Borderline women are now the norm

Why men are giving up on women, part 5

Lady Gaga plays Lee Quinzel, a classic “borderline” woman, in Joker: Folie a Deux

In Joker: Folie a Deux, the new and immensely unpopular sequel to 2019’s hugely successful Joker, we are introduced to a character named Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who is roughly based on the canonical DC villain Harley Quinn.

Lee exhibits nearly every characteristic of what has come to be known as borderline personality— often called BPD (borderline personality disorder)— a condition which is almost exclusively diagnosed in women. Like other BPD women, Lee Quinzel is unstable, controlling, emotionally manipulative, impulsive, prone to mood swings, and given to grandiose acts of self-destructive behavior.

When Lee first meets Arthur Fleck in the Arkham asylum, it is under false auspices, as an apparent fellow inmate. She “love bombs” Arthur with praise, and is effusively deferential to him and worshipful of what she calls his “greatness.” Further, she claims to have lead a similar life as Arthur, one marred by poverty, abuse, and endless heartbreak. Her seeming sweet nature and ostensibly pure, sincere, and passionate love for Arthur— a man who has experienced little, if any, love in his life— cause him to become immediately smitten with Lee.

Eventually, Arthur is warned by a prison guard that much of what Lee initially told him is, in fact, a lie. Lee is actually from a wealthy family, and hasn’t suffered at all in the manner that she claimed. In fact, she voluntarily checked herself in to Arkham for the express purpose of meeting Arthur. When Arthur confronts her on these points, she immediately admits that she lied to him, but shrugs her dishonesty off as a matter of no consequence. What does it matter what my actual life story is? The essence of what I said is still true. My love for you is still as real as I always claimed it to be, she tells him. Once more, the romantically inexperienced Arthur is mollified, having been instantly talked into disregarding what wiser men would easily spot as a major “red flag” in a woman.

In short order, Lee is allowed to visit Arthur in his cell (did she bribe the guard with money or with a sexual favor?), at which time she forces herself sexually on the befuddled, most likely virginal Arthur. Soon after their awkward intercourse, Lee announces that she is pregnant. (We never find out for sure whether or not she is telling the truth about this, but given her track record of duplicity, it is at very least a dubious claim.)

Lee, it seems, is turned on by Arthur’s vengeful, homicidal, clown-faced alter-ego, that of “Joker,” a persona which seems to have remained mostly dormant in Arthur ever since his incarceration for the murder of six people two years ago. Since Arthur, in the guise of Joker, executed late-night talk show host Murray Franklin on live television following a heated exchange which was broadcast across the country, setting the restive malcontents of dystopic Gotham City into a riotous tizzy, he has become a sort of “folk hero” to many.

The fact that Lee prefers the “bad boy” psychopath Joker over the gentle, mild-mannered Arthur Fleck is, again, very much in line with her borderline identity. The borderline woman lives for drama, and is commonly draw to men who are violent and abusive.

Poor, naive Arthur, of course, has no clue that his newfound lover is in fact deeply untrustworthy, not does he conceive that she has less than stellar motives. Under her influence, he begins to embrace his Joker persona again, even as he is facing a murder trial that might well land him in the electric chair.

At her direction, he fires his perfectly competent and well-meaning attorney, and takes on the task of defending himself, though in truth he hasn't a clue what he is doing; his fans, however, love the spectacle of seeing Arthur in his clown get-up again. Lee, for her part, shows up in the front row of the courtroom, painting her own face and dressing in a in a harlequin costume, conspicuously occupying the role of Joker’s seemingly loyal fangirl, as their "bad romance" continues.

But over the course of events, Arthur comes to find his Joker persona a burden, one that he eventually opts to publicly disavow. As his guilty verdict is read, some of his followers, undeterred, stage a daring rescue; freed at last from his confines, Arthur finds himself back into the presence of Lee, who is waiting at the iconic Joker steps, so memorable from the first Joker movie.

"I'm free! We can run away together!" he exclaims, only to be caught up short by the grim glare she now casts his way.

"You gave up on the fantasy," she tells him flatly, before walking away, rejecting him without a shred of pity or remorse.

Since it was only ever the fantasy that she wanted, she has consequently fallen out of love with him. More accurately, she never truly loved him (that is, Arthur Fleck), only his Joker alter-ego.

So Lee deserts Arthur, bewildered and heartbroken, to the loneliness he has known for so much of his miserable life.

*******

There is much to criticize in Joker: Folie a Deux, a movie which stands a good chance of becoming the most hated sequel ever made.  But in its depiction of the dynamics of a relationship between a BPD woman and a naive, easily-suckered man, it offers compelling— and dare I say, “red-pilled”— commentary.

(to be continued)

Andy Nowicki is the author of several books, most recently The Insurrectionist, Muze, and Love and Hidden Agendas, as well as the just-published The Rule of Wrath. Visit his YouTube channel.