GJRA Abstracts: Aidan Diamond, 'Cross the line’: Vigilante Justice and Batman on Trial in Under the Red Hood

 Once more unto the breach. Here is the paper Aidan Diamond will be presenting at our upcoming GJRA discussions. This paper looks set to be a fascinating contribution that takes a Foucauldian approach to the portrayal of justice within Batman.

Aidan Diamond (Memorial University of Newfoundland), ‘Cross the line’: Vigilante Justice and Batman on Trial in Under the Red Hood  

In this paper, I argue that the character of Jason Todd (the second Robin, Red Hood, and unexpected survivor of the infamous A Death in the Family storyline) performs an incisive critique of and challenge to Batman’s system of justice in Batman: Under the Red Hood (2006). 

Before engaging with Jason Todd’s three main narratives of juridical critique (‘The Second Robin’, Red Hood: The Lost Days, Under the Red Hood), I will contextualise Batman’s system of justice and regulation as exemplified by the enduring conflict between Batman and the Joker, using Michael Smith’s reflection on the Joker’s relationship to ‘Evil’ and Michel Foucault’s ‘About the Concept of the Dangerous Individual’. 

I will then address Jason and the narratives in which he indicts Batman’s approach to justice, revenge, and punishment. In the context of the perspectives offered by Foucault and Smith, I argue that Jason poses a challenge to Batman’s juridical system from within the comics-world. Further, though this challenge is ultimately unsuccessful, I argue that it is significant in that it attempts to hold Batman accountable for his system and its failings, in a mythos that otherwise privileges Batman’s juridical system over any and every challenge. 

Aidan Diamond is finishing her Master’s in English at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has presented in Canada, the UK, and the US; co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Sept. 2017); contributed a chapter to the forthcoming Essays on DC’s Harley Quinn, and an essay to ImageText’s forthcoming publication of the Mixing Visual Media in Comics conference, which she co-organised and moderated. 

GJRA Abstracts: Lynsey Black, ‘Women as Victims – Exploring gender violence through the character of Batgirl/Barbara Gordon’.

Continuing our theme of publishing the abstracts for our forthcoming conference on 4-5 July, here is a great-looking paper from Lynsey Black (University College Dublin): ‘Women as Victims – Exploring gender violence through the character of Batgirl/Barbara Gordon’. 

In the 1988 comic book, Batman: The Killing Joke, the character of Barbara Gordon (alias Batgirl) is attacked by the Joker – shot in the spine and sexually assaulted. The issue became iconic; one of the great Batman/Joker stories. Crucially, it was not created as a classic Batgirl story. Instead, the victimisation of Batgirl saw the character stripped of significance beyond the significance her assault carried for the male characters in the book: Batman, the Joker, and her Police Commissioner father, Jim Gordon. This demonstrates what Gail Simone has called the ‘Women in Refrigerators’ trope within comic books, in which female characters are killed to provide motivation for male characters. Taking a cultural criminological perspective, this paper will examine online reactions to the victimisation of Batgirl, through analysis of responses to a controversial 2015 variant cover of a Batgirl comic which evoked the events of The Killing Joke, as well as the reaction to a new, and also controversial, animated feature film of this comic. The paper explores the characterisation of Batgirl, one of the most recognisable female characters within the superhero genre, with particular reference to her victimisation, and her status as a ‘possession’ belonging to either her father or Batman. Through analysis of online debate, the paper shows the conflict inherent among comics fans on these points and on how the meanings of sexual and gendered victimisation are understood and negotiated within comics fandom.

Lynsey Black is a Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin. Her doctoral research explored women sentenced to death in post-Independence Ireland. Her postdoctoral research is a study of the death penalty in Ireland and Scotland, 1864-1914. Lynsey has previously carried out research on the media use and construction of gender.

GJRA Discussions 2016, Abstract The First: Lisa Macklem on comics and legal education

Ahead of our inaugural Discussions on 4-5 July at St Mary's University, Twickenham, we are happy to start publishing a series of abstracts of papers that will be presented at the conference. Registration remains open - see previous post for the details.

First up is this great-looking paper from Lisa Macklem (University of Western Ontario): 'The Law Doesn’t Have to be Ugly or Boring: A Legal Education in Pictures'. It sounds like it will be a fantastic exploration of how comics can improve legal education.

                          

Access to justice can be thwarted by a basic misunderstanding of or lack of education about the law. Bound by Law? and Music: A History of Theft by James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins, and Keith Aoki, produced by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law, layer the lessons of fair use through the use of metaphor, story, and their own creative commons licenses. Bound by Law? was intended for an audience in the entertainment industry to help dispel myths about their own rights. Cory Doctorow points out that Bound by Law? “is a sensible book about a ridiculous subject. It’s an example of the principle it illustrates” (Introduction). The authors noted that “readers seemed to prefer comic books to our law review articles” (253). Comics provide a non-threatening and non-intimidating medium that welcome readers in who are more familiar and comfortable with the artistic ways of making meaning between word and picture than with the legalese of statutes or law textbooks. Bound by Law? had a specific audience in mind, but the story and medium can educate a broader audience, and Music: A History of Theft deepens the discussion begun in the first volume, adding a further layer of meaning to the principles set out in Bound by Law? This paper will examine the traditional comics tropes that are used to make this difficult subject more accessible without losing academic rigor, proving that the law can be as beautiful as the art it seeks to both nurture and protect.

Lisa Macklem is a PhD Candidate in Law at the University of Western Ontario, Lisa’s Canadian JD is with a specialization in Intellectual Property and Information Technology. Her American LLM is with a specialization in Entertainment and Media law. Lisa holds an MA in Media Studies, and is on the editorial board of The Journal of Fandom Studies and previously was a student editor and then a member of the alumni editorial board for the ABA Journal of International Media and Entertainment Law.

Further Reading:

Aoki, Keith, James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins. Tales From the Public Domain: Bound by Law? Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, 2006, 2008. https://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital/

---. Tales From the Public Domain: Theft: A History of Music. Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, 2017. https://law.duke.edu/musiccomic/

Graphic Justice Discussions 2017: registration now open!

Exciting times here in the GJRA-cave - and no, it's not because we got some nice new crockery from Habitat.

The fun is that the first annual GJRA discussions will be held on Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th of July at St Mary's University, Twickenham. Please register here.

The programme is here.

In the next few days we will be publishing some of the abstracts - so watch this space for some GJRA-tastic blogging.