Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse / Batman

Batman

Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse in this series.

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Comic Books

• The Batman Adventures: Mad Love: This is how Joker managed to win Harley Quinn over to his side. When she says that the Joker told her "secret things" he'd never told anyone else, Batman rattles off several of the Joker's phony sob stories. Batman also points out to her how the Joker has a "million" of sob stories that he's told to various police officers, psychologists and probation officers to gain sympathy. It nearly convinces Harley to give up on the Joker after realizing what a monster he is, but she later relapses into becoming his moll once again when the Monster Clown sends her a note and flowers. This is later adapted into an episode of The New Batman Adventures.

Batman: You're a fool. The Joker doesn't love anything except maybe himself. Face reality, Harleen — Joker had you pegged for hired help the minute you walked into Arkham.
Harley Quinn: That's not... No. NO! H-He told me things, secret things he never told anyone...
Batman: What did he tell you, Harley? Was it the line about the abusive father, or the one about the alcoholic mom? Of course, the runaway orphan story is particularly moving, too. He's gained a lot of sympathy with that one.
Harley: Stop it! You're making me confused!
Batman: What was it he told that one parole officer? Oh, yes... "There was only one time I ever saw dad really happy. He took me to the ice show when I was seven..."
Harley: Circus. He said it was the circus.
Batman: He's got a million of them, Harley. Like any other comedian, he uses whatever material will work.

• In Catwoman, Selina Kyle's childhood friend Sylvia Sinclair betrays her by allying with Black Mask and telling him her identity. Because of this, Black Mask kidnaps Selina's sister Maggie and her husband Simon Burton. Simon is tortured to death, while Maggie is tortured to insanity. When Selina confronts Sylvia, she thinks that Sylvia betrayed her because, during a heist gone bad, Selina was forced to leave Sylvia to be arrested. However, the true reason she betrayed Selina was that when they were teenagers working the streets together as prostitutes, Sylvia took Selina's place during their first time so Selina wouldn't have to go through with it. Selina didn't know how to handle Sylvia after the incident, which led to Sylvia's hatred of Selina because she felt Selina abandoned her. Selina points out that she was a kid and was afraid. She also says that she was not the only one who had a hard time on the streets and asks Sylvia if she really thinks that justifies what she has done.
• The Killing Joke does this to The Joker, whose "one bad day" proves to be just an excuse as he neither knows nor cares if it actually happened and Batman confronts him on how his attempt to similarly break Commissioner Gordon failed.

  Batman: Despite all your sick, vicious little games, he's as sane as he ever was! So maybe ordinary people don't always crack. Maybe there isn't any need to crawl under a rock with all the other slimey things when trouble hits. Maybe it was just you, all the time!

• This is discussed and justified in Batman: The Ultimate Evil regarding the idea of abuse victims becoming abusers themselves. When Batman brings up how some serial killers claim they were abused as children, social worker Debra Kane immediately states absolving a person of their actions because they were abused as children is bullshit. Debra points out yes, it is possible for an abuse victim to becoming an abuser themselves, but to excuse a person's actions based on such a thing is an insult to the many, many, many survivors who went through similar, if not worse, abuse and never imitated their abusers. As she puts it, abused children don't become killers or rapists because they were abused. They have the potential to become killers, rapists, or abusers themselves depending on what, if any, kind of help they receive to heal.

Films

• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: Terry McGinnis, the protege of the original Batman, relentlessly taunts the Joker and mocks his childish obsession with Batman, pointing out how his decision to become a supervillain after falling into a vat of chemicals has made him insane. This causes the Joker to drop his usual sense of humor and explode in anger. When the Joker flat-out yells "YOU'RE NOT BATMAN!", it's a sign Terry's gotten under his skin in a way Bruce himself never managed.

The Joker: Funny guy...
Terry: Can't say the same for you.
Joker: [throws punch at Terry but misses, runs to desk to grab gun] Impudent brat! Who do you think you're talking to?
Terry: Not a comedian, I'll tell you that.
Joker: [shoots at Terry, but Terry flies up into the rafters] Shut your mouth!
Terry: [uses Batarang to knock Joker's gun out of his hand] The real Batman never talked to you much, did he? That's probably why you were so fixated on him.
Joker: Don't play "psychoanalyst" with me, boy!
Terry: [uses another Batarang to cut power supply] Oh, I don't need a degree to figure you out. The real reason you kept coming back was you never got a laugh out of the old man.
Joker: I'm not hearing this...
Terry: Get a clue, clowny! He's got no sense of humor! He wouldn't know a good joke if it bit him in the cape. Not that you ever had a good joke.
Joker: Shut up! Shut up!
Terry: I mean, joy buzzers, squirting flowers? Lame! Where's the "A" material? Make a face, drop your pants, something!
Joker: Show yourself!
Terry: You make me laugh, but only because I think you're kinda pathetic. [imitates Joker's laugh]
Joker: Stop that!
Terry: So you fell in a tank of acid, got your skin bleached, and decided to become a supervillain. What, you couldn't get work as a rodeo clown?
Joker: Don't you dare laugh at me!
Terry: Why? I thought the Joker always wanted to make Batman laugh!
Joker: YOU'RE NOT BATMAN!

• Joker (2019): Arthur Fleck gets called out by Murray on the latter’s show about how he tries to throw a pity party about how people treat him to justify his inhumane crimes. The cast and crew have repeatedly stated that none of Arthur's actions are remotely justified. (Then again, emphasizing this allows some degree of moral clarity to one of the film's clear messages: when there is no hope for improvement in people's situation, one should not be surprised when the abused becomes the abuser in turn; but at the same time, this does not justify the new "abuser".)

Murray: Okay. So that's it, you're crazy. That's your defense for killing three young men?
Arthur: No. They couldn't carry a tune to save their lives!

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "Trial", Gotham's new District Attorney, Janet van Dorn, blames Batman for the city's problems; she believes that Batman created each of the city's villains and wants to put him on trial. The inmates of Arkham kidnap her and Batman and put Batman on trial, accusing him of creating them, and Janet is given the task of defending him. Throughout the trial, she disproves that Batman is to blame for their crimes, finding that the villains would either blame Batman for their problems when it was their own fault, or denied or downplayed their crimes. At the end of the trial, after showing a successful defense, in her closing argument Janet realizes that she was wrong about Batman "creating" the criminals - even without him, the Rogues would have most likely turned out the same way. While Batman may have inspired some of their costumes and dramatic poses, they made their own choice to become criminals. To her own astonishment, the jury finds Batman not guilty, with the Joker congratulating her.

  Janet: I used to believe Batman was responsible for you people, but now I see nearly everyone here would have ended up exactly the same, Batman or not. Oh, the gimmicks might be different, but you'd all be out there in some form or another, bringing misery to Gotham. The truth is, you created him.

  Joker: Well done, counselor. You've proven that Batman didn't create us. That we in fact messed up our own rotten lives.

• Harley Quinn (2019)
  • Harley blames her criminal life on the fact that her dad is a criminal, and her bad taste in men on her mother's refusal to leave her dad, as well as the Joker himself for turning her into a supervillain, convinced he pushed her into a vat of chemicals. The episode Being Harley Quinn has her go on a Journey to the Center of the Mind, which reveals that Harley has had Ax-Crazy tendencies ever since she was a child, long before Joker ever got to her; her attempts at playing with dolls involved a wife murdering a husband for cheating, she stalked her Celeb Crush to the point legal actions needed to be taken, and she may have killed a girl at her camp for spreading humiliating rumors about her. The final memory reveals that Harley in fact jumped into the chemical vat of her own volition, but repressed that part since it had always been easier to give agency to the Joker and blame him for her turn to villainy. In the end, the Joker didn't corrupt her so much as reawaken what was already there, and Harley acknowledges that she is responsible for her own life and had a choice every step of the way.
  • Dr. Psycho decides, without prompting, to explain his backstory to Darkseid: he couldn't ride a ferris wheel when he was a kid due to his short height, then the wheel collapsed, killing the people on it. The story is a rambling mess having nothing to do with Psycho's misogyny, motivations or even his psychic powers. Darkseid reacts accordingly.