Parenting

Male Egos Explode When One Twitter User Suggests 'The Joker' Should Have Been Female

by Julie Scagell
Updated: 
Originally Published: 

Men everywhere lost their minds at the thought of The Joker being a woman

If you’ve ever wondered by what thread some fragile male egos hang, look no further than this next Twitter exchange. Author and world traveler Geraldine DeRuiter publically imagined what Batman’s Joker character would have been like if he were a she. Seems innocent enough, right, given strong characters like Thor and James Bond’s 007 are now daring to be played by women. Unfortunately, not all men are as imaginative (or stable) for this level of mind-fuckery.

“The Joker should have been a woman. And she finally went insane because too many random dudes told her to smile, so now she perpetually smiles while terrorizing Gotham,” DeRuiter, know as the Everywhereist on Twitter wrote. That sounds logical enough given the sheer amount of times women are told to smile in a day.

DeRuiter went on to paint a picture of the sorts of wrongs The Joker would right being female. “She unleashes financial records for companies that don’t compensate women properly. She blackmails cheaters and misogynists. She threatens the goddamn Patriarchy,” she continued. “It’s terrifying and wonderful.”

She then talks about Batman’s conundrum of wanting to restore order but, as a progressive dude, he’s conflicted because she’s obviously doing the right thing.

DeRuiter also gives The Joker a perfect catchphrase, “Well, ACTUALLY,” summing up a movie most of us would definitely pay money to see.

Unfortunately for DeRuiter (and fortunately for the rest of us), tweet after tweet poured in from very, very irritated men who couldn’t conceptualize of a “male” role being played by a female in an imagined movie that has yet to exist. The “All Over the Place” author shared some of the responses she received, and they are comedy gold.

Twitter

Twitter

Men used phrases like “faux oppression” and told her to just “not exist” rather than taking a moment to fathom Gotham (a city that also does not exist) being run by a woman. Bless their hearts.

Twitter

Twitter

She continued to share more and more tweets from men who not only believe The Joker has and will always be male, but that misogyny doesn’t actually exist at all, to which DeRuiter replied, “these guys in my mentions who are mad that I suggested – SUGGESTED – a girl Joker wouldn’t last a fucking day as a woman.” Amen.

Twitter

Clearly, she’s having a field day with the responses, posting the best-of-the-best reactions for the rest of the world to enjoy while these men scratch their nuts and ask their moms to heat up more Spaghettios to bring down to their room.

Twitter

Twitter

The peak of this entire string was when multiple guys tried schooling DeRuiter on the fact there already is a Joker-type character in a comic book, so clearly that means no woman ever should need to play one on a screen that people would watch with their eyeballs.

“Anyway, let’s make another Batman with a hetero cis white guy in the lead because it’s been five minutes since we’ve done that,” she responded. And that, my friends, is how you shut down entitlement in a nutshell.

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