That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore: A Critical exploration of The Joker

 

The Joker (Phillips, 2019) has immediately become both a celebrated and derided film and media text: opening up a sea of reviews, interpretations, and critical responses. The mainstream media has poured over it, fans and anti-fans have communed around it, and academics have taken up polar positions on its messages, ideologies, and aesthetics. The film has broken opening weekend box office records while its lead star, Joaquin Phoenix, has been both chastised during interviews and openly hostile to the type of effects-driven question he has been set. 

 

The Joker arrives at a time of arguably unprecedented social malaise: it speaks to the culture of loneliness, toxic masculinity, the crisis in whiteness, the break down in social networks, the expanding gap between rich and poor, and to the anger and rage that has entered discourse more broadly. It does this in ways which provokes and angers some and moves others.

 

In this proposed Special Edition, we seek to explore the sightlines and subtexts, the affective shapes, corrosive ideologies and damning messages of this film.  Papers can address the following indicative topics but should also navigate their own course:

 

 

 

Abstracts of 250 words to Sean Redmond by November 1st 2019:  [log in to unmask]

 

All the best,

Sean

 

 


Important Notice: The contents of this email are intended solely for the named addressee and are confidential; any unauthorised use, reproduction or storage of the contents is expressly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please delete it and any attachments immediately and advise the sender by return email or telephone.

Deakin University does not warrant that this email and any attachments are error or virus free. --------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA mailing list
--------------------------------------------------------
To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1
-------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education.

This mailing list is a free service and is not restricted to members. It is an unmoderated list and content reflect the views of those who post to the list and not of MeCCSA as an organisation.

MeCCSA recommends that the list be used only for posting of information (for example about events, publications, conferences, lectures) of interest to members or to promote discussion of current issues of wide general interest in the field. Posts to the MeCCSA mailing list are public, indexed by Google, and can be accessed from the JISCMail website (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/meccsa.html).

Any messages posted to the list are subject to the JISCMail acceptable use policy, which states that users should avoid “engaging in unreasonable behaviour, or disrupting the general flow of discussion on a list.”

For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/
--------------------------------------------------------