Lady Gaga Isn’t Clowning Around in the New Trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux

Warner Bros. / Todd Phillips

Fans of musicals and/or bisexual wrongs, listen up: The first full trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux is here, hinting at plenty of splashy supervillain chaos.

Picking up roughly two years after 2019’s Joker, the DC film finds aspiring comedian-turned-killer clown Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a.k.a. Joker, locked away in Arkham Asylum for his crimes. However, his life takes a turn when he falls for fellow patient Harley “Lee” Quinn (Lady Gaga), who shares his passion for, shall we say, twisted entertainment.

“When I first saw Joker, when I saw you, I didn’t feel so alone anymore,” she muses.

Like Joker, Lee loves showbiz nearly as much as she loves mayhem. So, in the immortal words of Patti LuPone, “It’s a musical.” Soon, Frank Sinatra’s “When You’re Smiling” swells as the lovebirds gleefully perform in elaborately staged fantasy set pieces evoking everything from classic movie musicals like Singin’ In the Rain to The Sonny and Cher Show. The real world is burning around them, but what does that matter to two clowns in love?

As fun as Mother Monster’s portrayal of Harley Quinn seems to be, plenty of DC Comics fans are understandably weary about how the Gotham bicon will be depicted in Folie à Deux. Her positioning as the Joker’s adoring girlfriend first and foremost harkens back to the character’s introduction as an abused love interest and henchwoman in Batman: The Animated Series. Harley’s typical origins as a psychiatrist who the Joker seduces to the supervillain side are also missing.

In more recent years, Harley has been fleshed out as an iconic character in her own right across comics, TV, and movies. In addition to being memorably portrayed by Margot Robbie across three DC films, the character also received her own eponymous Max animated series focusing on her efforts to become Gotham’s greatest queen pin following her break-up with the Joker. Harley Quinn hones in on the iconic comics romance between Harley (voiced by Kaley Cucuo in the show) and fellow baddie Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), which hasn’t been explored in the official movies (although Robbie would certainly be in favor of that).

Then there’s filmmaker Vera Drew’s new semi-autobiographical film The People’s Joker, which utilizes the character to tell a trans coming-of-age tale and satirize the absurdist, often-hollow promises of superhero films and the mainstream comedy scene in one fell swoop.

So will Harley’s queerness inform the spectacle of Folie à Deux? We’ll have to wait and see, although I must admit that director Todd Phillips of The Hangover fame isn’t the first person I’d turn to for nuanced bisexuality onscreen. But hey, when you’re done watching Harley Quinn and The People’s Joker, why not round up the Artpop-loving queers in your life and take in the show?

Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters on Friday, October 4.

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Originally Appeared on them.