How Lady Gaga Feels About Joker 2's Overwhelmingly Negative Reception

Todd Phillips' villain flick "Joker," an origin story for the notorious Batman villain, was a surprisingly huge hit when it was released in the fall of 2019. The film's tone was gritty and severe, like a Martin Scorsese movie. This approach to comic book material was novel enough to earn "Joker" over $1 billion at the box office and 11 Academy Award nominations. Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for his performance as Arthur Fleck (the mentally unstable would-be comedian who becomes a murderous clown), while Hildur Guðnadóttir also won for her funeral score.

There was some concern, even before "Joker" was released, that it would inspire terminally online men to commit acts of violence. After all, the film's Joker is depicted as an angry, ignored outsider who's unable to socialize with women and frustrated by a system designed to let him fall through the cracks. Arthur's then allowed on television, where his dismissal of the social contract inspires riots, making him a revolutionary symbol. This is an unhealthy message to give to young men who feel similarly.

But the riots never came. And indeed, it seems Phillips made his 2024 sequel, "Joker: Folie à Deux," as a pointed rebuke of the success of the first film, attacking any admirers of the Joker by repeating, in dialogue, that the character is weak and pathetic. "Folie à Deux" sees Phoenix's Arthur return and instigate an unhealthy romance with his asylum inmate, Harley "Lee" Quinzel (Lady Gaga), all while going on trial for his crimes. Made for $200 million, the "Joker" sequel utterly tanked at the box office. It's one of the more notable failures of the decade.

Lady Gaga isn't fazed, though. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she admitted that the film's failure just made her laugh.

The first "Joker," for the record, only cost about $70 million to make, and it contains a lot of violence, several scenes of murder, and a full-blown riot at the end. "Joker: Folie à Deux," in contrast, takes place mostly in an asylum or in a courtroom. In occasional fantasy sequences, Arthur and Harley envision themselves inside a period musical, singing and dancing about their feelings. The musical sequences, however, usually only involve the two of them and were shot on small, physical sets. Where did all the money go? "Folie à Deux" certainly doesn't look expensive.

Gaga, a professional singer, elects to use a more natural singing voice, as she rarely has an opportunity to belt out proper barn-burners. She plays the role of Lee quite well, and her character is an emotional, grounded take on the ordinarily zany Harley Quinn (who was first seen in "Batman: The Animated Series" and played by Margot Robbie in a trio of DC Extended Universe movies). No one has an issue with Gaga, but the film failed nonetheless.

Gaga felt the sting of the failure of "Folie à Deux," but she was also amused at just how wildly it was rejected. It wasn't until the negative hype died down that she started to feel a little of the pain of defeat. As she put it:

"I wasn't, like, unfazed. It's funny, I'm almost nervous to share my reaction. But the truth is, when it first started happening, I started laughing. Because it was just getting so unhinged. When it takes a while for something to dissipate, that can be a little more painful. Only because I put a lot of myself into it."

Her passion was evident.

Indeed, Gaga noted that, at first, she enjoyed all the negative attention the first "Joker" had gotten, leading her to take a job in "Folie à Deux." As she noted, "There was a ton of negativity around 'Joker.' [...] And I think I was feeling artistically rebellious at the time."

And, as mentioned, the whole movie serves as an attack on lovers of the first "Joker." The sequel is drab, poorly paced, and way too long (it runs 138 minutes). "Folie à Deux" brings back characters from the first film to announce, on the stand, that the Joker isn't clever, threatening, or even special. The revolution he inspired was destructive but not motivated by an ethos or working toward any kind of goal. Everything about the Joker is piddling and mediocre. It's no wonder the sequel wasn't a hit.

When it tanked, Gaga at least had her musical career to cope. As she explained to Rolling Stone, she responded to "Folie à Deux" by writing the song "Disease" and shooting a dark music video to accompany it. The video begins with Gaga dead on the hood of a car. Part of the action sees her torturing her own doppelgänger in a "Saw"-like dungeon. To quote her directly on the matter:

"I put so much of that energy into that video. [...] I was in that place, you know, I was like, 'I'll show you who I am, and I'll show you what this fight is like.'" 

It seems the "Joker" sequel was the result of a lot of angst and that Gaga had some s*** to work through. In terms of her career, she wasn't really harmed. But her heart did seem to ache over the matter.