I watched Batman: The Killing Joke so You Don’t Have to
He doesn’t know you. He’s objectifying you.
Early on in Batman: The Killing Joke Batman tells Barbara/Batgirl that a criminal is objectifying her, by sending her a video in which he flirts with her. The line may as well be describing the entire animated feature. 
Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke has been widely considered one of the finest Batman stories ever penned. First published in the mid-’80s, the story was dark, violent, and unflinchingly twisted. It is also, arguably, one of the first appearances as the Joker as an agent of chaos.
It has also been a subject of great debate because of its treatment of Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl. The story begins with the Joker shooting Barbara (thus crippling her and giving birth to Oracle), in effort to break Commissioner Gordon. People have often argued that Barbara was treated terribly simply to spurn Batman to action and to torture her father, making her a step away from a “girl in a freezer.” I disagree with the argument, but I understand why some people hold to it.
Having said that, if you did fall on the side of thinking Moore’s shooting of Barbara was shameful, than you’ll find Batman: The Killing Joke downright disgraceful. Because it is. Somehow the animated feature managed to take a questionable moment and made it so blatantly disrespectful to the character, I was seething mad watching.
The first twenty-or-so minutes of the movie have nothing to do with the source material, but instead focuses on a flimsy mobster story that revolves around Barbara, and her one-sided love affair with Batman. Yes, you read that correctly. Barbara plays Batman’s sole student, and the love-sick girl. When pitted against a mobster who flirts with her, it brings Batman’s and Batgirl’s flirtation to a head, ultimately resulting in a sexual encounter on a rooftop.
Naturally, Batman decides this was a mistake, and gives Barbara the cold shoulder, which results in her nearly beating a man to death, and ultimately retiring as Batgirl. At this point, the animated feature attempts to pick up the threads of the graphic novel (mostly) faithfully. The problem is, the initial story casts a heavy shadow over an iconic tale.
Truth be told, if you skipped over the entire intro section, it’s not a terrible representation of The Killing Joke. The animation is a little subpar, but Conroy and Hamill reading Moore’s dialog is a fan’s dream come true. Hearing Mark Hamill explain that the Joker prefers to have his backstory be multiple choice gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling that was still tarnished by a forced romantic subplot.
I think why it upset me so very much was that The Killing Joke was always a very real and deep look at Batman’s and the Joker’s relationship. The story — both the graphic novel and the animated feature — truly understood the underlying workings of their cat and mouse tale. Brian Azzarello, of all people should know that that is the core of the story. The side plot with Barbara not only cheapened this, it also completely and utterly changed a long-standing, established relationship with Batman and Batgirl.
Batgirl had always been Batman’s brightest pupil, but much like her long-running romantic interest, Dick Grayson (aka Robin and Nightwing), Barbara was always much like a surrogate child to Batman. Likewise, Batman was like another father to Barbara. Suddenly linking the two romantically just feels wrong on many levels.
It’s woefully disappointing that such a talented writer (Azzarello) made such an egregious error with such a classic story. Animation quality aside, Batman: The Killing Joke is pretty damn good when it merely brings the graphic novel to life. The initial Barbara story is so woefully out of place in both tone and subject matter, it boggles the mind why this was included.
It’s worst crime, though, aside from completely and utterly failing Barbara Gordon’s character, is that it diminishes the rest of the story. The Killing Joke was a nigh perfect story, it didn’t need any help.
