She catapults into frame, all fire and anger. The ferocity with which she flings herself upon the canvas sears away the fabric of her classic bodysuit to reveal pale, bruised skin. Her bright white pigtails whip behind her in cursive twists. She dashes herself against mottled brushstrokes that bleed out from beneath her; reds and blacks spray and seep across a colorless background. She seethes, her eyes narrowed and mouth agape, raging at the mask (or is it the skin?) she is holding – a piece of the unmistakable countenance of the man who inspired this wrath. She is fury personified. The artist’s caption reads, “My old man is a bad old man.”
I call this one The Woman Scorned.
Nen Chang
* * *
The Joker and Quinn exemplify two different models of aggression as defined in the field of social psychology: The Joker practices hostile or reactive aggression, while Quinn’s aggression is instrumental or proactive in nature. Hostile aggression “is characterized by impulsivity… and uncontrollable rage.”[1] The Joker’s plans are often purposefully heavy-handed and inelegant, as his intent is simply to sow chaos. He persists to this end regardless of who or what his plots imperil or kill – Batman, Quinn, the citizens of Gotham, or even the Joker himself. This audacity is on full display in Episode 316 (“Harlequinade”); as the Joker shoots at a bomb from a helicopter, he is maniacal in his determination as he cackles through a smile, “That bomb’s going off, even if I go with it!”
I argue that, while he is certainly capable of goal-oriented aggression (see Episode 206 “The Laughing Fish,” for example), the Joker’s behaviors overall indicate a psychological profile more consistent with a largely hostile aggressor. Indeed, these behaviors become all the more blatantly hostile (as opposed to instrumental) when the Joker is confronted with unforeseen obstacles or unexpected slights. Furthermore, though his schemes are often planned in advance, their aim is usually to kill, injure, or otherwise inconvenience Batman, the Gotham Police Department, or Gotham’s inhabitants. For example, “The Laughing Fish” sees the Joker citing his desire to continue his “happily hedonistic lifestyle” as his motive for trademarking his fish look-alikes. However, even in this instance, the Joker practices hostile aggression, demanding that a lowly patent officer ignore laws against “copywrit[ing]… a natural resource.” When the patent officer later tells Batman, “I’m just a paper-pusher. I can’t change the laws. I’m harmless!” Batman makes clear that the Joker is likely well aware that the patent officer cannot fulfill the Joker’s wishes, explaining, “In [the Joker’s] sick mind, that’s the joke.” This illustrates that, even when pursuing superficially logical goals, the Joker is actually participating in aggressive acts that are implicitly hostile, wanting nothing more than to incite fear and chaos. He considers crime a sport, or a delicious and dastardly game in which heroes and villains trade parries and thrusts, but never truly take their opponents out of commission. In fact, this game continuing indefinitely is made possible because of Batman’s vow never to kill. This tenet is consistent across all major works exploring the hero’s universe, and makes what would be one-time duels with Batman’s adversaries instead chronic campaigns against the same combatants.
Though the Joker sometimes claims to want his enemies dead – Batman in particular – his inadequate plans and clumsy execution usually suggest otherwise. For example, in Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), the Joker and Quinn have Commissioner Gordon strapped to a chair in a dentist’s office as the Joker’s whirring drill inches closer to the commissioner’s forehead. Just in time, Batman bursts through the window, and the Joker, glowering, steps away from the commissioner. Batman throws dentures at the Joker’s feet, attached to which is a card reading “To: BATMAN, c/o: G.C.P.D.” Batman cheerlessly teases the Joker for the unimaginative clue: “It was an easy hint, Joker. Sloppy, predictable. You’re losing your edge.”[2] The very fact that the Joker sends a hint to Batman as to his plans and the implicit acknowledgement that this is not the first time the Joker has done so illuminates the Joker’s true motives:[3] He is both intent on upsetting the status quo (i.e., maintaining the city as a kind of criminal playground for himself and the city’s other villains) and married to a routine that preserves a balance between evildoers and their foils in Gotham. This balance sustains the game of criminal cat-and-mouse with which the Joker is so enamored. As such, the Joker chooses to take advantage of Batman’s pledge, secure in the knowledge that any one apprehension at Batman’s hands won’t be his last.
The Joker’s inclusion of hints as part of his plans and his subsequent paradoxical anger when Batman deduces the relevant information (or, at least, his frustration if Batman finds his clue less than brilliant) speaks to the inconsistency of the Joker’s priorities. These conflicting goals make it difficult for the Joker to be satisfied, which makes attempting to please the mob boss a potentially dangerous act.
Quinn is particularly vulnerable to the Joker’s malcontent, and may be understandably confused as to how best to fulfill the Joker and serve his discrepant aims. Immediately following the earlier scene in “Mad Love,” the viewer sees the Joker’s hideout. Quinn enters, attempting to seduce the Joker, clearly trying to cheer him as he stews over the disappointing confrontation with his nemesis. He sits at a desk, assiduously drawing up plans for his next run-in with Batman; she crawls onto the table and struggles to get his attention with a playful double entendre. Teeth gritted, he thrusts her face-first from the table. Undeterred, she tries once more to lift his mood, but he dismisses her abruptly and begins pacing, complaining, “Batman was right! That set-up today was corny, old hat!” As he tells her of his desire to subject Batman to “[Batman’s] ultimate humiliation… followed by his deliciously delirious death,” Quinn proposes, “Why don’t ya just shoot him?” The Joker drops his papers, irate, and turns to Quinn, cornering her as she backs away, terrified, from his tirade: “Shoot him?! Know this, my sweet. The death of Batman must be nothing less than a masterpiece! The triumph of my sheer comic genius over his ridiculous mask and gadgets!” She ducks, desperate to avoid the stream of acid the Joker shoots from his joke-boutonniere; it sails above her, sizzling instead through a life-size Batman model behind her. Slightly later in the scene, Quinn wraps her arms reassuringly around the Joker’s chest from behind, murmuring a sweet nothing. The viewer does not see his immediate response, but the next shot reveals the Joker’s reaction: An unseen force hurls Quinn through the hideout’s doorway. She skids face-first on the dirty concrete outside, lingerie and all. In this way, though Quinn is aware of the hero-villain balance the Joker chooses to promote in Gotham, she often finds herself in a quandary in which she must accurately anticipate the Joker’s prevailing priority of the day – or moment – or else face his unpredictable choler.
As the above scene makes obvious, the Joker becomes increasingly frustrated when he feels his balance with Batman has shifted. Usually, he takes out this exasperation on the closest individual in his vicinity; this is often Quinn, as she rarely leaves his side unless instructed to do so. As such, she often bears the brunt of his anger, and there exist few episodes in which the Joker and Quinn both appear that he does not bully, excoriate, and physically assault her. Through slaps and shoves, the Joker often intimidates Quinn into submission or silence, taking advantage of both her abiding love for her partner as well as her fear of being subjected to the his singular streak of brutality. These countless instances of abuse, which the Joker metes out to Quinn (most frequently) as well as to his henchmen and his victims, only serve to underscore his hostile aggressive tendencies, as these violent outbursts occur as impulsive reactions to events or statements that stymie his plans or insult his pride.
In the following scene from Episode 223 (“The Man Who Killed Batman”), the Joker is in denial after learning of Batman’s (alleged) death. In an attempt to lure Batman into the open to prove the Dark Knight is not really dead, the Joker stages a bank break-in, after which he awaits Batman’s appearance. This scene includes the Joker’s reflections on what he perceives to be a symbiotic relationship with Batman and exemplifies the hostile, reactionary aggression that typifies his exchanges with Quinn. The Joker begins pacing as he laments, “Where is he? He’s never been this late before. There’s a certain rhythm to these things: I cause trouble, he shows up, we have some laughs, and the game starts over again. Only now… I have this terrible feeling he’s really not coming.” Quinn approaches him from behind, arms spread wide to display the finery draped on her arms, neck, and waist. A crown sits between the prongs of her jester hat, each horn embellished by gold ornaments. She is in heaven: “Wee! Look at all of the pretties!” Despondent, the Joker tells her to return the baubles, but Quinn, still behind him, cannot yet see the extent of his distress. She admonishes him lovingly, “Oh, Mister J, you’re such a kidder. You never could –” Her face becomes a mask of fear and shock as he grabs her collar roughly, choking her. “I said, PUT THEM BACK!” he screeches, throwing her to the ground. She screams as she flips backward, bouncing first on her hips, then her neck, finally landing on her chest. Grunts of pain punctuate her flight. Petrified, she finally submits, her voice trembling as she placates the Joker: “Sure, boss, I can do that. This is me putting them back, no problemo!” As she returns her booty, the Joker sorrowfully opines, “Without Batman, crime has no punch line.”
This scene also illuminates Quinn’s priorities and emphasizes the incompatibility of her aims in relation to the Joker’s: Besides always wanting to please her boss, Quinn also prefers to reap the monetary reward from their plundering. In this way, in contrast to the Joker’s impetuous, often irrational aggression, Quinn instead engages in instrumental or proactive aggression, distinguished by behavior more “deliberate… and goal-driven.”[4] Throughout Batman: TAS, even when participating in plans apparently intended to cause harm or destruction, Quinn almost always conducts herself in service to the Joker. This behavior is antithetical to her own plans and motives, which lean towards acquiring a bounty as opposed to reveling in the intrinsic pleasure of entropy-minded schemes. For example, when Quinn and Ivy team up and become Gotham’s “Queens of Crime” in Episode 228 (“Harley and Ivy”), the newspaper clippings the pair proudly tape to their fridge reveal their capers to involve breaking and entering and theft. Earlier in the same episode, the first crime that Quinn executes on her own finds her stealing a large “Harlequin” diamond from a museum.[5] In Episode 401 (“Holiday Knights”), Quinn and Ivy are again working together, this time using Bruce Wayne (Batman’s billionaire alter ego) and his sizable credit accounts to purchase themselves a slew of new, expensive outfits. These crimes all entail specific, achievable aims, and any harm caused to bystanders is incidental – only necessary to the extent that it removes an obstacle from Quinn’s path as she pursues her tangible objective.
Quinn’s ambitions deviating so distinctly from her boss’s matters little to the Joker, who forces his partner to forgo her own (criminal and sexual) desires and conduct herself in deference to his (or his lack thereof, in the case of the latter). As such, their relationship is complicated by the coercive control the Joker exerts over Quinn in roles as both her boss and her lover. In this way, the Joker exemplifies the practice of “intimate terrorism,” paraphrased in Jennifer Hardesty’s review of Michael P. Johnson’s The Typology of Domestic Violence as a “pervasive pattern of violent and nonviolent tactics… used to control one’s partner… perpetrated most often by men against female partners…” Quinn openly acknowledges these “violent tactics” during the episode “Harlequinade,” in which she partners with Batman and Robin to ensure her early release from Arkham Asylum. She finds herself needing a distraction to draw the attention of a roomful of assorted mobsters away from Batman and Robin, as the former squirms to escape his bonds and the latter sneaks his way into the club to help. After one of the mob bosses, Boxy Bennett, ask her why she stays with a “slob like the Joker… when there are suave guys like [Bennett] around” and slips an unctuous hand around her arm, she politely shakes off his advances. “Now Boxy,” she scolds, smiling, “Sure my puddin’s a little temperamental, but gee, what relationship doesn’t have its ups and downs?” With Olympics-caliber gymnastics, she vaults onto the stage and begins a vampy rendition of “Say That We’re Sweethearts Again” in the vein of a jazz cabaret singer of old:
I never knew that our romance had ended
Until you poisoned my food.
And I thought it was a lark when you kicked me in the park,
But now I think it was rude!
I never knew that you and I were finished
Until that bottle hit my head.
Though I tried to be aloof when you pushed me off the roof,
I fear our romance is dead.
Wouldn’t have been so bad if you had told me
That someone had taken my place.
But no, no you didn’t even scold me
You just tried to disfigure my face…
You’ll never know how this heart of mine is breaking.
It looks so hopeless, but then…
Life used to be so placid – won’t you please put down that acid –
And say that we’re sweethearts again!
Interestingly, the Joker often displays affection after he has just abused or assaulted Quinn in some way. In “The Man Who Killed Batman,” he throws her to the floor at the bank as described earlier. In “Harlequinade,” she is holding a gun to his head, but her conviction is clearly failing, and he goads her, “You wouldn’t dare. You don’t have the guts!” Tears fill her eyes; her lip quivers. He sees her hesitation and continues, “Not a million years would you – ” he is cut off, panicked, as she grits her teeth and refocuses her aim. He grimaces, preparing for the worst as she pulls the trigger… before a fall-away “Rat-Tat-Tat” sign drops from the gun. Disappointed trumpets and mischievous xylophone tones emphasize the farcical glances exchanged between the pair: The Joker frowns exaggeratedly and raises one eyebrow as Quinn grins in abashed, awkward apology. A pregnant pause, then the Joker laughs and gives the viewers a Hollywood ending. “Baby, you’re the greatest!” he declares as he opens his arms to receive Quinn. She lets out a high-pitched squeak of delight, running to him and jumping into his arms; they spin, a picture of classic romance. Quinn’s legs dangle as she and the Joker pirouette, and the episode closes with them in a close embrace as one of Quinn’s feet flicks upward in picturesque whimsy.[6]
Undoubtedly, there is ample evidence to suggest that Quinn personifies “traumatic bonding theory,”[7] which argues that “strong emotional attachments are formed by intermittent abuse.”[8] The key to this abuse is the aforementioned intermittency, as physical, psychological, and/or sexual abuse is interspersed with instances in which the abuser exhibits kindness, affection, and other manifestations of “love” or positive reinforcement. The Joker is sometimes seen to offer such endearments: Shortly after the scene described earlier in “The Man Who Killed Batman,” the Joker holds a funeral for Batman in which, in place of a body, there is a crude cutout of Batman’s signature black cowl and cape folded carefully within a casket. A somber Joker tapes a “KICK ME” sign to the cape. When Quinn commends her partner for “really put[ting] the fun in funeral,” the Joker’s mournful expression softens to a melancholy smile as he looks at her gratefully, lightly pinching her cheek in what appears to be genuine tenderness.
Despite this affection, there is yet another way in which the Joker and Quinn’s relationship is characterized by “intimate terrorism:” There are countless cases of ill-treated partners striking back against their abusers.[9] Indeed, “Harlequinade” is an unusual (and exaggerated) case study of such a turn of events. Quinn begins as a double agent after deciding to help Batman find the Joker before he annihilates Gotham with an atomic bomb (though it is implied she never intended to keep her promise and only hoped to be reunited with the Joker). She incapacitates Batman and Robin and leaps into the arms of a thoroughly astonished Joker, who thought she was still behind bars at Arkham Asylum. After explaining her double-cross to the heroes (“Deal’s off, B-Man. No one ever said anything about hurting Mistah J!”), the Joker carries Quinn to the plane to complete his plan to raze Gotham, telling Quinn, “Come, my dear! We’ll get to a safe altitude, then watch the fireworks.” When Robin points out that the ten-minute countdown the Joker had just activated would not have left the Joker enough time to “swing by Arkham to pick [Quinn] up,” Quinn solicits (a clearly empty) guarantee from her partner that he would have indeed come back for her. The Joker seats her in the plane, but she is not so easily mollified: “But what about all our friends?” she objects. Distraught, she refuses to leave her friends and her pet hyenas.[10] Despite the Joker’s unsympathetic assuaging (“I’ll buy you a goldfish – let’s go!”), she cannot bring herself to abandon those to whom she feels an allegiance. In a show of strength both physical and psychological, she resists the Joker, sending a well-placed high kick to his jaw. Unsurprisingly, he makes moves to leave without her, taking off and attempting to detonate the bomb with bullets he fires at close-range from his helicopter. From the ground, Quinn grabs a prop from her bag and growls, “Laugh this off… puddin’!” shooting a projectile into the Joker’s head as he flies by. The resulting pandemonium ends with a plane crash, and the Joker emerges from under his deflated parachute to find an incensed Quinn staring at him down the muzzle of a large gun. She has every intent to kill him, stopped only by the surprise joke gun she has mistaken for a functioning weapon.
Additionally, Quinn sometimes blames herself for the abuse, which occurs in a small percentage of battered woman trapped in a cycle of intimate partner violence.[11] In one of the most famous moments of Batman: TAS from “Mad Love,” Quinn has called the Joker to come see her handiwork: She has outwitted Batman and has him chained upside down above a piranha-filled tank. Batman convinces her to wait until the Joker arrives before she lowers Batman into the water.[12] The Joker bursts into the room, beside himself as he roars, “HARLEY!” Quinn, believing him excited to witness Batman’s undoing, runs to her partner with open arms. “Hi, puddin’! You’re just in time to see the – ugh!” The frame cuts to Batman’s face; he winces as we hear a loud smack! Moments later, we see Quinn – she slides across the floor on her back, body buckled from the force of the blow. The Joker, ever the gentleman, begs Batman’s pardon (“‘Scuse me, I’ll be just a minute,”) before walking back to Quinn. She struggles to lift her head, still crumpled on the floor as the Joker’s shadow darkens over her; his hands twitch as if impatient to strike her once more. She finally raises her head to address the Joker, voice shrill with fear and confusion. “But puddin’, I-I don’t understand! Don’t you want to finally get rid of Batman?” He lunges towards her as she recoils and raises a hand to protect her face. “Only if I do it, idiot!” he snarls. Quinn, still speaking from the floor, explains to the Joker how and why she has designed Batman’s death in this way: She has arranged it so in order to perfect one of the Joker’s pre-conceived plans, changing the previously-problematic setup so as to enhance the metaphorical “punch line” of the Dark Knight’s death. “Now it all works!” she insists to the Joker. If anything, this only makes him more furious. “Except you had to explain it to me! If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!” Quinn grabs a decorative swordfish from the wall and clutches it so as to shelter herself behind it. She retreats backwards, voice beseeching as she stammers, “N-now, calm down, puddin’!” The Joker backs her slowly against the window, fuming, “You’ve forgotten what I told you a long time ago – one of the painful truths of comedy…” She glances behind her to the window before looking back to her partner in abject terror. He snatches the swordfish from her hands, bellowing, “You always take shots from folks who JUST DON’T GET THE JOKE!” With a mighty shove and a desperate cry from Quinn, the Joker sends her crashing through the window. The frame follows her fall in agonizing slow motion, painstakingly capturing her flailing limbs and silent scream. Shards of glass and chunks of wall tinkle as they follow her down several stories; we hear a muffled thud! as the Joker peers through the Quinn-sized hole in the wall. “And don’t call me ‘puddin’,” he grumbles as he walks away in disgust. We are brought back to the ruin outside; one gloved hand falls limply from a mound of misshapen metal just before we see Quinn’s full body broken against the wreckage beneath her. “My… fault…” she gasps, blood trickling from her mouth. “I didn’t get the joke…”
In conclusion, the threats and violence inherent in this character pairing, while reciprocal in rare instances, are skewed in frequency and intensity. This creates a dynamic which the Joker subjects Quinn to near-constant physical and emotional abuse. Viewing this relationship through the lens of traumatic bonding theory, it becomes clear that Quinn’s behaviors are consistent with those of a battered woman, enhancing a cartoon character with real-life psychological phenomena that add layers of equivocal morality to a character whose complexity eschews the oversimplified “victim” label.[13]
__________________________________________________
[1] See Fontaine.
[2] Immediately after this, Quinn speaks up from behind Batman: “’Scuse me! The teeth were my idea.” She grabs the nearby can of nitrous oxide, spraying it in Batman’s face as she cries, “So’s this!” Though Quinn admits that the denture hint was her idea, the Joker’s domination over all aspects of his gang (Quinn included) throughout the series supports the assumption that he not only demanded a clue for Batman as part of the plan, but also approved of Quinn’s idea. (It is also possible Quinn, out of devotion to her partner, took credit for the idea when she noticed the Joker’s visible agitation upon being mocked.) Furthermore, the ingenuity of the clue is immaterial to the revelation that the Joker typically leaves clues for Batman, a practice that makes clear his desire for Batman to find him as he enacts his schemes.
[3] Another such clue can be found in “The Laughing Fish:” The Joker attacks one of his victims in part by using a fish, the species of which is “not native to Gotham’s cold waters.” This clue leads Batman (and an officer in Gotham’s police department) to conclude that the Joker must be purposefully directing them to the Gotham City Aquarium, where the Joker and Quinn are indeed lying in wait.
[4] See Fontaine.
[5] Even in this instance, she has trouble conceptualizing herself as independent from her puddin’ and his criminal enterprises. When pilfering the three million dollar diamond, she squeals, “Ooh, Mistah J will just plotz when I give him… No, I’m keeping it for myself! … Maybe.”
[6] This is a reference to the 1955 television show The Honeymooners, in which Ralph Kramden would often finish the episode by telling his wife, Alice, “Baby, you’re the greatest!” The series is well known for Ralph’s constant (presumably empty) threats of physical violence to his wife.
[7] This is also known as “battered woman syndrome; some even consider it a variation of “Stockholm syndrome.” Though there exist arguments against accepting these constructs as explanations for continued abuse, their relative strengths and weaknesses are beyond the purview of this article. As Quinn was created in 1992, it is reasonable to assume that her creators were familiar with this syndrome. For more on the controversy surrounding the syndrome, please see: “Battered Woman Syndrome” and Dutton.
[8] See Wagner.
[9] See “Battered Women Who Strike Back;” Hempel, Newman, & Grauerholz; and Schneider.
[10] This is but one example of Quinn’s genuine empathy that often complicates or outright thwarts the indiscriminate violence of the Joker’s plans. Furthermore, though she agrees that he is a psychopath, she is often offended, shocked, and angered by the Joker’s apparent lack of consideration for her health, happiness, and safety, and can respond with violence when provoked (for examples, see Episode 407, “Joker’s Millions,” and Episode 312, “The Trial.”). Her ire, however, never lasts for long; she is apparently incapable of holding a grudge when it pertains to her “puddin’.” Additionally, on the rare occasions when Quinn does physically strike the Joker, the violence fails to reach the intensity of the Joker’s abuse; the blows are milder – cartoonish and slapstick – so much so that the Joker has the physical wherewithal to talk within the “assault.”
[11] See Barnett, Martinez, & Keyson; Follingstad; and Johnson & Ferraro.
[12] As Batman explains to the Joker later in the episode, “She almost had me, you know. Arms and legs chained, dizzy from the blood rushing to my head. I had no way out other than convincing her to call you. I knew your massive ego would never allow anyone else the ‘honor’ of killing me. Though I have to admit she came a lot closer than you ever did… puddin’.”
[13] For further material that addresses the knottier aspects of the clown pair’s relationship in the larger DC Universe (i.e., beyond Batman: TAS), I recommend the following sources: Tosha Taylor’s article Kiss With a Fist: The Gendered Power Struggle of the Joker and Harley Quinn is one of the only scholarly articles in existence to mention Quinn, let alone prominently feature her; it investigates how gender informs the duo’s physical and philosophical interplay. Additionally, I recommend the Youtube channel ShippersGuideToTheGalaxy’s “Joker and Harley Quinn Mad Love Or Just Mad?” and “Harley Quinn Abuses the Joker?” as trenchant explorations of the Joker/Harley fan community and the criticisms with which such “shippers” often contend. (Those who “ship” a couple embrace/promote a relationship between two characters that may exist within or without explicit canonical support.)