Joker’s Techno-Scientific Delights: Mannerist Science and Technology in the Animated Joker Universe

Allowing for the unanticipated to occur and offering “a particular field for rethinking the relation of the virtual as not opposed to the real, but as wholly real in itself” (Thain 2016, 5), the medium of animation is able to go beyond reality, and (in so doing) allows new artistic expressions at the intersection of body and movement, the renegotiation of the human being and its relationship to machines, and experimentation with the cultural meaning of science and technology. Numerous animated Batman films explore our cultural fascination with new visionary technologies and sciences (for an overview of the role of animation in Batman’s long history of multimedia storytelling, see Carter 2015; Martin 2020). While much has been written on Batman’s futuristic vehicles, technological gadgets and techno-stunts, the Joker’s way of representing fantasies of our technological future and scientific extravaganzas has barely been discussed. In this article, I want to spotlight the power of the Joker in animated adaptations of the Batman story (direct-to-home-media releases in the ‘DC Universe Animated Movie’ series) to participate in, and contribute towards, complex cultural inquiry and transmedial discourses around technology and science. As we will see, Joker’s science worlds are mannerist worlds, and thus expressions of a particular facet of fantasy.