I was just reading arkham asylum (the grant morrison comic) and on the section were they show the script, on the introduction of joker's character, there's an entire paragraph redacted. Do you know if there is an unredacted version somewhere in the wild?
Looks like this was the original paragraph which was then redacted (thanks internet Archive!) - looks like DC yoinked it because it was very drag/inferring of his homosexuality, though it screams that elsewhere in the script lol. The original description was, as described by Morrison:
"The main doors of the asylum are open and the Joker stands on the threshold, posed enticingly, like a calendar cutie. He is dressed as "Madonna," in a black basque, seamed tights and lace-up stiletto boots (from "Open Your Heart" video). His face is a grinning horror mask of powder and paint - his eyes are heavily made up with kohl eyeliner, mascara and false eyelashes. His lips are a screaming scarlet and his skin is whiter than bone. His hair is gelled up into green spikes. An anarchy "A" badge is pinned to one of the basque's empty cups. Pale and emaciated, he should look simply grotesque but standing there, hand on one thrust-out hip, he projects an absolute confidence that confers upon him a bizarre kind of attractiveness and sexuality. It is the attraction of the perverse and forbidden. The Joker personifies the irrational dark side of us all."
I've read they yoinked it, too, because Batman the Tim Burton movie had just come out & they didn't want any inferences regarding the Joker's actor, Jack Nicholson:
https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/film/features/peoples-joker-transgender-superhero-movies-38542/#:~:text=We%20were%20supposed%20to%20get,as%20those%20of%20his%20foes.
“The Joker was to have been dressed in the conical bra worn by Madonna for her ‘Open Your Heart’ video,” Morrison wrote in their nonfiction book Supergods. However, DC had a corporate parent, and it had been none too happy with the initial script: “Warner Bros. objected to my portrayal on the grounds that it would encourage the widespread belief that Jack Nicholson, the feted actor lined up to play the Joker in an upcoming $40 million Batman movie, was a transvestite.” Warners was so outraged that it had threatened to cancel the comic entirely. Ultimately, Morrison compromised and was allowed to have artist Dave McKean briefly depict Joker in high heels, but that was it.
