Philip Kirby

It's Not a Laughing Matter: Critical Geopolitics, Humour and Unlaughter

This paper explores the possibilities of considering humour and laughter as a serious matter of concern for critical geopolitics and political geography more generally. While there has been some interest in this topic, there is scope to devise a more expansive research agenda. Using both laughter and Michael Billigs notion of unlaughter, the paper considers how these visceral expressions contribute, often in subtle ways, to the making of geopolitical subjectivities. The final part of the paper considers some possibilities for future research.

The Girl on Fire: The Hunger Games, Feminist Geopolitics and the Contemporary Female Action Hero

This paper explores the gender politics of the ‘Hunger Games’ film series. It suggests that the lead character of the series, Katniss Everdeen, represents a progressive portrayal of the female action hero, contrary to much Hollywood fare. Theoretically and methodologically, the paper approaches the series through the rubric of ‘popular geopolitics 2.0ʹ and suggests that, within this, opportunities exist for further alignment between feminist geopolitics and popular geopolitics. To support its analysis, the paper offers a critical review of coverage of the series on feminist online media. The paper finishes by assessing the progressive potential of the series, as well as future directions for feminist and popular geopolitics.

Resurrecting the vigilante: paternal sovereignty, exceptionality and familial security in Taken (2008) and Taken 2 (2013)

The films, Taken (2008) and Taken 2 (2013), are considered to reflect upon how the vigilante has enjoyed a return to popular cultural prevalence within the post-9/11 geopolitical context. While a great deal of popular geopolitics and popular culture literature addresses war, science fiction and the superhero genre, the vigilante genre deserves further consideration precisely because the stories associated with it so often involve ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, making them perhaps especially accessible to audiences. Vigilante movies, as we explain, were popular in the early to mid-1970s and have been regarded as a cultural–political response to the trauma of Vietnam and the conflicted memories of war and loss that this precipitated. Strikingly, in the aftermath of another trauma, the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, we have witnessed a resurgence of vigilante movies involving ordinary citizens (e.g. The Brave One in 2007), many of whom are retired soldiers (e.g. Harry Brown in 2009 and Gran Torino in 2008). It is just such a character, Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA operative, who is the hero of the Taken films, and Mills is used here as a point of departure for exploring paternal sovereignty, exceptionality and familial security in the post-9/11 world.