Joker Masks Are Taking The Place of Guy Fawkes Masks at Protests

As Joker continues to dominate the box office and the meme sphere, the clown prince of crime can be seen in another, more unlikely venue: protest demonstrations.

There’s a Joker facepaint station at the protests in Beirut pic.twitter.com/C7BSRyOjS1

— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 18, 2019

Protesters in Lebanon, Chile and Hong Kong have taken to donning Joker masks and face paint at their demonstrations, making Joker the latest recognizable fictional character to symbolize the various ire of political movements. Speaking to France24, William Blanc, a historian and author of Super Heroes: A Political History, explained Joker "echoes a form of protest against a political system that people believe is inflexible and not listening to the people."

Hong Kong in particular has practical reasons for wearing masks at protests, as police are allegedly using face-recognition technology to identify protestors. This has led to the adoption of many interesting faces at protests, such as Winnie the Pooh, LeBron James and Pepe. While these masks have political and meme-y motivations, Joker, much like Guy Fawkes before him, appears to be resonating across the globe.

Protestors in Hong Kong are donning Joker and Pepe the Frog masks in protest of China#ClownWorld pic.twitter.com/1FzDplNAx6

— PillerBoyz™ (@pillerboyz) October 20, 2019

In Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, the protagonist wears the Guy Fawkes mask while battling against a corrupt, totalitarian government. Joker, by contrast, has always been a more apolitical character, promoting a kind of general chaos over a real governmental distaste. Blanc states there's quite a bit the two characters have in common. The two “are both victims of power and are determined to get their revenge," he explains. "They share the fact that their bodies have been deformed by social violence. They smile while in so much pain as their way of saying ‘You may have hurt me, but I am strong enough to respond with a smile, I am in control’."

However, whereas Fawkes became adopted by political groups such as Anonymous during the Bush years and has orchestrated various stings over their life, Joker's apolitical character speaks to a different kind of unrest which makes him popular at protests. According to Blanc, the Todd Phillips Joker "speaks mainly of being alone, separated from any sense of a collective. This isolation is a real contemporary evil."

Put another way, whereas Guy Fawkes may have been good for the Bush years, the crushing existential dread of the modern era has made Joker a more resonant figure for the politically-conscious of the modern era.