993, and its subsequent television adaptation, the 21st century embraced Harley Quinn into the DC universe wholeheartedly. But her relationship with The Joker, while abusive from the beginning, was a bone of contention among hardcore fans, particularly those who argued that without Joker, Harley’s character could not exist (Peaslee, 2015, p. 86). Harley Quinn had her own personal fanbase separate from her involvement with Joker, but there remains to this day a plethora of fans writing and drawing plenty of tributes to the coupling that is Harley-and-Joker.

Harley Quinn’s affections for the Joker are evident; she is devoted and loving throughout their relationship – obviously, Harley stages her entire persona around the Joker’s already decades-old trope of Jester-and-Harlequin performance antics of the medieval and baroque eras. But while their relationship is clearly tumultuous to say the least, many fans love to portray them as requited lovers, placing the relationship on a pedestal as a representation of two people who cannot love themselves, and end up loving one another instead, even if they are not sure of how to do it in healthy ways.

The glorification of their relationship comes from the fandom love of ‘shipping’ (coupling) and humanising ‘monsters’. Characters who are intended to be villains grow with extended characterization into ever more confusing shades of grey, which is inevitable with the New Age comic attitude of realism and maturing their characters. Soon, fans begin to relate and respond to all characters in comic books – not only the superheroes, but the villains as well, who become tragic heroes in and of themselves. Joker demonstrates this in the latter pages of Mad Love when, hospitalised from his angry outburst and pushing her out of the window, she finds he has left a rose and a get-well note by her bedside.

So, there is potential that he does care, but is so damaged and mentally unstable that he doesn’t understand how to show his feelings – and that is something onto which fans can cling and brandish to argue their case for the ‘mad love’ between Harley and Joker. Shipping and glorifying the relationship allows fans a taste of that taboo which they cannot find in reality without the consequences that Harley – a fictional character – faces at the end of the story; because in real life, there is no final page, and there is no reboot. Hence, the “shipping and fan-made products are one way to examine repressed feelings, the thin line between disgust and attraction and feelings that this contradiction evokes” (Wik, 2018). Even the creators of this relationship, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, were never sure themselves as to how Joker felt about Harley, but later it was written that Joker did in fact believe he loved Harley. Joker says:

“I've felt some changes coming over me since you entered my life. I've been reminded what it's like ... to care for someone who cares for me… I hate having those feelings. They're upsetting, confusing and worse, distracting me from getting my share of Gotham.” (Peaslee, 2015, p. 85)

Written in during the plot of Batman: No Man’s Land, Joker proceeds to remedy these feelings by killing Harley. Again. And herein lies the crux of the debate. Joker loves Harley Quinn, and Harley loves Joker – but is it really ‘love’, and in saying that it is, is this love something that should be setting an example? Though there are many who appreciate and aspire to this kind of passionate and unconventional taboo kind of relationship (Salter, 2020), it is safe to say that most would actually agree that their relationship is better used as an example of an unhealthy infatuation and toxic co-dependency.

A Cautionary Tale

It is argued on the other hand that while Harley Quinn is dependent on Joker, the reverse is not true. Harley-centric stories often revolve around the fact that she has at some point – whether current or historically – been involved with the Joker, and usually her solo exploits follow from the idea that she is born from his involvement. However, the Joker exists without Harley in many solo comic stories, as well as plenty of his film adaptations – even post-Suicide Squad, Joaquin Phoenix’ portrayal of Joker was completely removed from the concept of Harley Quinn’s existence – she is simply not a necessary piece of his story, in the way that he is a part of hers (Peaslee, 2015, p. 82).

This cycle of abuse is – in psychological terms – a classic example of an abusive relationship, specifically of “Battered Woman Syndrome” (Wenzel & et al., 2017) – and it is so difficult to assign wholly victimhood from the outside to a person who can seemingly, physically, walk away – as Harley so often does. But Kaitlin Schmidt wrote specifically that in the comic books in which Harley is represented alongside Poison Ivy and Catwoman as an individual, away from the Joker’s direct influence, that “Gotham City Sirens provides readers with an interpretation of women that upholds traditional gender expectations while also providing an interpretation to Intimate Partner Violence that upholds prevalent socio-cultural domestic violence myths that denigrate the seriousness of the issue” (Schmidt, 2015). Refusing to walk away from a violent relationship has always been seen as a way to assign partial blame to a victim of abuse – when Harley has been used by psychoanalysts to demonstrate that this is a false narrative; when violence equates to affection, it isn’t physical control, but mental – and that is something from which it is a whole lot more difficult to extract oneself from – just as Harley Quinn is unable to be separated from the way the Joker holds his power over her (Schmidt, 2015, p. 135).

It was crucial in the New-52 revamp of the DC Extended Universe, covering New Age viewpoints and an increasing minority readership, that the transgressions and normalisation of the abusive attitudes – both physical and psychological – be rectified moving forward into the 2010s. Many fans, particularly feminist activists, have increased their fervour in advocating for the redemption of the Harley Quinn character, and her removal from the abusive relationship in which she is trapped with the Joker – and modern comic publications reinforce their desires to see this emancipation, such as when she joins forces with the Gotham City Sirens and the latest renditions of Suicide Squad, wherein Harley acts without the Joker alongside collaborators like Poison Ivy, with whom many fans ship Harley in view to a much healthier, LGBT relationship.

There was a noted increase in representation of women in comics via Paul Dini from 2002 as well, surrounding Harley Quinn, implying that by her presence alone there was a nod toward diversity with her pop-culture role a bisexual icon (Selig, 2017), and associating with many other women of colour, and queer characters in heroic stances as opposed to villainous roles – for when you see yourself in the hero on the page, in the hero on the page, you are more likely to see yourself as a heroic figure in reality (Cocca, 2016, p. 3). With a phenomenal increase in recent years in the number of women reading comic books, it was inevitable that Harley – a character with whom so many in toxic and abusive relationships would be able to identify – would find grounds for her own cathartic redemption arc, and not only give readers a path out of their own damaging mindsets with regards to relationships, but also help to demonstrate to younger readers how damaging these cycles of abuse can become to the psyche.

Fans Manifesting Change

With female readership and viewership increasing in the 21st Century, it is inevitable that the victimhood of Harley Quinn needed addressing, and in turn – with her popularity among younger readers becoming more prevalent – deserving of redemption from her long-suffering tenure as the victim and hench-wench of the Joker. Though Harley’s creation was meant to emphasise the Joker’s insecurities and her role was to be little else than a moll and punching bag, her popularity soared as her plight was so darkly and unfortunately realistic and a reality for so many women who related to the character. Ultimately, though her relationship with the Joker provides some with a taste of the taboo – it is imperative that the fictional presents a catharsis for its tragic heroes, and gives hope to the readers in place of a hopeless, abusive situation from which Harley’s fate is still in conflict – will she stay a part of the Joker forever? Or will her origins become a separate piece of her history from which she can escape? For many readers, they are desperate to witness the latter.

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References

Chapman, J. (2011). British Comics: A Cultural History. Reaktion Books.

Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation. New York: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional.

Couch, A. (2016, August 5). The Story of Harley Quinn: How a ’90s Cartoon Character Became an Icon. Retrieved from The Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/harley-quinn-history-917464/

Dini, P., & Timm, B. (1993, December 14). The Batman Adventures: Mad Love Full Issue. Retrieved from Zip Comic: https://www.zipcomic.com/the-batman-adventures-mad-love-issue-full

Facciani, M. (2015). A Content-Analysis of Race, Gender, and Class in American Comic Books. Race, Gender & Class, 22(3-4), 216-226.

Jirak, J. (2020, October 15). Mark Hamill Pays Tribute To Original Harley Quinn Arleen Sorkin. Retrieved from Comic Book: https://comicbook.com/dc/news/mark-hamill-pays-tribute-to-original-harley-quinn-arleen-sorkin/

McNab, T. (2014, September 23). Boys' comics of the 1940s - The Wonderful World of William Wilson. Retrieved from Saga: https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/entertainment/nostalgia/boys-comics-of-the-1940s

Morowitz, L. (2007). The monster within: the Munsters, the Addams Family and the american family in the 1960s. Critical Studies in Television, 36-56.

Peaslee, R. M. (2015). The Joker : A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Salter, A. (2020). #RelationshipGoals? Suicide Squad and Fandom’s Love of “Problematic” Men. Television and News Media, 135–150.

Schmidt, K. (2015). Siren Song: A Rhetorical Analysis of Gender and Intimate Partner. Las Vegas, Nevada: UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones.

Selig, L. (2017). Harley Quinn: Particularly, Palatably Queer. New York, NY: Macaulay Honors College.

Wenzel, A., & et al. (2017). Abnormal and Clinical Psychology. Arlington, Virginia: SAGE Publications.

Wik, M. (2018, October 12). Romance Gone Mortal – Taboo of Shipping Fictional Movie Monsters. WiderScreen.