More Than the Hood Was Red
More Than the Hood Was Red
The Joker as Marxist
Engaging the Joker’s potential for political symbolism, Richard D Heldenfels suggests we read the character as a manifestation of Marxist thinking. Rather than seeing the Clown Prince in traditional ways – as insane, as an anarchist – Heldenfels suggests that “a crucial distinction between anarchists and Marxists involves the concentration of power,” and that the Joker, in fact, rejects some but not all authority, reserving his own power to guide the masses along his path. Moreover, reading the Joker as Marxist is the necessary and preliminary step toward reading the Caped Crusader – since Batman is framed as the Joker’s antithesis – as fundamentally capitalist.
Keywords: Marxist, Anarchists, The Clown Prince, Proletariat, Capitalist
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