Framing the Mentally Ill
from Bright Lights Film Journal
An Anarchist-Theoretical Understanding of Two “Jokers” by David Christopher
This article aims to demonstrate the ways in which media interests at the levels of cinematic production through to their journalistic reception work to control and marginalize certain progressive ideologies that run counter to their interests, in this particular case by deploying widespread stereotypes of mental illness and instability that map neatly, in the arena of normative ideology, onto the image of the insane clown (always an “anarchist”). It also intends, more specifically, to demonstrate the ways in which progressive anarchist philosophy remains an ideological scapegoat for even ostensibly left-inflected political stances.