On the online protest site LIHKG, one commentator described the Joker as "the symbol of the resistance and the spiritual leader of the rebels." However, posts such as these attract downvotes on the site, according to CNN. Some protesters in Hong Kong have distanced themselves from the use of the character. In Joker, Money Heist and V for Vendetta, the public don the masks as part of mass protests, meaning it’s also a case of life imitating art. “It’s something that you would have seen in an entertainment framework, but that is now in a political framework, and hence the protest becomes entertaining,” says Korkut. The next day, people came to the protest dressed as penguins, and the animal became one of the most recognisable symbols associated with the movement.Īside from having the functional purpose of concealing the wearer’s identity, masks from films and television are visually striking and invite public and media attention. Instead of covering the protests, state-controlled media aired a penguin documentary. Korkut uses the example of the protests in Gezi Park, Istanbul in 2013, which attracted three million people. Humour can be a powerful tool in the protest arsenal. “If you can depict the authorities’ political ideology as absurd, you're taking away their claim to legitimacy.” “If you humourise this thing, you show that there's an absurdity to it,” says Korkut. But deploying a dash of humour in protest materials also has a more serious side. “There's definitely mocking elements there,” says Umut Korkut, professor of International Politics at the Glasgow School for Business and Society. But it’s likely protesters aren’t entirely straight-faced in their co-opting of pop culture icons.
“The V for Vendetta mask is synonymous with the Occupy movement, but at any protest, anywhere in the world in the last ten years, somebody is selling these masks,” says McGarry.Īll protest iconography is a form of shorthand – a way of quickly communicating what you’re all about. Famously, the Occupy movement didn’t have any set demands, it was more about raising awareness about economic inequality and the risks of precarity. When a pop culture symbol isn’t tethered to any particular political demands, it becomes fluid. “It's almost like a blank screen where you can project your own preoccupations.” “In some ways, it opens itself up to interpretation,” says Mattias Frey, professor of film and media at the University of Kent. But it’s the film’s lack of commitment to a set of political beliefs that might have primed it for appropriation.
In Joker, Fleck unwittingly becomes the figurehead of an anti-government protest movement, pointedly declaring himself “not political”. “The cultural artefacts and iconography make them feel that they are part of something – it shows solidarity.” “Protests come after a period where people feel that they are excluded, they're marginalised, they are actively silenced or ignored in different ways,” says Aidan McGarry, lecturer in international politics at the University of Loughborough with a specialism in the aesthetics of protest movements. It seems these protestors see parallels between the film’s themes and their own struggles. In Chile, protesters are revolting against the right-wing government whose policies have pushed the cost of living out of reach for many of its poorer citizens in Beirut, they are are demanding the removal of the entire ruling class, which is seen as corrupt and incompetent in Catalonia, they object to draconian sentences doled out to leaders of the independence movement by the Spanish government, and in Hong Kong, they’re pushing back against increasing Chinese oversight. It’s these themes – and the attendant backlash against an uncaring ruling class – that seem to be resonating with protest movements across the world.
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