Infection of a Nation: Vigilantism in Modern Mythos as Seen Through Batman and the Ku Klux Klan

Vigilantism has existed in the United States since the Revolutionary War. Ever present in popular culture and other media, vigilantes are presently revered for taking the will of the people into their own hands to exact justice as they deem necessary. However, the vigilantes who impose this justice can take many forms, going so far as to act using their own prejudices and claim that it is justice. The Ku Klux Klan did just this, as a Christian white supremacist organization with a history of targeting black individuals in the South on the basis of race alone. The media paints a distinctly different picture, with Batman as one of the most prominent vigilante figures in popular culture. Batman’s narrative is notably based on ideas of contagion in urban landscapes, criminalizing the downtrodden members of society, such as in the 2019 film "Joker." These vigilantes are founded upon the idea of America under siege by the perceived "Other," whether this be based on race, class, or other factors. This thesis serves to explore the themes at play for both the KKK and Batman to better understand the source of these narratives as well as the roles played by these figures in light of the current political landscape, in which we confront race socio-culturally and politically. In this thesis, I discuss the ideas of vigilantism, terrorism, and heroism through the case studies of the Ku Klux Klan and Batman: two entities that act violently outside the law yet are received drastically differently from one another due to their respective senses of morality.