Ok, Mike. I guess I'll take your suggestion and post on the forum. It's Mindy, the Mad Love girl. Well, I still don't quite agree with you Mike, and I'll post the last letter I sent to you here for all to see as to why. (Did you get it? You didn't respond, so I didn't know.) P.S. It was cute how much you gushed over me. It made me laugh. Thanks.
In the early Batman episodes when the mood was much lighter than it would become, yeah, I can buy you saying they played the abuse for laughs. In Mad Love, however, I think the production team does such a good job to point out that Joker is abusive, and horribly abusive. I didn't pick up on the logistics of Harley and Joker's relationship in Harley and Ivy until you pointed it out. In Mad Love, I was horrified by what Joker did to her. It was shoved in everyone's face, and not in a funny way.
Bold generalization, but I think you're confusing, like I said, the instruments Joker uses to spread his terror with the fact that he really is spreading terror with them. You're tying the comedic moments of the episode, Joker's gimmicks like the piranha tank, and the puns, and how Harley tries to get Joker to have sex with her by using a whoopie cushion (Hey, it is a "whoopie" cushion afterall.), with the overall theme of what's going on. If you look at the episode, though, notice the entire episode is focused on physical abuse in some form and how horrible and long lasting the effects of that can be. Why does Harley fall in love with Joker? She feels sorry for him because Puddin's merely a victim of circumstances. All he wanted to do was make his father laugh, and his dad beat the snot out of him for it. The way Joker's abuse is presented is shocking to the point where even Harley is shocked by how bad it is.
I was determined not to be taken unaware, and studied up on all his jokes, tricks, and gimmicks. Then I went in, ready for anything.
'You know, my father used to beat me up pretty bad.'
Anything except that.
When Joker's telling the circus story, the line, "And then he broke my nose," it cuts like a knife. Again, gross generalization, you really start to feel bad for the abuse the Joker went through, and you start to feel Harley's sympathy towards him.
Why does Harley hate Batman? Batman has taken the place of Joker's abusive father. Puddin's just trying to make B-man laugh, after all.
Then the story goes to Harley, and the extreme efforts she's going to to make Joker happy. You see that she's devoting her life towards that task. Then when Harley finally gets the one thing she thinks will make Joker happy and take all his pain away, how does he repay her? First she finds out that all the stories that created her image of who the Joker is were lies to manipulate and brainwash her (which total wipes out the viewer's newly created sympathy for him). Then when he arrives, he punches Harley in the face, and pushes her out a however many high story window onto some wooden fucking crates (It would not be nearly as bad without those crates being there. I feel the crates when she lands. It's just...aah. I can't even write it.) practically killing her. In the comic, it's shown even worse. She's lying half dead in a pool of blood on those crates.
To top it off, as she's lying in the alleyway dying, she says, "My fault. I didn't get the joke." She says it was her fault for being pushed out a window. She's blaming herself for what Joker did to her. If that's not battered wife syndrome, I don't know what is.
And then, they don't let you forget it in the end. It's not like Night of the Ninja where Bruce
has a black eye, and then the next day he doesn't. The next day, Harley is in a wheelchair. She's in a neck brace, her leg is broken, her arm's in a cast. The event was so traumatic, she nearly leaves the Joker. But then he apologizes, and she forgives him, and the cycle continues.
So, I'm puzzled as to how you think that the production team of Mad Love trivialized domestic abuse. If anything, I thought they opened your eyes to it Clockwork Orange style. If there was nothing to the episode except Joker pushing Harley out the window, that would be enough to show how horrible he treats her. But then they put in the child abuse back story. What does that do? It keeps the idea of how bad physical abuse can be in the viewer's mind the entire episode. They keep reminding you of how horrible abuse can be by making you think it's what created the monster that is the Joker, and then at the end, you see the physical after effects of abuse in how mangled Harley's body is. The entire show, you're saturated, even overwhelmed by the effects of domestic violence. How can you see that as comical? I don't understand!