glitter_n_gore

Earlier this year, there was a special theatrical release of the animated adaptation of the classic Alan Moore graphic novel. It’s a short, controversial volume that includes the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to a Joker origin story. It also codified some of the nastier tropes associated with comics--sexualized violence, fridging, all those awful things we’re trying to get away from by bringing in more diverse writers and content creators instead of leaving the industry as a Boys Club. This is the story in which Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl in this particular timeline, gets brutalized and paralyzed from the waist down--all in service of the Joker trying to prove a point. And the way the Joker does this is utterly revolting.

So I’m aware that my feminist street cred will likely plummet when I tell you: it is one of my favorite graphic novels of all time. And this movie is the most perfect version of it we’ll ever see. Let’s talk about why.


Book cover of The Killing Joke; links to GoodReads page

( There were these two guys in a lunatic asylum. . . )