Skip to main content

The Batman Trilogy: An Ethics of Evil, the Law, and the Rise of Trump’s Fascism in the USA

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Schizoanalytic Ventures at the End of the World

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures ((PSEF))

  • 321 Accesses

Abstract

A schizoanalysis of the Batman Trilogy is ventured here. I explore an ethics of evil in relation to the Law and the rise of Trump’s America First policies. There is a schizophrenic struggle, a conflict between Gothic fear and heroic justice, a thread that I follow through these three films. My intention in this venture is to show how the schizo-paranoid extremes play off of one another as desire and interests are manifested into actions through Batman and his adversaries.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Agamben, Giorgio. (2005). State of Exception. Trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Ben. (2017). “We Will Win Again. We Will Win a Lot: The Affective Styles of Donald Trump.” Society + Space. Available at http://societyandspace.org/2017/02/28/we-will-win-again-we-will-win-a-lot-the-affective-styles-of-donald-trump/#.

  • Benjamin, Walter. (1978). “Critique of Violence.” In Reflections: Walter Benjamin, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Harcourt Brace Jovanovih, Inc. Introduced and Edited, Peter Demetz, 277–300. New York: Schocken Books Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bentham, Jeremy. (1780/2017). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780). London: T. Payne and Son. Available at http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bentham1780.pdf.

  • Brady, William J., Willis, Julian A., Jost, John T., Tucker, Joshua A., and Van Bavel, Jay J. (2017). “Emotion Shapes the Diffusion of Moralized Content in Social Networks.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS) 114(28): 7313–7318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles. (1997). Essays Critical and Clinical. Trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Mark Seen and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Mark. (2006). “Gothic Oedipus: Subjectivity and Capitalism in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 2(2), ISSN 1549-6732.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Christian. (2017). “Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism.” Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 15(1). Available at http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/835/922.

  • Garfield, Leanna. (2016, September 27). “3 Things a MIT Scientist Learned About How Donald Trump Speaks by Studying His Debates.” Business Insider. Available at http://www.businessinsider.de/how-donald-trump-talks-2016-9?r=US&IR=T.

  • Hochschild, Arlie Russell. (2016). Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, Eugene W. (2006). “Affective Citizenship and the Death State.” In Deleuze and the Contemporary World. Ian Buchanan and Adrian Paar, Eds., 161–174. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, Eugene W. (2008). “Schizoanalysis, Nomadology, Fascism.” In Deleuze and Politics. Ian Buchanan and Nicholas Thoburn, Eds., 74–97. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGowan, Todd. (2009). “The Exceptional Darkness of The Dark Knight.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, No. 51. Available at https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/darkKnightKant/.

  • McGowan, Todd. (2012). “Should the Dark Knight Have Arisen?” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, No. 54. Available at https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc54.2012/McGowanDarkKnight/index.html.

  • McWhorter, John. (2016, October 27). “When Linguistic Analysis Goes Horribly Wrong: No, Donald Trump Doesn’t ‘Talk Like a Woman’.” Vox. Available at https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/10/27/13437050/donald-trump-linguistics-politico-female.

  • Ott, Brian L. (2017). “The Age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of Debasement.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34(1): 59–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, Christian Helge and Protevi, John. (2017). “Affective Ideology and Trump’s Popularity.” Unpublished paper. Available at http://www.protevi.com/john/TrumpAffect.pdf.

  • Pfaller, Robert. (2000). Interpassivität: Studien Über Delegiertes Genießen. Vienna and New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Protevi, John. (2000). “A Problem of Pure Matter: Fascist Nihilism in a Thousand Plateaus.” In Nihilism Now! Monsters of Energy. Keith Ansell Pearson and Dian Morgan, Eds., 167–188. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rayman, Joshua. (2017). “Žižek’s Ethics.” International Journal of Žižek Studies 11(2). Available at http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1002.

  • Sharpe, Mathew. (2009). “Of Diabolical Evil, and Related Matters: On Slavoj Žižek’s Reading of Kant’s Practical Philosophy.” International Journal of Žižek Studies 3(3). Available at http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/issue/view/14.

  • Snyder, Timothy. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lesson on the Twentieth Century. London: The Bodley Head.

    Google Scholar 

  • Summer, C., Byers, A., Boochever, R., and Park, G. J. (2012). “Predicting Dark Triad Personality Traits from Twitter Usage and a Linguistic Analysis of Tweets.” 11th International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), vol. 2. IEEE Press. Available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6406767/?reload=true.

  • Treat, Shaun. (2009). “How America Learned to Stop Worrying and Cynically ENJOY! The Post 9/11 Superhero Zeitgeist.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6(1): 103–109.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. (2007). “Radical Evil and a Freudian Category.” Available at http://www.lacan.com/zizlovevigilantes.html.

  • Žižek, Slavoj. (2011). Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the Misuse of a Notion. New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

Filmography

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to jan jagodzinski .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

jagodzinski, j. (2019). The Batman Trilogy: An Ethics of Evil, the Law, and the Rise of Trump’s Fascism in the USA. In: Schizoanalytic Ventures at the End of the World. Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12367-3_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12367-3_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-12366-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-12367-3

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics