She is drawn in broad, thick, unambiguous strokes, in repose against primrose yellow. The colors are vivid and definitive. There is no shadowing, and only enough contouring to clearly outline her paler features in the foreground. She is smirking, one corner of her closed smile turned up towards heavy-lidded eyes in mid-roll. There is a sultry sarcasm about her. She thrusts her weight onto extended hips – voluptuous convex grooves upon which one hand casually rests. In the opposite hand, she holds a joke pistol; a flag extends from its barrel, emblazoned with the word “BANG” for good measure. She looks satisfied, full of sass and a devil-may-care confidence.
I call this one The Comedian.
Brendan Shaw & Peter Vasquez
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Though both are stylized as clowns, the Joker and Quinn’s comedic sensibilities only occasionally intersect. The Joker often relies on obscure wordplay and esoteric references. For example, in Episode 223 (“The Man Who Killed Batman”), the Joker bemoans that there is no proof of Batman’s death: “[There is] no body – no batus delicti, so to speak.”[1] In Episode 312 (“The Trial”), the Joker uses the phrase, “Here comes the judge.”[2] These allusions require familiarity with their source material, while Quinn’s quips are simpler and more widely understandable. Her humor is easy, organic, full of puns and double entendres. For example, in “The Man Who Killed Batman,” Quinn impersonates an attorney and, acting on the Joker’s orders, demands the release of a prisoner from the holding cells of the Gotham City Police Department. One of the detectives almost recognizes her as Quinn, but without her usual ensemble, he has trouble placing her. “Don’t I know you from some place?” he asks, poking her shoulder. Helpfully, Quinn replies, “I think I served you a subpoena once.” She walks a few steps towards the exit before turning back and coolly clarifying, “It was a… small subpoena.”
Quinn is furnished with a strength-of-will to challenge those she perceives as threatening or otherwise irksome, and the manner in which she retaliates against those she finds hostile is often humorous. In this way, she makes the aggressor the butt of the joke. She often uses others’ perceptions of her as a dainty, helpless, or incompetent young woman as a means of manipulation, turning their impressions and assumptions against them when she reveals her strength and presence-of-mind. In fact, Quinn’s convincing performances are often indispensable to the success of the Joker’s plans. When she and the Joker infiltrate a gala honoring Commissioner Gordon in Episode 122 (“Joker’s Favor”), Quinn carries off her part with remarkable aplomb. While masquerading as a somewhat scantily-clad policewoman bearing the massive cake into the gala venue, an obnoxious detective rubs his hands eagerly upon seeing her, snickering, “Babydoll – entertainment!” As she approaches him, he stops her with his foot, crooning, “Hey sugar, you want to read me my rights?” She frowns at first, almost imperceptibly, then twirls the nightstick fastened to her costume. Smiling, she replies, “You have the right to remain silent!” bringing down her nightstick with a satisfying thwack! onto the man’s shin. As he groans and looks after her in shock, she strolls past him with eyes forward, spitting, “Jerk,” through a blithe smile.
Quinn’s tactic of relying on others’ conceptions of her as a helpless maiden is often successful,[3] but it sometimes falls short with Batman. After the Dark Knight foils the plan to kill Commissioner Gordon in “Joker’s Favor,” Quinn plays the coquettish damsel until the precise moment the ruse will no longer serve her needs. Before she can escape, Batman corners her in the darkness and she gasps exaggeratedly, backing up as the hero’s towering silhouette advances upon her. She pants, her voice panicked and plaintive in equal measure: “I know… You’re thinking, ‘What a shame!’” The camera follows her eyes, zooming in on the knife gleaming tantalizingly just beyond her reach, though her voice betrays nothing. As she works her way to the knife using her peripheral vision, she continues, “‘A pure, innocent little thing like her, led astray by bad companions.’” She darts to the knife, but Batman is not fooled by her charade, grabbing her wrist before she can strike him and delivering a baleful, “Right – tell me another,” before handcuffing her to a nearby post. In this way, even Batman recognizes Quinn’s classic setup: He refuses to cede the upper hand, and thus refuses to give Quinn the comedic payoff of besting him. He instead makes Quinn’s failure the punch line; he leaves her and she sinks sadly to the ground, sighing, “Oy, beauty school is starting to look pretty good about now.”
Quinn’s humor often involves her calling attention to the obvious or the absurd, bringing a certain frivolity to otherwise grim situations. In one such example in “Joker’s Favor,” Quinn paralyzes the ball attendees with paralytic gas just before the Joker bursts from the cake. He is exuberant, squawking over what he declares to be “another stunning Joker entrance [that] leaves the crowd speechless,” and asks for a round of applause. Quinn enthusiastically obliges – the only figure moving in the room except the Joker, who is watching her celebration in approval – but she stops to shrug at what she implies to be the cold reception from the rest of the (paralyzed) onlookers, grousing, “Sheesh… tough audience!” Shortly thereafter, she is following a triumphant Joker out the doors of the gala; his plan apparently successful, he supposes, “Guess I’ll need a new hobby that [his victim] is pffft,” vaguely miming an explosion. Not missing a beat, Quinn quickly chimes in, “Macrame’s nice!”
However, for all of Quinn’s humor, self-assurance, and seeming independence, she follows the Joker’s every order, even to the point of her profound discomfort. In these instances, Quinn is the butt of the joke, her unease serving as a humorous counterpoint to the Joker’s delight. For example, in Episode 206 (“The Laughing Fish”), she helps the Joker film a commercial for his new line of fish, each branded with a telltale, grotesque, Joker-like grin. At one point, he jabs a fork-full of the fish into Quinn’s face, demanding that she eat it. She whispers, “Uh, Mistah J, I have a little problem with fish…” Ignoring her, he forces the fork into her mouth as her eyes widen in clear disgust. She then turns to the camera, mouth full, and chokes, “Yummy, yummy…” before running off camera; retching sounds are heard shortly thereafter. Related gags (no pun intended) are repeated later in the episode, with several jokes concerning Quinn’s revulsion in the face of fish. At one point, the duo is at an aquarium fulfilling the last components of the Joker’s latest plot. Quinn, repulsed, whines, “Ugh, again with the fish! I hate fish!” before hastily adding, “No offense, Mistah J!” The Joker turns to her, apparently sympathetic, and asks, “Poor Harley, this caper’s been pretty rough on you, hasn’t it?” She pouts, nodding. He then assures her, “Don’t worry – you can be my little mermaid!” She clasps her hands, gasping in delight – until the Joker traps her head and torso under a large fish-head mask. She narrows her eyes, annoyed. “You’re real sick, you know that boss?” she asks the Joker as he laughs hysterically.
Of course, though certain bits may play as playful banter between a couple with an unusual sense of humor, Quinn herself confirms the exploitative nature of their relationship in “The Laughing Fish.” Even these instances, however, are sometimes played for comedic effect. Quinn’s fidelity to such a contemptible partner becomes a source of dark irony, as when she witnesses the Joker’s seeming death near the end of the episode. She sniffs, crying, “Oh, my poor, poor puddin’.” A police officer chastises an inconsolable Quinn, telling her, “Come on, he was a demented, abusive, psychotic maniac.” “Yeah,” she sobs, “I’m really gonna miss him!”
Indeed, Quinn’s apparent obliviousness to the Joker’s abuse is sometimes a punch line. In “The Trial,” Quinn trades jibes with Gotham District Attorney Janet Van Dorn as part of a sham trial in which Batman is the defendant. Van Dorn tells the jury, “It’s a shame – Harleen Quinzel was a doctor here at Arkham [Asylum] before the Joker twisted her mind.” Quinn is unfazed. “Ha! You’re just jealous that you don’t have a fella who’s as loving and loyal to you as my puddin’ is to me.” The Joker (the “judge”) blows a kiss to Quinn on the witness stand; Quinn sighs and goes limp in her chair, feigning a spell of smitten weakness. Van Dorn replies, “Aha! And I suppose it was that same loyalty I saw last time you escaped and ‘puddin’’ here finked on you in the hopes of getting time off?” Quinn, taken aback, turns to the Joker, who has been emphatically motioning to the prosecutor to stop talking. “Is that true, puddin’?” The Joker charily obfuscates. “Finked is such an ugly word…” Quinn seizes him by his judge’s robes and shakes him, screaming, “You lousy, scum-sucking creep!” The Joker manages to stutter, “The witness is excused!” as the “bailiff” (a villain named Killer Croc) carries Quinn away. It is all very slapstick, and this episode is likely to earn a derisive laugh from an audience that is appalled, but not unaccustomed to noting Quinn’s myopia when it comes to her one-sided relationship with the Joker.
The cruelty inherent in the clown duo’s relationship influences Quinn’s humor even further, as the Joker often refuses to validate Quinn’s victories or comedic successes. For example, in Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), Quinn and the Joker hold Commissioner Gordon hostage in a dentist’s office. When Batman accosts the pair, Quinn releases the contents of a gas can into his face. As Batman collapses in a coughing fit, Quinn laughs and proudly proclaims, “That’s a real gasser, huh, Mistah J?” The Joker grabs the prongs of her jester’s hat and roughly pulls her face to his, snarling, “I give the punch lines around here, got it?” Quinn whimpers a quick, “Yes, sir,” before the Joker forcibly tugs her from the room by her cap. In this way, though Quinn’s humor may consist of more than the simplistic wordplay she usually volunteers, she is likely forced to stifle much of her jokes so as not to upset the irascible Joker.[4]
In conclusion, though the Joker’s characterization is built upon the assumption that he is a literal “jokester,” Quinn’s fiery personality and breezy jokes offer a genuine levity seldom seen in the Joker’s bizarre or esoteric witticisms. In this way, though her humor is possibly constrained by the Joker’s expectations of her subservience in all respects, her jokes add a welcome gaiety to a series that is often dark in tone and subject matter. However, the pair’s abusive dynamic sometimes frames Quinn as a kind of punch line, which is accomplished through situations in which her love for the Joker runs contrary to her partner’s deservedness of such commitment.
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[1] This is a play on the Latin phrase corpus delecti, the legal term referring to a crime’s material evidence.
[2] This references a phrase coined by mid 20th-century comedian Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham and made popular by Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a variety show that ran in the United States from 1968 to 1973.
[3] For one such example, see Episode 228 (“Harley and Ivy”), in which Quinn launches a projectile at a car of cat-callers. This moment is described in greater detail later in this piece.
[4] She is, it should be noted, permitted to exhibit her intelligence and alliterative skills when it serves to glorify the Joker. This is seen in “The Laughing Fish” when she introduces the Joker as “that Caliph of Clowns, that Mogul of Mountebanks…”