Epilogue: Facing identity

Abstract

DE GRUYTER MOUTON DOI 10.1515/pr-2013-0006 Journal of Politeness Research 2013; 9(1): 123–132 Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz Epilogue: Facing identity Kira Hall: Departments of Linguistics and Anthropology, 295 UCB, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0295, USA, e-mail: kira.hall@colorado.edu Mary Bucholtz: Department of Linguistics, 3432 South Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100, USA, e-mail: bucholtz@linguistics.ucsb.edu The day we began reading the articles included in this special issue, a gunman clad in full bulletproof clothing and wielding multiple weapons entered a Colo- rado movie theater and opened fire on an unsuspecting audience. As the inci- dent unfolded in the media over the next several weeks, its details grew graver and more perverse in every telling. This gunman was special. Mass killings in the United States, which now occur with unprecedented frequency, tend to involve a gunman who takes his own life when confronted by law enforcement. But this man came dressed in a defensive package of body armor that included riot helmet, vest, gas mask, throat protector, groin protector, and black tactical gloves. So deeply villainous was his embodied performance that audience mem- bers assumed he was some sort of opening-night gimmick sponsored by the producers of the superhero film they had come to see: the Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises. Witnesses to the event reported watching the gunman walk slowly and calmly up the aisle, saying nothing as he threw baseball-sized canisters of tear gas into the audience and then fired the weapons that led to 59 injuries and 12 deaths. “It was so in sync we thought it was part of the movie,” recalled a stunned survivor. Indeed, when the police found the gunman minutes later outside a rear exit door standing next to his white Hyundai sedan, he identified himself only as “the Joker”. The name, of course, is that of Batman’s infamous archenemy, the red-lipped intellectual psychopath renowned for his sadistic sense of humor. Even though it is now known that this gunman’s legal identity is James Holmes, a possibly mentally disturbed former neuroscience graduate student at the University of Colorado, the most prominent image that continues to be displayed in the media at the time of writing is one that supports his delusion: a wide-eyed man with disheveled hair dyed a cartoon shade of red. We were extremely hesitant to begin this epilogue with reference to such a horrifying violation not only of civility but of the most fundamental human