Why Aren’t There More Female Jokers?
By: Nika Nikolic
Tags: Movies, Feminism, Joker, TV Series, The Good Place

Jokers in history

Jokers were found in mythology. Loki from Norse pantheon is one such character. He is a shapeshifter, a puzzle maker, great lair, and someone who always gets his way. His specialty is manipulation and outsmarting others to serve his needs, making a mess, and thriving in it. His distant “cousin” from ancient Greek mythology would be Dionysus, from ancient Rome mythology Bacchus, etc. Above mentioned, Lucifer is sort of a Christian version of it.

Original jokers were actual live persons, serving kings and queens at their castles for entertainment. They were court jesters. Their sole role was to make fun of people working and or living at the castle. The best court jesters learned how to provoke people around them and reveal the stupidity of their customary acts, official roles, and redundant rituals.

A female joker?

Unveiling the weirdness in society is what an excellent humoristic piece, a satire, or its very embodiment a joker undoubtedly does. But what happens when society changes so much that even the form of a joke or its manifestation has to change.

One thing all characters I mentioned before have in common is that they are male. Why are there so few female jokers? We’ve got one in Suicide’s Squad Harley Quinn, and people (if judging by the popularity of the Haloween costume) went crazy over her. So there must be something.

I believe I recognize one in the TV series The Good Place. Her role is subtle, well hidden, but it works as a revealer of stupidity. The function is very much similar to that of court jesters. Maybe this is the new, female reinterpretation of a joker?

Tahani case

Self-absorbed, self-centered, self-oriented… Basically everything self-, except for self-conscious. That is Tahani. A character from TV series The Good Place. A humoristic series that touches upon an eternal question on right and wrong and finds a fun and approachable way to explain some fundamental philosophical and ethical issues along the way.

Tahani is played by actor Jameela Jamil, whose gorgeous looks and British accent make her a perfect embodiment of a spoiled, born with a silver spoon in her mouth kind of gal, who everyone hates.

Here is the thing about Tahani. You cannot really hate her. Her extreme beauty probably helps with that. Somehow beautiful people are harder to hate entirely. It has something to do with sociology and stuff.

But Tahani should be annoying as hell. Even the main character of The Good Place, Eleanor, has a sort of a love-hate relationship with her. She annoys her because she had everything while Eleanor struggled her whole life. On the other hand, things that Tahani finds ultimately drama worthy, like a (as in one!) split hair in her otherwise perfect haircut, are just plain ridiculous for Eleanor.

Eleanor starts the series as a dirtbag but quickly revolves into the perfectly average person. She is relatable. Tahani is not. She was a rich kid with friends among the whole pop culture. She is everything an average TV viewer is not.

She also belittles everyone around, which makes her as annoying as she could possibly get.

Still, the Good place wouldn’t be as high as it is without her.

Why?

Tahani takes everything extremely seriously. So seriously that even in a humoristic series, she comes out as a separate satire piece. Using her outrage or unrecognized bragging, she continuously refers to this or that famous pop icon, or this or that upper-class habit takes for granted.

But she does it in a way that almost goes by. It doesn’t even take so much in the series. A viewer only has time to chuckle a bit, and the scene moves on to something else. She doesn’t need a sitcom pause for canned laughter. Her points are simple, fleeting, but at the same time as brutal critiques of today’s most extravagant social exaggerations as it gets.