'Ally Sloper meets Jack the Ripper': Comedy and fear in the 19th century'
- Submitting institution
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University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 215
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Comics An Der Grenze
- Publisher
- Christian Bachmann Verlag
- ISBN
- 978-3-941030-68-8
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The chapter explores the ‘meeting’ in 1888 between a real figure who was fictionalised (Jack the Ripper) and a fictional figure whom readers were encouraged to think was real (comics character Ally Sloper), which took place in comics and in fairground entertainments. It reveals how the people of East London negotiated panic and fear with the aid of comedy, and how Sloper became a folk hero in the process.
The interdisciplinary research spans comics studies, Victorian studies, comedy studies, women’s studies, theatre studies and media history, using concepts such as “seriality” (Sabin, 2014), “oppositional readings” (Banville, 2008),and “transgressive humour” (Nicholson, 2015). Research methods combine close analysis of the best-selling comic Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday from 1888, with socio-economic and feminist critique.
The research asks: What was at stake in the comic’s reaction to the Ripper crisis? What can it tell us about Victorian attitudes to fear, death and poverty? About the status of women? About law and order, and the social contract that existed between citizen and police?
The chapter builds a new theoretical framework for understanding dark comedy, identifies hitherto unknown depictions of the Ripper and offers new ways of thinking about 19th-century misogyny. It concludes that, because of the seriality of the comics form, a unique symbiosis was created between a serial character (Sloper) and a serial killer (the Ripper). The humour was double-edged because, although Sloper was positioned as ‘the defender of the people’, unwittingly, his comic demonstrated the social origins of misogynistic violence in society, from its objectification of women to its depictions of male violence. The chapter was peer-reviewed.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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