A city without a hero: Joker and rethinking hegemony

Abstract

The relationship between Batman and the Joker is usually presented as one of opposites: good vs. evil, justice vs. crime, order vs. chaos. Batman has been described as a fictional agent of hegemony, enforcing societal rules and preserving norms, and this role as a defender of the status quo is never more obvious than when he is battling the Joker’s lethal form of anarchy. The recent Joker movie details his origin in a Gotham City before Batman existed, thus eliminating half of the balance. This article argues that the absence of Gotham’s iconic hero recontextualizes the way ideas of hegemony are presented in Joker. The film inverts the typical narrative of the Batman story and reveals the failings of hegemony set in a more realistic environment. The sympathetic focus on the Joker positions him as an hero for the subaltern, a champion of chaos, rather than the traditional valorization of Batman as a enforcer of the status quo. Joker’s twist on the Batman/Joker relationship introduces a different perspective on the superhero genre that questions (and leads viewers to question) the hegemonic class agenda that lays beneath what is framed as an innocent fantasy of caped crusaders.

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