Interpreting and Transmitting Kynicism in Joker: The Dark Side of Film Fandom [Hardcover]

Interpreting and Transmitting Kynicism inJoker: The Dark Side of Film Fandomfocuses on fan discourse and discussion surrounding Todd PhillipssJoker(2019), analyzing how white nationalist movie fans code racist, sexist, ableist, and otherwise marginalizing logics into seemingly innocuous speech. Kyle A. Hammonds posits that, by arguing that their communication is just their interpretation of a movie, rather than explicitly political speech, white nationalists can communicate bigoted, extremist rhetoric under the pretext of good-faith film criticism. Hammonds leverages hermeneutic traditions often overlooked in communication and fan studies research to argue that interpretation is the key element of fan communication processes in struggles for authority over the meaning of textsand that fan communities have a civic duty to identify and delegitimize exclusionary interpretations of pop culture in their fandom.Kyle A. Hammondsis assistant professor of instruction at the University of Texas  Dallas.

Kynicism inJoker chronicles how even though the white make-up on the Jokers face has lessened over time, white nationalists embrace of the villainous character, and use of him to further their causes, reached new heights with the 2019 movieJoker. Masquerading as film critiques, Hammonds breaks down how white nationalist movie fans differentially employ the film to fit their forgotten [white] man victimhood narratives or ceaseless urging for hypermasculinity. Avoiding reductionism, Hammonds deftly dissects how fans and fandoms can co-opt and reappropriate pop culture objects to reinforce their ideologies and create filmosophies that, in this case, show the dark underbelly of fandom and its power. Lindsey Meeks, University of Oklahoma

WhileJokermight ostensibly seek to give insight into the mind of its villainous protagonist, this book examines how the subtext of the film presents white nationalists the olÓu