'I live in a country where I am treated like a villain. […] Why can't I make a film that directly explores that?'
The People's Joker – Trailer (Watch it now!)
About Warner Bros. Pictures hadn't successfully scared trans filmmaker Vera Drew into canceling screenings for her 2022 little pop punk biopic The People's Joker , it's possible the film would have quietly disappeared. It could have been another small, personal indie project looking for an audience in an oversaturated market. Instead, Vera's hallucinogenic memoir became international news.
The People's Joker premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, but a sharply worded letter from Warner Bros. about copyright issues caused Vera and TIFF organizers to cancel further screenings and take it off the market. Vera stepped back to refine the film, an energetic, exuberant personal trans coming-out story built around crowdsourced digital animation. At the same time, she was looking for a simpatico distributor who wouldn't bury the film with a direct-to-streaming release. It has been shown at a handful of regional festivals since then, but has been largely unavailable to the public.
That has left The People's Joker as an intriguing mystery to some would-be viewers, and a subject of anxious concern to others. The film explores trans identity as a parallel to Todd Phillips' Joker origin story, among many other Batman-adjacent films. Vera filters her life through familiar fiction, subverting and channeling popular characters to show how she navigated abuse, toxic relationships, found an identity through stand-up comedy, and the search for a happy ending.
