What Matthew Rosenberg said in additional defense of his pregnant Joker story
The leftist writer Rosenberg continued to address the commentaries about his perceived male pregnancy tale for the Joker, where he keeps insisting it's merely a tribute to Silver Age lunacies:
All Rosenberg's done is make clear he surely wanted to troll the audience gratuitously, and the artwork for the story looks so grimy, that's one more reason why it'd be better to avoid the book regardless of whether it's a political metaphor. What he's had to say does nothing to provide alleviation.
If you don’t get your news from the “here’s what to be angry about” people you may have missed this. But certain corners of the world are quite mad that the new issue of THE JOKER: THE MAN WHO STOPPED LAUGHING makes the Joker trans and then they become pregnant and give birth. How could we?! Think of the children!!When he alludes to the 1970 Superman story, "I Am Curious", where Lois Lane used a sci-fi device to disguise herself as a Black woman, how come he struck it through with a line? Does he find that, by contrast, embarrassing and objectionable in the ways of the modern PC crowd? How peculiar then, he'd consider a yarn about a pregnant man perfect for entertainment, but a story about a white lady disguising herself as Black to blend in with and research a news story is unacceptable? Most mysterious indeed. Rosenberg then clarifies the story premise:
Only, slight problem, none of that actually happens in the comic. That didn’t stop Fox News, The NY Post, Channel 1 Russia, various internet outrage peddlers, and so many of the other sources of journalistic excellence from going all in on it this past week. This of course made social media somewhat unusable for me because things like this are Christmas for folks who like to get mad at stuff and yell at strangers. My DM’s have never been more exciting! The good news is that I finally made it onto TMZ and I didn’t even have to fuck Pete Davidson like I thought I would.
I should probably explain for those of you who aren’t reading the book. But also, shame on you. It’s fun. So, the main story in the series is about two different men who claim to be the Joker and how their lives violently intersect. The backup stories, by myself with the brilliant Francesco Francavilla on art, are made to be sort of Silver Age style fever dreams of the Joker that explore different, non-continuity explanations of how there could be multiple Jokers and other themes of the main book. So far he’s accidentally cloned himself in a magic mirror, faked his own death so that he could see what people say at his funeral, and accidentally had himself sewn to the body of a gorilla and one of his small henchman like some mythological 6-armed gorilla/circus performer/homicidal clown centaur. In each issue the events of the previous issue aren’t discussed or acknowledged. They are, literally, silly gag strips.
We wanted to pay tribute to the fun old stuff of DC’s history where Batman becomes 2 Dimensional, or Superman turns himself into a lion, or a tree, or an ant, or Jimmy Olsen marries a gorilla,or Lois Lane turns herself Black. Well, not that one. We wanted to pay tribute to the rest though, but through a fever dream lens of the Joker’s own mind. So they’re a little more violent, a little darker, but still mostly fun, consequence-free jokes. And so far the reaction has been amazing. People seem to really dig them!
Enter last week’s issue. In this issue the Joker swallows some mud, gets a curse put on him by Zatanna, and then wakes up with a distended belly. One of his henchman, who says stupid stuff every issue, comments that he might be pregnant. Joker, being unhinged, makes his henchman find a supervillain named Doctor Phosphorous to give him a pelvic exam. Doctor Phosphorous, for those who don’t know, is a flaming skeleton who gives off toxic fumes, manipulates radiation, and sold his soul to a demon. What he is not, however, is a medical doctor. He looks at the Joker’s crotch and says “I don’t even know where a baby would come out of.” At this point the Joker vomits up the mud he swallowed and our good doctor says “Guess you weren’t pregnant after all.”The story may not be about the Joker becoming a pregnant man per se, but Rosenberg's far-left pandering is still inexcusable. Does he believe men and women should despise the sex they were born as? Because that's what all this transsexual ideology amounts to. And he's oblivious to the many men and women who now regret undergoing sex-change operations, and may have permanently damaged their bodies as a result. But then, as if this whole left-wing defense couldn't get revolting enough:
Then the mud gets up, runs around, some people get killed, and it ends up that the mud is actually the supervillain Clayface, or a piece of him at least. For those that don’t know, Clayface is a man who became a pile of sentient mud that can shapeshift to resemble different people, and was once used as a walking, talking metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases. Anyway, we jump forward in time and the magical vomit-mud monster now changes shape to resemble a tiny version of the Joker, and the Joker refers to him as “my son.” End issue. And while I obviously was already writing my awards acceptance speech for this 8 page opus, apparently some folks got big mad.
As you might have picked up from my summary, this isn’t an allegory, a metaphor, or social commentary. It’s a joke. I will say, so this doesn’t come off as some sort of backpedalling, I believe Trans rights are Human rights. I have fundraised and donated multiple times to orgs like TRANS LIFELINE, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANS EQUALITY, and THE TREVOR PROJECT that do incredible work to promote trans rights and protect trans lives. I believe how a person identifies themselves, defines themselves, or presents themselves to the world is their business alone. When someone tells you who they are you can either agree with them or tell them who you think they are, and I’ve never understood why you’d want to be the latter or why anyone should care what you think of who they. With that said, it has nothing to do with this story. This is a story about magical food poisoning.
Now I understand the folks at Fox News and the Post might look up to the Joker and see his an aspirational figure. Yes, he once grew enormous and ate all the people in China with a giant pair of chopsticks, but I guess they can look the other way on that. And yes, he once cut his own face off for fun and walked around with an exposed skull for a while, but who hasn’t? And sure he once paralyzed and then sexually assaulted a woman, took photos of it, and the projected them on a wall while he sexually assaulted her father, but I think Fox & Friends was kinda into that. I was in no way trying to damage the pristine legacy of this psychotic serial murder that they hold in such high regard, but I guess to them I did. And for that I apologize…Oh my, what's this? Fox's contributors are capable of doing bad things, but this is still putting words in their mouths, and Rosenberg's not being altruistic. Just because we're under the perception this story was intended as a metaphor for the very ideologies he brought up, doesn't mean we literally worship an evil figure. It's just that he's taken a criminal character and applied political allegories that only make the story built around the Clown Prince of Crime more grating than need be. Rosenberg sure knows how to show contempt. If this is really a Silver Age tribute, then again, why does he think vomiting qualifies? It's only bad taste.
Or maybe they work on a cycle of feeding outrage and alienation to their audience in order to keep them engaged and angry, and they don’t care if they take things out of context, misrepresent things, or even lie. But I’m sure that’s not it, right? Either way, thanks for promoting our book. I’ve heard from a lot of retailers that it’s selling out. We appreciate it.
All Rosenberg's done is make clear he surely wanted to troll the audience gratuitously, and the artwork for the story looks so grimy, that's one more reason why it'd be better to avoid the book regardless of whether it's a political metaphor. What he's had to say does nothing to provide alleviation.
Labels: Batman, dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of LGBT, golden calf of villainy, misogyny and racism, politics, Superman, violence, women of dc
