‘The People’s Joker’ brings an unambiguously queer anti-hero to Gotham

Director Vera Drew’s take on the Batman saga — The People’s Joker — arrives in theaters at last. The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival, but soon found itself ensnared in legal challenges as the project is unauthorized by Batman’s parent company, Warner Bros.  In this week’s episode, we revisit Drew’s interview from that year. She tells The Treatment there is a lot of queer subtext in the superhero genre, so it wasn’t a stretch to have the film’s main character be trans (which Drew is as well). She says she incorporated Jerry Springer-esque scenes into her film because his show was one of the few places to see trans representation on TV. And she talks about experiencing a breakthrough around her own gender identity while watching a Batman film as a child.