Awarded a pitiful 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and floundering at box office, Joker: Folie à Deux has quickly become one of the most divisive films of the year. Unsurprisingly, die-hard fans of the first film are leading the charge of negativity, but this isn’t just typical sequel disappointment. Social media is flooded with complaints about the film, and fans and critics alike are tearing it apart. So what happened? What did this film do to ignite such widespread hatred?

It turns out the answer is both complex and provocative. Perhaps the boldest—and for many, most frustrating—creative choice in Joker: Folie à Deux is its decision to transform the story into a musical (the film-bros who loved the original are punching walls). For a story that follows one of the darkest, most violent characters in comic book history, the genre-swap feels almost intentionally controversial—set up to challenge the very audience that embraced Joker (2019) so fervently. But upon watching the film, it becomes clear that this is just one element of a deeper, more deliberate act of subversion. It’s not just the musical numbers that angers fans—it’s the way Folie à Deux dismantles everything they thought they loved about Joker.

When the first film was released in 2019, it was widely praised as artistic excellence, and for good reason. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was universally lauded, earning him an Academy Award, while the cinematography was stunning. The average cinema-goer could resonate with the story—a sad yet captivating exploration of a lonely man grappling with mental health issues. 

However, Todd Phillips’ interpretation of the character came to represent a sinister undercurrent in society. Phoenix’s Joker became a symbol for anti-woke, incel communities who feel disenfranchised and misunderstood. Arthur Fleck, a man rejected by women, laughed at, bullied, belittled, pushed to the fringes of society, and ultimately resorting to extreme violence, was a character who directly spoke to them. Arthur’s iconic line, “You wouldn’t get it,” became their slogan of frustrated rage. 

 

Joker faced criticism for both representing and romanticizing these communities—communities who identify with Joker, viewing him as a hero, even a martyr, with his violent turn as a justified reaction to societal neglect. Joker: Folie à Deux, however, steps in to shatter that illusion completely. While the first film was the sinister origin story of the Joker, the second is the pitiful destruction of that same character. Instead of doubling down on the Joker’s symbolic power, the film presents the crude reality of Arthur Fleck’s existence, and the idea of the Joker being a martyr is openly mocked. 

Within the film, characters reference a TV movie about the Joker that glamorized his heinous acts and crafted his legacy (arguably a meta-textual nod to the first film itself) and ignited a network of fans across Gotham. But the infamous ‘Joker’ in the TV movie is starkly contrasted by the Arthur Fleck we see—chained, pathetic, taunted by prison guards. When Fleck is put on trial, his fans are also scrutinized and portrayed as delusional and deplorable, while their once-beloved anti-hero is deconstructed piece by piece. 

Elaborate musical sequences mock their fantasies, proving that ‘The Joker’ is just nothing more than a grand delusion—ultimately confirmed when Arthur confesses that the Joker doesn’t really exist at all. His myth self-implodes and those who built up Fleck as a misunderstood genius (both within the context of the film, and outside of it) are left with the pitiful reality—a broken, lonely man, detached from any revolutionary purpose, clinging to delusions. The film devolves into an unflinching portrayal of Arthur’s failure;  promises of power, validation, love, respect, and freedom are all obliterated, literally. Arthur Fleck is no longer a symbol of power or rebellion but a hollow shell. 

Naturally, its label as a ‘musical’ made the film difficult to get on board with for most—not just the incels who rail against “superficial” culture, but also those expecting a gritty comic-book style follow up. However, it’s not a musical in a conventional sense. The musical numbers are abstract expressions of the dissociative madness of Arthur Fleck, and his shared delusions with Lee (Lady Gaga). For me, the surreal song and dance totally worked as a glimpse into the tortured mind—an imaginative exploration of how one constructs fantasies to survive. Though most people would disagree, this is cohesive with the premise of the original film—a fusion of joy and pain, fantasy and reality, and humour in the face of sheer misery. 

 

Joker: Folie à Deux may not be a conventional sequel, and may not work as a compelling narrative for everyone, but there’s something undeniably bold in its refusal to play by the rules. Todd Phillips had the sheer audacity to totally abandon the genre, the character, and the fans. Rarely has a sequel been so disloyal to the fan base that initially made it successful; from its genre shift, to casting Lady Gaga, to mocking the fandom, to killing the Joker altogether. It’s a sequel that challenges, provokes, and, yes, alienates, revelling in its unapologetic middle finger to expectations. Of course, it remains true that most people hated it—but perhaps that is exactly why it was made, because “you wouldn’t get it.”.