Does the Joker: Folie à Deux team know what a musical is?

While in Venice, for Joker: Folie à Deux's premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Lady Gaga commented on the movie and its music.

"I think the way we approach music in this film is very special and extremely nuanced. I wouldn't necessarily say that this is a musical. In a lot of ways it's very different," Gaga said. "The way the music is used is to give the characters a way to express what they need to say because the scene and dialogue is just not enough."

Last month, director Todd Phillips said nearly the exact same thing to Variety.

"Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It's just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead," Phillips said.

"I just don't want people to think that it's like In the Heights, where the lady in the bodega starts to sing and they take it out into the street, and the police are dancing," he added. "No disrespect, because I loved In the Heights."

"We asked ourselves, what would need to be true for two people to just break into song in the middle of a conversation?" Gaga added. "Where does the music come from when no one can hear it but the characters? Neither Arthur nor Lee (her character's name in the film) are professional singers, and they shouldn't sound like they are."

Phoenix agreed that "it was important to me that we never perform the songs as one typically does in a musical. We didn't want vibrato and perfect notes."

So, according to the Joker 2 team, their film isn't a musical, but is instead a film where the main characters break into song to describe their feelings when spoken dialogue isn't enough. And also, the characters sing like they would exist in the world of the movie, not on a Broadway stage.

So, how does that differ from a traditional musical? Let's find out.

According to NoFilmSchool.com, a musical is a film where "characters break into song and choreographed dance routines, allowing their emotions, thoughts, and motivations to be expressed in a lyrical and often larger-than-life manner."

In other words, when a character can't express the enormity of what they need to say through regular dialogue, they break into song.

Larry A. Brown, a professor of theater, adds that the function of a song in a musical is not just entertainment value, but to "develop story, mood, and theme, communicating the drama through music."

"Songs should express the deepest thoughts and feelings of the characters at that moment," he says. "Lyrics describe specific actions and events within the story and follow the natural speech patterns of the characters in the vernacular of the play. The characters of Oklahoma! speak and sing as westerners, not opera virtuosos."

Again, this seems hauntingly similar to what Phillips, Gaga, and Phoenix have said about Joker 2.

The original teaser trailer also shows some glimpses of the musical numbers, including ones that seemingly involve people other than Arthur and Lee joining in, particularly one where Arthur is walking while in jail and imagines that the umbrellas surrounding him are colorful, and other scenes where the pair appear in a nightclub setting that is presumably just in their imagination and on a musical set in what appears to be a wedding.

Now, we know that Gaga knows what a musical is. She is a gay icon, a theater kid, and has starred in a non-musical music movie before (A Star is Born). Has she been handed a script to say that Joker 2 isn't a musical?

We know that other movies like the recent Mean Girls musical adaptation have hidden that the film is a musical in trailers, is that what's going on here?

Is Gaga being forced to say Joker 2 isn't a musical to maximize the number of straight guys willing to go see it? Gaga, please twice if they're standing behind you making you say this.