- Title
- From Clown Prince to critical phenomenon: Fashioning the Joker as a nomadic war machine
- Creator
- Goldmann, Talya
- Subject
- Joker -- (Fictitious character)
- Subject
- Comic books, strips, etc. -- United States -- History and criticism
- Subject
- Literature and society -- United States
- Date Issued
- 2024-04
- Date
- 2024-04
- Type
- Master's theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/62769
- Identifier
- vital:72941
- Description
- Based on the original clown prince of crime in the DC comic books, the Joker is one of the most notorious villains in cinematic history. He originated in the comic book Batman #1 (Finger, 1940) over eighty years ago, and he remains a prominent character across a myriad of media platforms. In film and television, the Joker has appeared in major and minor roles in approximately nine animated series, eighteen animated films, six live-action series, and five live-action films. Indeed, multiple roles, actors, and decades after the character’s first debut in the Batman television series (1966), the Joker continues to be well-received and sought-after, insofar as every time a new Joker is announced, the character garners more intensive publicity and the film as a whole becomes highly anticipated. Thus, what started as a simple clownish character in the role of a minor villain in Batman (1966), has evolved into a multi-faceted villain so captivating that he has recently earned his own stand-alone films, namely Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019), and the sequel, Joker Folie à Deux (2024) – where he is no longer the antagonist, but now the protagonist. In this research, firstly, key features of the Deleuzoguattarian schema relevant to this study will be presented, before capitalism – as the context of Batman’s Gotham – is considered through a Deleuzoguattarian lens. This study will delve into what makes the beloved Joker so extraordinary along with the aesthetic features associated with his meteoric rise to fame. In this regard, what will be theorized is that the Joker constitutes an example of a Deleuzean nomadic war machine: that is, a critical character who borrows aspects of the State Apparatus and then twists and shapes them into weapons through which he questions and mocks society for its authoritarian and ideological flaws, and with which he exposes its conceptual and ethical blind spots. In this way, he acts like a mirror, reflecting what is wrong with society, and by implication, with the human ‘nature’ – not only in the fictional world of Gotham, but also in the contemporary era created therein. More specifically, discourse analysis and film analysis will be used here, to engage critically with the Joker’s persona in relation to the changing contexts in which the various films were made, in order to trace the development of the character through a Deleuzoguattarian lens. As will be discussed, Phillips’ Joker (2019) signals the deterritorialization of the Joker from the ambit of Batman’s influence, and opens up the possibility for his further deterritorialization as an increasingly mobile and nomadic catalyst of critical thinking beyond even Gotham itself. Then, thirdly, an in-depth analysis on the five key cinematic Jokers will be completed in terms of the characters’ historical contexts, character backgrounds, and aesthetics. And thereafter, the deterritorializing ‘line of flight’ already underway – as by Phillips’ Joker (2019) – will be continued through the creative media production component of this study, which will entail the conceptualization, design and illustration of three new Joker manifestations, each of which will reflect critically upon failing systems in South African society across select time periods, and how these failing systems have contributed to the collective trauma of marginalized groups of people. The first South African Joker manifestation, set in the 1980s, will reflect upon the faltering political infrastructure during the Apartheid era. The second Joker manifestation, set in the early 2000s, will encapsulate the repercussions of the post-Apartheid neoliberal economic landscape. And the third Joker manifestation, set in the 2010s, will draw attention to sociocultural collapse particularly in the space of gender-based violence and sexual assault. Thus, the creation of these Jokers will act as an exploration of trauma, insofar as the tragedy and pain caused by the above-mentioned failing systems will manifest physically through their character designs. In terms of this, and in keeping with the dynamics of appropriation and inflection that are definitive of nomadic war machines, here focus will fall on how their character aesthetics pose critical questions about relevant issues in the South Africa. On account of this, although this research is by definition situated within the spectacle/performance paradigm, it also runs counter to the largely apolitical orientation of creative media production that occurs therein, through its emphasis, instead, on how such creative media production can also entail critical thought that is aimed at thematizing socio-cultural and politico-economic issues and the trauma that they create; thus, this creative media component aims to encourage a more trauma-aware society through art.
- Description
- Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Language, Media and Communication, 2023
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (215 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Humanities
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
- Hits: 278
- Visitors: 270
- Downloads: 14
Collections
NMU School of Language, Media and Culture
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Brokensha,T April 2024.pdf | 12 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |