I saw The People’s Joker last night, and I couldn’t figure out a clear way to describe it. There’s so much going on. It uses existing characters, except they’re really distorted parodies of the characters. It looks like it had an eight dollar budget. It’s direct and garish, but also subtle and clever. It includes a ton of different media styles – live action, CG, animated, musical, whatever it can afford- but it all holds together. Packed with references to three different worlds, but somehow still cohesive. How do you condense that into a word a phrase?
Then I listened to the Maximum Film podcast discussion of the movie, and they had the right term: this is a movie version of a zine. Take existing materials, cut them up, mix in your own creations and ideas, and make something wonky and wonderful. Something undeniably new.
I think I can safely say this is the best trans self discovery story seen through the lenses of mainstream superhero films and the stand up comedy world ever created.