That killing joke isn't funny anymore: Rebranding speciesism after Brexit

Cole, Matthew (2025). That killing joke isn't funny anymore: Rebranding speciesism after Brexit. In: Browne, Josephine and Sutton, Zoei eds. Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crisis: Multispecies Sociology for the New Normal. London: Routledge, pp. 151–167.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003257912-13

Abstract

The sociological analysis of discourses about non-human animals is crucial to understanding the normalization of their oppression and victimization (Cole & Stewart 2016). This chapter undertakes a parallel deconstruction of two disparate, yet cognate, discursive constructions to expose their violent absurdity: a recent media campaign to rename two aquatic species by Cornish ‘fishermen’ (BBC News, 2021); and the ‘laughing fish’ storyline from Detective Comics (Englehart 1978a, 1978b) and its adaptation for television in Batman: The Animated Series (1992). The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (CFPO) are seeking to expand the British market for spider crabs and megrim soles by renaming them respectively as ‘Cornish King crab’ and ‘Cornish sole’. This is in response to lost export sales of both species to Europe in the aftermath of Brexit. In ‘The Laughing Fish’, Batman’s arch nemesis, The Joker, brands fishes with his own facial likeness, in order to copyright them and thereby profit from their sale. In both examples, human interests override those of the victimized species. Despite differences in genre, culture and historical period, both examples reveal how speciesism can be socially constructed via affective representations of non-human animals.

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