Breaking Down Joker

Violence, Loneliness, Tragedy

Sean Redmond, Sean Redmond

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000521610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Culture populaire

Breaking Down Joker offers a compelling, multi-disciplinary examination of a landmark film and media event that was simultaneously both celebrated and derided, and which arrived at a time of unprecedented social malaise. The collection breaks down Joker to explore its aesthetic and ideological representations within the social and cultural context in which it was released.

An international team of authors explore Joker 's sightlines and subtexts, the affective relationships, corrosive ideologies, and damning, if ambivalent, messages of this film. The chapters address such themes as white masculinity, identity and perversion, social class and mobility, urban loneliness, movement and music, and questions of reception and activism.

With contributions from scholars from screen studies, theatre and performance studies, psychology and psychoanalysis, geography, cultural studies, and sociology, this fully interdisciplinary collection offers a uniquely multiple operational cross-examination of this pivotal film text and will be of great importance to scholars, students, and researchers in these areas.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page.

acratic masculinity 104

aggression 68, 132, 178

alienated, alienation 17–18, 26–27, 75, 90, 93–95, 98–99, 120, 162

alt-right groups/movements 81, 82

anarchist rebel clown 83

anti-establishment 83

anti-fans 1

anti-fascist movement 79

anti-intellectualism 203

anti-masculinist position 2

anti-social personality disorders 162

anti-stigma campaigns 162

Arab revolutions 90–100

Argonauts, The 47

attitudes and behaviours 27, 162

Atwood, Margaret 79

audience, reception 6, 91, 147

autotheory 47

Avatar 79

Bainbridge, Caroline 1, 138

bandits 83

Barker, M. 162

Batman 147; mythology 29–30, 32–33; nemesis 132; noir hyperconsciousness in 32–33; violent character 30

Batman Begins 22

Batman Returns 121

Batman Trilogy 15

benevolence 68

Bickle, Travis 135

Black Lives Matter movement 79

blasé attitude 27

blind imitation 83

Blue Angel, The 72

Brief History of Neoliberalism 29

broadcast violence 131

Bronson, Charles 66

Brooker, William 24–25, 29

Brooklyn 54

Brown, Jeffrey 188

Buck, Joe 28

Bukatman, Scott 30

Burton, Tim 121–123

Bush-Cheney era 124

Cabanas, Edgar 208

Canby, Vince...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Breaking down Joker: Violence, loneliness, tragedy
• Section I Divided space
• Section II Mediated uprisings
• Section III Violating genre
• Section IV Breaking the ideal man
• Index