Joker Poster

In the interview with Shepard Fairey a student mentioned the “Joker Poster” and I wasn’t familiar with it so I looked it up. The joker poster is a picture of Barack Obama that is altered to make him look like the Joker from the popular movie “The Dark Knight”. It also has the word “Socialism” written across the bottom. This poster has a rather odd source of origin as the image was created by Firas Alkhateeb, a 20 year old college student. He uploaded the image onto the internet and from there someone took the image and added the word “Socialism” at the bottom and then began spreading this new image as a poster in L.A. Since its introduction to the streets this poster has got the attention of the media over and over again and has spread all over the world. One of the most interesting things I read while researching this was the fact that President Obama personally wrote to Shepard Fairey thanking him for putting up the Obama Hope posters which were a form of street art but for these Joker poster’s the president is hysterically demanding that arrests be made. While this doesn’t surprise me it does make me laugh at the fact that street art is ok as long as it’s supporting him. 

The Joker poster has even been used by some people in anti-Obama protests with the phrase “Why so socialist?” as a play on the famous line from the movie “Why so serious?” that was said by the Joker. From all that I’ve read many agree that the actual message and thought process behind this poster is rather poor. Just one example is the fact that the poster has Obama labeled as “Socialism” instead of “Socialist”. Perhaps it is because of this fact that I’m so intrigued by this poster, it’s just is a good example of the power of images. By portraying Obama as the Joker, who is an evil villain, people relate Obama and the Joker together and since the Joker is evil then that must mean Obama is evil as well. The actual thought behind the poster is meaningless and people take this and use it as a symbol against Obama simply because it has a powerful image, not a powerful message.