The Joker r e r k e o k jThe o j 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