The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime

292 Pages·2015·8.264 MB·English

by  Robert Moses Peaslee, Robert G. Weiner

The Joker

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The Joker
A Serious Study of the
Clown Prince of Crime
edited by
robert Moses Peaslee
and robert G. Weiner
UniversiTy Press of MississiPPi  Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Peter D. Halverson
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
American University Presses.
Copyright © 2015 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2015
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Joker : a serious study of The Clown Prince of Crime / edited by Robert
Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62846-238-8 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-62674-679-4 (ebook)
1. Joker (Fictitious character) 2. Comic books, strips, etc.—United States—
History and criticism. 3. Literature and society—United States. I. Peaslee,
Robert Moses, 1973– editor. II. Weiner, Robert G., 1966– editor.
PN6728.J65J648 2015
741.5’973—dc23
2014042189

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
conTenTs
acknowledgments
ix
foreword
xi
Steve englehar t
introduction
xiv
rober t g. Weiner and rober t Mo SeS PeaSlee
i. The chanGeable TricksTer
shifting Makeups
The Joker as Performance Style from Romero to Ledger 3
dan haSSoun
Does the Joker have six-inch Teeth?
19
roy t. Cook
lady haha
Performativity, Super-sanity, and the Mutability of Identity 33
eri C garneau
episodes of Madness
Representations of the Joker in Television and Animation 49
david ray Car ter
ii. The Joker anD The PoliTical
The obama-Joker
Assembling a Populist Monster 65
eMManuelle We SSel S and Mark Mar tinez
vi Content S
kiss with a fist
The Gendered Power Struggle of the Joker and Harley Quinn 82
toSha taylor
More Than the hood Was red
The Joker as Marxist 94
riChard d. heldenfel S
iii. The DiGiTal Joker
never Give ’em What They expect
The Joker Ethos as the Zeitgeist of Contemporary Digital Subcultural
Transgression 109
vyShali Maniv annan
Playing (with) the villain

Critical Play and the Joker-as-Guide in Batman: Arkham Asylum 129
kri Stin M. S. bezio
“Why so serious?”
Warner Bros.’ Use of the Joker in Marketing The Dark Knight 146
kiM oWCzar Ski
iv. Joker Theory
rictus Grins and Glasgow smiles
The Joker as Satirical Discourse 165
Johan nilSSon
The Joker, clown Prince of nobility
The “Master” Criminal, Nietzsche, and the Rise of the Superman 179
ryan litSey
The Joker Plays the king
Archetypes of the Underworld in Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth 194
hannah Mean S-Shannon
Content S vii
Making sense squared
Iteration and Synthesis in Grant Morrison’s Joker 209
Mark P . Willia MS
“you complete Me”
The Joker as Symptom 229
MiChael goodru M
afterword
243
Will brooker
contributors
246
index
252

acknoWleDGMenTs
The editors would like to extend their gratitude to a number of individuals
whose efforts contributed to the completion of this volume.
Our thanks, first, to all the volume’s contributors, whose skill and patience
have been necessary in equal measure to our process over the past several
months. A big thank-you to Steve Englehart for his fine foreword, and to Dr.
Will Brooker for his afterword. Thanks also to Vijay Shah, Katie Keene, and
the staff of the University Press of Mississippi for seeing the value in this
work, and to our reviewers for their helpful and incisive comments.
Thanks, also, to Justin Eatherly, Robin Haislett, and Jennifer Huemmer,
whose logistical support at the beginning and end of the manuscript’s pro-
duction were invaluable.
Special dedication to those who are not forgotten in their role toward cre-
ating such a compelling character: Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson. To all those
who contributed to the Joker mythos (in film, art, and narrative), your work
stands as testament to the power of good storytelling.
Robert Moses Peaslee
I would like to offer profound and loving thanks to Kate Peaslee, whose un-
yielding support means and facilitates everything. This book is for Coen,
who loves Batman, and Hazel, for whom I hope popular culture will continue
to develop more active and powerful female characters. I would also like to
thank Todd Chambers, Kent Wilkinson, Jimmie Reeves, and Glenn Cum-
mins, for their continuing collegiality and mentorship; David Perlmutter and
Jerry Hudson, for vision and opportunity; my students, for making clear to
me how important it is that we study these “silly” things; and my mom and
late dad, for putting me in a position to write anything at all coherent. Finally,
thanks to Rob Weiner, who knows more than I do about so many things, but
ix