The Volokh Conspiracy - The Obama/Joker Poster Is Racist, Says a <i>Washington Post</i> Article by the Newspaper's Culture Critic:

How is that, pray tell? Here's the argument:

Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the "urban" makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can't openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city, a source of political instability in the 1960s and '70s, and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness despite falling crime rates.

The Joker's makeup in "Dark Knight" -- the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world -- emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks -- the thinking goes -- don't just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea. Violence breeds violence.

It is an ugly idea, operating covertly in that gray area that is always supposed to be opened up to honest examination whenever America has one of its "we need to talk this through" episodes. But it lingers, unspoken but powerful, leaving all too many people with the sense that exposure to crime creates an ineluctable propensity to crime.

Superimpose that idea, through the Joker's makeup, onto Obama's face, and you have subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to accomplish an association between Obama and the unpredictable, seeming danger of urban life. It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama's association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can't be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he's black.

Joker = "urban" = "inner city" = black. True, he's white, Heath Ledger is white, but ... But what exactly? All references to white "urban" criminals are actually secretly to blacks? The references to William Ayers were, too?

Also, if we're looking for supposed racial connections here, wouldn't the Socialism reference cut the other way? Karl Marx, François Mitterand, Bernie Sanders, no? Or does even Socialism (which to Americans is mostly a European phenomenon, with pockets of support among mostly white prominent American liberal academics) still become black when coupled with the Joker -- who is white but of course black because he's urban and a criminal?

Quite an argument, it seems to me. Thanks to Jules Crittenden for the pointer.

	[Eugene Volokh, August 6, 2009 at 1:46pm] Trackbacks The Obama/Joker Poster Is Racist, Says a Washington Post Article by the Newspaper's Culture Critic: How is that, pray tell? Here's the argument: Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the "urban" makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can't openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city, a source of political instability in the 1960s and '70s, and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness despite falling crime rates. The Joker's makeup in "Dark Knight" -- the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world -- emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks -- the thinking goes -- don't just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea. Violence breeds violence. It is an ugly idea, operating covertly in that gray area that is always supposed to be opened up to honest examination whenever America has one of its "we need to talk this through" episodes. But it lingers, unspoken but powerful, leaving all too many people with the sense that exposure to crime creates an ineluctable propensity to crime. Superimpose that idea, through the Joker's makeup, onto Obama's face, and you have subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to accomplish an association between Obama and the unpredictable, seeming danger of urban life. It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama's association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can't be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he's black. Joker = "urban" = "inner city" = black. True, he's white, Heath Ledger is white, but ... But what exactly? All references to white "urban" criminals are actually secretly to blacks? The references to William Ayers were, too? Also, if we're looking for supposed racial connections here, wouldn't the Socialism reference cut the other way? Karl Marx, François Mitterand, Bernie Sanders, no? Or does even Socialism (which to Americans is mostly a European phenomenon, with pockets of support among mostly white prominent American liberal academics) still become black when coupled with the Joker -- who is white but of course black because he's urban and a criminal? Quite an argument, it seems to me. Thanks to Jules Crittenden for the pointer.