A funny taste: Clowns and Cannibals

Jürgens, Anna-Sophie

doi:10.1080/2040610x.2018.1494358

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 11 publications

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“…For instance, Futureama's electrical rides enjoyed first by private Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Andrea, and later Joker, recall mechanical rides from pleasure parks. With his background in, and primal connection to, the world of popular entertainment -violent pantomimes in particular -this is a perfect 'home' for Joker, whose intrinsic link to popular spectacle I have discussed elsewhere in detail (Jürgens, 2014(Jürgens, , 2018. Since wrecking his environment has been a favourite pastime of the Joker character ever since its creation, it is only too obvious that in Mask of the Phantasm he is utterly in his element when it comes to the destruction of the iconic model city Futureama.…”

Section: Stages Of Yesterday's Technological Future In Mask Of the Phmentioning

confidence: 99%

Batman and the World of Tomorrow: Yesterday’s Technological Future in the Animated Film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Jürgens

2020

Animation

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Examining facets of modernist visions of our technological future and of theatricalized city and stage spaces in the 1993 animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, this article explores the cultural meaning of technology in graphic fiction. The confrontation scene between Batman and Joker in the grounds of Gotham’s World’s Fair, the author argues, echoes the 1939 New York World’s Fair with its modernist urban optimism and pop cultural fascination with new visionary technologies, as well as the modern history of moving pictures and multi-media spectacle. The article spotlights the power of the Batman story to participate in, and contribute towards, complex cultural inquiry and transmedial discourses around technology and popular entertainments. Through the exquisite medium of animation – which allows animated characters to be placed on an abstract architectural city stage – Mask of the Phantasm also embodies modernist visions of the ‘ideal’ stage character in a medium that creates non-realist art and more complex possibilities for movement, thus transporting modernist thinking into the 20th century.

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Section: Stages Of Yesterday's Technological Future In Mask Of the Phmentioning

confidence: 99%