For our Reading Diary this week, please read the following prompt, and post at least two comments in the discussion. To enable everyone to respond to one another’s comments, please post your first comment by Wednesday (2/5) at noon, and your second by Friday (2/7) at 5pm.
Before commenting, make sure you read all the previous comments – be a good citizen of the comments section! You can reply directly to this post if you’d like to take the conversation in a new direction, or to someone else’s comment below if you’d like to respond to them. Make sure your comment adds something to the discussion: you’re not evaluating each other’s contributions, you’re adding something that expands the discussion.
Prompt: One of the central challenges we’ll face in this course will be understanding how pre-modern ideas about the body are relevant to our own lives. As we read deeper in Bakhtin this week, I’d like our Reading Diary to focus on this question. What manifestations of the grotesque and/or the carnivalesque do you observe in the culture we consume today? What shows, music, comics, public art / graffiti, movies, celebrities, books, poetry, or other forms of popular or high culture that you encounter in your normal life have elements of the grotesque or the carnivalesque? As you encounter these forms in daily life, do you find that they have any of the power or value today that Bakhtin sees in them in Rabelais and other pre-modern works of art?
One piece of media I keep recalling in the context of the grotesque is Hairspray (2007), a movie adaptation of a musical starring, among others, Zac Efron–this was very important to me in 2007. The plot is pretty convoluted and indelicate at times, but the romantic aspect roughly centers around Link (Zac Efron), a handsome young local TV dancer sensation, falling in love with Tracy (Nikki Blonsky), a fat girl in his grade who also loves dancing and aspires to get a spot on the dancing show Link is on (in Baltimore in the 60s). It’s *also* about the desegregation of that TV show and Tracy is nearly arrested for marching with black protesters against segregation (and in other versions she does go to jail about it). John Travolta plays Edna Turnblad, Tracy’s mother, in a fat suit. Edna– mind you, John Travolta as Edna– frequently talks about how she’s insecure about her weight and that she doesn’t want the neighbors to see her. This is more or less ‘solved’ by Tracy taking her to clothing store called Hefty Hideaway (which wants Tracy to be their spokesperson) and singing to Edna about the new non-hierarchy of the 60s in “Welcome to the 60s,” which could be cast as a carnivalesque celebration of the historically disenfranchised. By the end of the movie, Edna embraces her relationship to food and size and Link falls in love with Tracy *despite* (and I think the despite ought to be emphasized) her weight. The topic of weight and fatness in the movie is variably treated as a beautiful imperfection or a beautiful thing in and of itself (e.g. the song “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful,” sung by Queen Latifah, which lists a lot of foods apologetically– “How can I deny the world the most of me?”) Appetite is celebrated a lot and often through Edna’s journey, which seems grotesque to me in the sense that it casts indulgence in rich foods in large quantities in a firmly positive aspect. I don’t think the grotesque as we’ve described it ever includes a caveat for these kinds of bodies/behaviors, though, and Hairspray slips into that pose a few times as it plays out. At one point Tracy says that people say Link won’t like her because of what he sees, but she knows “that he’ll look inside of me,” implying that her outside *is* something to be overcome. There seems to be tension between “largeness and appetite is good” and “they’re not good, but not everyone is perfect.” Does the grotesque admit this kind of tension? Does the grotesque only embrace the former, and, if so, is this the only way to reach that utopian and worldly aspect? Does this kind of tension fail to overcome that atomization/individualization of the body as we understand it (and, as Bakhtin argues, falls short of the worldliness of Rabelais)?
Helena’s comment here made me start to think about musicals, which led me to the interesting case of My Fair Lady. In the musical (movie version), Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a flower girl who speaks with an incredible Cockney accent, meets a professor of phonetics, Henry Higgens (Rex Harrison). He takes a bet from a friend that he can “correct” her speech, and make her presentable to London high society. He says that she’s a “prisoner of the gutter” who should be “taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the English toungue.”
I’m interested in the relationship of speech to the grotesque body, since we haven’t spoken about it in class at all. Eliza is not confined by the conventions of “proper” language, and stuns and offends many with her accent, mannerisms, and exclamations (she shouts “move your bloomin’ arse” at a horse race surrounded by many “proper” ladies in fancy hats with very “proper” accents).
We’ve mentioned swearing and talking about grotesque things, but not the way in which they are said. Accents can show someone’s education and class, and can lower a person to the earth in a word. They stand against the official/standard/perfect way of speaking, just as the grotesque body stands against the perfect body. Eliza is a powerful woman who stands out in such a strong way compared to the “normal” or “preferred” accent. Even if the rest of her body does not necessarily fit the grotesque standard (it is Audrey Hepburn!), I think that accent, speech, and other “improper” phrases or words have to be a part of the conversation about the grotesque.
Here’s a good example of her speech, if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwNKyTktDIE (listen for ‘enry ‘iggens, among other obvious gems)
Although I’m not sure if this is a cop out of the question, the first thing I thought of when thinking about the grotesque and carnivalesque in media is tropes/archetypes. The characters seem to embody their “personalities” to a degree that it is at many times exaggerated but also implicit in just the physical identification of specific characters. In many ways, these characters are themselves putting on the mask of their trope and using their body to convey this universality of the grotesque and carnivalesque.
The trope/character I first thought of was Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect. She completely embodies the trope of the “fat, funny person” but also strays from the normal trope in her awareness of herself position in the movie. In a similar way, Becca is the archetype of that “edgy” girl who listens to “real” music and creates rather than listening or copying what has been done already. Pitch Perfect in general, however, is grotesque and carnivalesque: the Barden Bellas are themselves a trope that is broken within the movie, as the new generation of Bellas no longer fulfill the archetype of the skinny, preppy college girl who smiles and sings. Each main character represents a break from the mold of normality within the world of the Bellas, and it is the redefining of boundaries that later becomes a spectacle at their competitions. The whole movie is a spectacle about performance and how these characters “mock” the established rapport and ideas about acapella. While they ultimately reestablish the face of college acapella, it is their initial departure—which is seen best by their physical presentation—that encapsulates the plot. Along this same note, those memes in which people stereotype people by saying “the type of person who ________” then gives an outfit and products/associations made with the stereotype reminds me of the exaggerated nature of the grotesque and carnivalesque. They’re both relatable but also hilarious to imagine, partially because of how “accurate” they can be when thinking of the stereotype.
Like Rabelais, I think that these modern forms are interesting to encounter for multiple reasons. As Bakhtin suggests, there is this idea that one can mock themselves and others as an art form without taking it personally. The grotesque and carnivalesque is a “safe” space to be a “horrible” person in the way that one can mock the characteristics of something without passing an inherent judgement on the status or specifics of the subject. While one might create a “VSCO girl starter pack,” there is no actual explicit—or really implicit—mindset of “this stereotype is bad.” We can have fun with stereotypes in a manner that is not necessarily derisive by obviously exaggerating the meaning to the point of ridiculousness in the same form as Rabelais. We laugh together not to isolate those who are stereotyped, but because the product itself is just wholly ridiculous. I think Bakhtin’s idea that laughter is a uniting and universal force sums up a lot of what falls into that category.
This post made me think about formulas in character attributes and storytelling. A lot of childrens’ TV is pretty formulaic, with a lot of the characters falling into different archetypes. I’m thinking mostly of the Disney Channel shows I watched growing up, which consisted of a main character, usually two siblings (the younger one is usually evil), oblivious parents, and best friends that fall into typical high school stereotypes. The characters fully embody these archetypes and become more like caricatures than actual people.
A TV show that takes place out of the school setting but embodies similar themes is Spongebob. All of the characters in Spongebob are really exaggerated and their personalities are derived from the species of animal that they are. Their bodies are exaggerated to match their outlandish personalities, which I feel represents some concepts of the grotesque. An example is Patrick, who is a starfish. He is kind of unintelligent and lazy, which reflects real life starfish, which can only move a few inches an hour. Squidward (an octopus) is always fed up with the antics of Spongebob and Patrick, and octopi are solitary creatures. Mr. Krabs is really greedy and crabs are pretty ruthless when it comes to protecting their territory and obtaining food. The creators of Spongebob took real-life behaviors of these animals and turned them into characters, which I think is really interesting.
I think that Shrek has been mentioned in class before, but I keep coming back to it as an example of both the grotesque and the carnivalesque (to be fair, I’m always thinking about Shrek, but especially in this context). For those who haven’t been fortunate enough to see Shrek recently, it’s about an ogre who lives in a swamp. He and his talking donkey friend (Donkey) save a princess in a castle. Shrek and the princess Fiona fall in love, and it turns out she’s been part ogre the whole time! They get married and Fiona chooses to remain an ogre full-time. This masterpiece of a film features several aspects of the grotesque and the carnivalesque that we have discussed in class. Firstly, Shrek and Fiona (in ogre form) both have exaggerated bodies, and eating and bodily functions are very prominent in the movie. This movie generally celebrates this, especially through Fiona’s choice at the end. That being said, there are some problems with the way the ogres are portrayed as well, particularly that it is implied that Fiona would not have married Shrek if she had not been an ogre herself.
Additionally, other characters have exaggerated bodies as well, like the king, Lord Farquaad, who is incredibly short and mocked for it throughout the movie. Shrek also takes place in the Middle Ages, and I think that this setting is particularly important when considering it in the context of folk humor of this time and the carnivalesque. The story itself is a folk humor parody, reimagining the fairy tales and culture of this time period in unexpected ways. There are also examples of billingsgate, especially in the way that Donkey and Shrek speak to one another in jokingly insulting ways.
This example is interesting to consider alongside Bakhtin’s analysis of Rabelais because it does use many of the same elements that Rabelais uses in his work, such as exaggerated bodies and folk humor. I think that this speaks to part of the reason why Shrek is still such a popular movie, because it presents and celebrates grotesque and universal bodies in a context that is both humorous and charming. So in conclusion, Shrek is not only iconic, but also relevant in literary criticism!
Since I read this post, I have been thinking more about the carnivalesque in Shrek. While it has been a while since I have seen Shrek so my memory is a little rusty, there were a few instances that came to mind. Firstly, when Shrek and Donkey enter the city, Shrek joins a competition between all the best knights in the Kingdom and ends up easily defeating them all. While I think at the end the crowd boos him, during I remember the crowd cheers with excitement at watching the fighting which seems very carnivalesque. Also when the crowd is booing Shrek, he mocks them by calling on them to boo louder in ways athletes often call on fans to cheer louder. While this isn’t really carnivalesque since the audience is judging Shrek, his mocking reaction is carnivalesque.
Along with that, there is also the end scene, with all the fairy tale creatures celebrating in the swamp and the band playing “Believer”. This is clearly carnivalesque with everyone dancing and a band loudly playing music. As I thought more about it, it seemed to me that this would be how fairy tale characters would normally live. In my mind most of the characters would always be happy and partying, except when there is a specific problem they need to confront. If that is the case, then Lord Farquaad is the person getting in the way of the carnival. In Rabelais, when people interfere with the carnival, they are punished which of coarse happens with Farquaad as he is brutally eaten at the end of the movie.
All around I agree that these aspects are why Shrek is so popular. Even when the characters aren’t involved in a carnivalesque atmosphere, the movie as a whole has a carnivalesque and grotesque feel by bringing down the more traditional tales that movie companies churn our for profit constantly. Mocking this in such a fun and happy way makes the movie as great as it is.
When I first read the prompt I was at a loss. It took me a while but I began to think about both monsters, aliens and their depiction in media like movies, shows, and art. Yes many conventional monsters favor animal-like behaviors and features like fur or paws. But in a movie like monsters, inc. the two main characters James and Mike Wazowski are monsters whose job it is to scare kids. I want to focus on just the image and behavior of these beings. They sound human and act like humans in many ways they just look differently ie. fur and horns. In many ways they encompass the grotesque realism idea when compared to a human body. James has really long arms and Mike is essential just a head. There is nothing grotesque about them but since they have human tendencies it is easy to see how exaggerated their bodies are.
Another example of a movie is beauty and the beast. The premise is about a prince who has to live as a beast until he finds true love. The beast form of the prince is an example of grotesque realism because he is seen as undesirable from others because of his abnormal appearance. But Belle sees past this and breaks the curse. Rabelais discusses the absolution of rank and class during carnivalesque and Belle who was not royal was able to get closer to the prince. This may be a zoom into specific details within film but it is fun to see the reach of the grotesque and carnivalesque.
I don’t know if this is allowed but I would like to reflect on my previous post. For the first post it took awhile for me to think about something, but when I did, I could only think of quite literal grotesque realism or carnivalesque. The part that I missed was lining up an example that fit with Rabelais or Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque or carnivalesque. Monsters inc. is a movie with characters that do look grotesque with exaggerated features but the point of the movie as a whole does not fit into the ideal of grotesque realism. If we focus on certain points or look at the big picture there are glimpses of Rabelais or Bakhtin. The characters James and Sully have the job of scaring children but they end up wanting to do that and help a little girl that they aren’t supposed to. My other example of beauty and the beast, same thing. The character Prince Andrews may look like a grotesque beast but it is not something that is embraced but that he does not want to be. As an audience we are hoping that the curse is lifted and he goes back to looking like he did before.
A better example would be… I am still having a hard time thinking of one on my own. But my peers said Shrek, Hairspray, Mean Girls, and Pitch Perfect, to name a few. And in each example I see an aspect of the grotesque that is suiting to Rabelais. In many of these movies people form a community that makes them better as a whole or someone realizes that they should embrace who they are. Fat Amy calls herself Fat Amy instead of shying away she embraces what people may see as the grotesque.
This semester, I’m finishing up my Health Studies minor and biology major. As such, I have been thinking a lot about how popular medical media portrays bodies, especially bodies with disabilities or abnormalities, and whether those portrayals are celebratory or condemning freak bodies.
As an example of how medical TV shows display the Grotesque, I turn to House, M.D. In the episode “Que Sera Sera,” the mystery patient of the week is a fat man. The main characters repeatedly talk down to him and try to find a diagnosis related to his weight. However, we eventually find out that he has terminal lung cancer that is wholly unrelated to his diet. In addition to this one episode, the whole series is an examination of how House can live in his damaged body (he has a bad knee). He resents his knee, his need for a mobility aid (a cane which he eventually paints flames onto), and his constant pain which is entangled with his opioid addiction. House constantly struggles with his grotesque reality of a damaged and addicted body, thinking it negatively affects his brilliant mind. However, when he finds new medicine that can help him overcome this pain, he feels that he is a worse doctor and not himself because he no longer uses the patients’ mysteries to distract himself from the pain.
When considering how the body is considered in medicine, I think of my freshman and sophomore years, when I felt a social push to go to med school. However, I chose not to follow pre-med requirements partly because I’m scared of killing someone but also because I don’t actually want to touch Grotesque bodies. I don’t actually want to deal with other people’s blood and pus and vomit and itchy skin. I think the human body, and all the things that can go wrong with it, are fascinating. I go to the Mutter Museum multiple times a year. However, this fascination only exists for me through a glass exhibit window or through a television set.
In this class, we have talked about celebrating eating and big tummies and physical contact. However, consumption, excretion, belly fat, and hugs are all parts of life that everyone experiences. How can we expand this carnivalesque notion to times of illness or permanent bodily change?
I really appreciate the way you opened up about your own decision to keep a distance from Grotesque bodies. I think that that instinct to avoid all of those bodily fluids and fleshy wounds is rooted in a reasonable concern over your own health. Of course now with better medical practices we can treat illnesses and heal wonds in sanitary environments and with strong protections for medical practitioners. Still for similar reasons, I don’t think I would want to be a doctor either! There remains that urge to keep clean and away from “dirt.” When I say dirt I’m thinking about the way that anthropologist Mary Douglas used it in Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. She takes a cultural relativist approach to understanding concepts like clean and unclean. Most of our feelings of what is considered clean concerning bodies is formed by our larger cultural contexts. Generally we’d be disgusted if some stranger spit on us while walking down the street. But with a romantic partner we’re all for swapping DNA through our mouths.
Maybe there should be an introduction of carnivalesque upheaval concerning taboos over the expressions of Grotesque bodies and during illness and permanent bodily change. I’m all for reexamining what is normally called dirty. During the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (and still to this day!) there was so much cultural aversion to those who were sick, leading to people not getting the care they needed and left to die. Of course directly breaking health precautions is ill-advised but there is room to introduce that carnivalesque laughter in really shitty situations. The carnival mentality could be liberatory in difficult medical contexts by making that life and death cycle less mystified and buereacratic like our religious and government insitutions make it.
Something that Bakhtin does not seem to address often (although I really think he should) in Rabelais and His World is the grotesque female body. While he does discuss birth and pregnancy throughout the text, themes of excess and consumption revolve around mostly male characters and habits. This got me thinking about how women eat in modern books, films, etc., and how they might be depicted as grotesque for excessive consumption. The first thing that came to mind for me was Gilmore Girls, where the two main characters, Lorelei and Rory, are constantly eating throughout the show, only for the food to have no short or long term effects on their bodies. In this way, consumption is detached from the female body, as these two women eat excessively, only to retain the “classical” bodies Bakhtin argues against. It is a running joke on the show that Lorelei and Rory eat so much and never exercise, yet still remain thin. But this joke implies that the female body in Gilmore Girls contains an insatiable and un-fillable bodily underworld, where the grotesque is never truly achieved. Of course, while the insatiable nature of these women is itself an aspect of the grotesque, none of the physical attributes of the grotesque that we have listed in class are depicted on or alongside these women. They are both very thin, and display “classic” aesthetics, meaning the “ready-made” and the “completed.” While this is upsetting for a lot of reasons, especially considering how Lorelei and Rory fat-shame other women throughout the series, as the show has aged, there have been improvements in terms of drawing the female body back down to earth and away from convention.
In the 2018 film The Favourite, one of the main characters, Queen Anne, is depicted as having gout among other physical ailments. This causes her to have a weak stomach, however, it does not prevent her from eating excessively. There is a scene in The Favourite where the queen is eating cake, only to throw it up immediately after (and then after that she returns to eating cake). The scene has servants holding a bucket next to her, anticipating her vomit, while other servants have more cake. This is, to me, a really great display of the open body, and the merging of the body with the outside world. As Queen Anne takes in an excessive amount of sweet food, her body mixes with it and then sends it back out into the world. She then eats more cake the process starts all over again. The contrast between Queen Anne and the two Gilmore girls is enormous, although all three of these women eat a lot of sweet (and generally unhealthy) foods. Where Gilmore Girls I think does not engage with the grotesque, and instead with anxieties surrounding the inherent carnality of the female body, The Favourite does engage with the grotesque in a very carnal and visual way. I think The Favourite is an interesting film to consider alongside Rabelais and Bakhtin because it deals with excess among the wealthy, especially in terms of prodigality. Most importantly, the film does not shy away from displaying the grotesque female body, and allows women to be degraded and “brought down to earth,” something that I think Bakhtin fails to discuss.
Thinking about a modern manifestation of both grotesque and carnivalesque culture, what comes into my mind is the competitive eating culture in Japan. For those who have never heard about competitive eating, it’s basically an event in which people compete against each other to eat large quantities of food in a short time period. This competition happens all around the world but becomes the most grotesque and carnivalesque in Japan. There are many regulations and rules in competitive eating events in Japan, which make the competition itself and the entertainment industry developed from it unique from those of other countries. First of all, eaters are required to love food and this activity, so when participants from multiple countries compete on the same occasion, you will see that Japanese competitors are always attempting to smile. They frequently smile at the close-up shots and praise the delicious food, even though the competitors from other countries are just busy bowing their heads to eat. With the progress of the competition, the physical load of the contestants gradually increases, but the Japanese competitors still smile reluctantly, and even the audiences can clearly see their discomfort at this time. Moreover, because the digestive system of most competitive eaters is different from that of ordinary people, they can not absorb the same nutrients as normal people do, and most of them are relatively thin and short. So when a large amount of food and containers are placed beside them, the eaters look even smaller. When this competition became popular, many TV shows about competitive eating were developed in Japan. These shows have the same routine of eaters gathering together and finishing a huge pile of food with joy and satisfaction. The competitions and shows visualized Rabelais’ description of binge eating and Bakhtin’s depiction of carnivalesque utopia. In the TV shows, seeing all the eaters wearing beautiful costumes, eating mountain-like food, and praising the delicacy, we as the audience can’t tell if the gluttony was rational. In my opinion, all the words of praise and the joyful atmosphere were for the sake of justifying the binge eating. In this culture, the carnivalesque element complements the grotesque way of eating by exaggerating the happiness brought by the eating. And these carnivalesque scenes are similar to the painting of Bruegel since both the eaters and the participants of the party do not seem to be completely happy.
Here I attached a clip of a Japanese TV show for those who are interested in the Japanese competitive eating culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZEPzrp50bE
Having read your post, I immediately thought of mukbangs and their popularity on YouTube and in pop culture. Although they are the same as competitive eating shows for the gluttony and overabundance of food that they portray, they’re interesting in the way that it normalizes the large amount of food eaten since it’s a more casual setting. Mukbangers usually have meals 3 or 4 times greater than the standard size, yet a lot of the YouTubers stay incredibly thin despite this. It has also a fetish for some people, particularly for men to watch petite women gorge themselves in food. Food in these contexts is both gluttony as well as sexual desire.
The consumption of food is insane, but it is also encouraged that the viewer participates in their own way as they eat at home along to the video. As Bakhtin has talked about in his writings, these forms of overindulgence seem to create a sense of community by a common theme of both viewer and entertainer partaking in food. The entertainer eats and talks as though they are having a casual conversation, and the viewer eats and absorbs the material in the same way that they consume their food. There’s a mutual sense of company between both parties despite their physical disconnect. Even in competitive eating shows, the audience is still incredibly involved by showing their support and encouraging the eater to continue. It also reminded me of how in Rabelais, Pantagruel ends up at the feast given by his father after his cosmic hissy fit and destruction of his own chains. The desire to consume and to consume in the presence of others is a common characteristic of all these practices, much like the idea of feasting at a carnival. Inherently, it seems that food is still one of the greatest forms of unification among people.
As be a main point of connection and importance in many cultures, I find myself intrigued as to how competitive eating and mukbangs also fit into the narrative of societal inversion. Of course, we’ve always had feasts and overconsumption as part of bourgeois society, but these shows like competitive eating and mukbanging seem to deconstruct the narrative of luxury that had a monopoly on the culture of feasting. It is no longer higher society that engages with this form of eating and merrymaking, and like Saturnalia where slaves are fed by masters, it is the “common folk” who gain access to food. I’m also fascinated by the tension between these practices and the standards of beauty since, as I said above, seem to be dissonant when you think of how much food must be consumed by these people who may upload two or three times a week. Many of the people are physically attractive, and the intertwining of sexuality and consumption becomes inevitable. Though I do not want to go down that path of sex and food, so I’ll leave that there.
You comment about mukbangs made me think of the growing phenomenon and its popularity online. However, it also reminded me of how feasts, banquets, and a celebration of eating has always been prevalent throughout history. My family is from Taiwan and the banquet or feast has always been centered around festivities and embodies the idea of the carnivalesque and the grotesque. In real life, eating with family, neighbors, and strangers brings a sense of camaraderie and also embodies the carnivalesque spirit that is Bakhtin. During holidays and festivities, people in Taiwan will bring food and offerings to the temple. The offerings are later brought home and families will have banquets in their communities. There is a sense of disorderly chaos, families will bring alcohol, whole roast pigs, and fruit to the temples, and as much as people try to say that they are bringing items that have religious purpose, they use the holidays as an excuse to get drunk and eat together. I thought that this was a modern day example of the spirit of the carnivalesque, and specifically the role of the feast.
For various reasons I along with some friends started to follow the world of Sumo wrestling this past year. For those who don’t know, Sumo is a traditional Japanese form of wrestling. Two competitors start facing one another, crouched down, and begin by putting both fists on the ground and jumping quickly at each other. It is played in a small ring and ends when the first competitor touches the ground with anything other than the foot, or when any part of the body touches the ground out of the ring (if this is confusing I put a link below to a video of highlights on one of my favorite sumo wrestlers).
The fighters themselves are typically very fat. While the smallest fighter at the last tournament was 5’6” and 218 pounds, some wrestlers weigh well over 400 pounds. Keeping up there weight is one of the main aspects of their training, with physical practice also every day. The wrestlers also wear very little and are practically naked. Both of these contribute to a grotesque image for sumo wrestling.
As for carnivalesque, much of sumo wrestling is calm and collected due to its traditions. The wrestlers do not publicly celebrate their wins immediately after, instead they quietly bow, accept any award, and leave. However, there are some noticeable exceptions to this. For example, the highest raked wrestlers are known as Yokozuna. When the Yokozuna lose a match, the stadium celebrates and all throw seat cushions into the air to recognize the winner. This moment of excitement, while brief, reminds me of some of the ideas of the carnivalesque we’ve discussed.
As for how I interact with this, I find it rather powerful. While I feel in most parts of our modern culture, fat people are shunned, and hidden away or mocked in media, this does not happen in Sumo. Instead, the fat wrestlers are respected and even celebrated for their incredible abilities.
This is a highlight real for the wrestler Enho. He is the smallest and one of the quickest and most agile wrestlers in the last tournament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=epocxIhz1KI
I forgot to mention there is also an emphasis on the belly, with sumo wrestlers often patting there belly in an upwards motion a few times before the fight.
This was so interesting to read since I don’t know much about sumo, and I have to say I was very surprised to hear how calm and respectful it is, especially since American wrestling is very loud and in your face. The different parts of the grotesque show themselves in different ways in each country: loud and boisterous crowds in America and extremely fat wrestlers in Japan!
I also can see this relating somewhat to the “health at every size” movement, since these wrestlers are practicing and moving every day; working muscles, pumping their hearts, and burning calories. Though I’m not certain that the eating regimen which (I assume, though I don’t know) they keep to stay the size they are is probably the healthiest, they are still celebrated for their size as well as things like (as Nico says) agility and speed! These are things that any wrestler or other athlete would receive comments on, and I think it’s very important that they are not simply fat men trying to knock one another over, but skilled people who have trained for their craft.
I think it’s very relevant to bring up athletes who tend to be very big people and the HAES movement, in two ways — (1) the failures of BMI and (2) with large athletes generally.
If you look at the NFL on the whole, the average BMI in 2012 was 31.35 (https://www.sportingcharts.com/articles/nfl/what-is-the-average-bmi-of-an-nfl-player.aspx). These are people whose entire leaves are dedicated to training and staying fit, and BMI claims that the NFL, on the whole, tends to be obese. The person with the lowest BMI in the NFL at the time had a BMI of 23.01, just below the BMI for overweight. This means that nearly the entire NFL is considered overweight, and to my second point, specifically lineman.
The average nose tackle in the NFL in 2012 had a BMI of 40.5. According to Medical News Today (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320460.php#risk-factors-), any BMI over 35 is considered morbidly obese, and over 40 is considered stage 3 morbidly obese. Unfortunately for football fans (which I admit I’m not really), the average nose tackle in the league is at severe risk of developing potentially fatal health problems (this is maybe true, but in a different way), and it’s likely that they have difficulty walking or breathing.
I think it’s interesting that the world is full of people who are famous for being incredibly healthy (such as NFL athletes or sumo wrestlers) and are also fat, but we still don’t acknowledge on a large scale that fat people can exist healthily in their own bodies.
Like Hannah, I have very limited knowledge of Sumo wrestling and cultural importance in Japan. I did, however, find it to be an extremely interesting and unexpected display of the carnivalesque in modern-day practices. Watching the highlight reel, I noticed that the match is a very intense and powerful environment compared to the surrounding crowd; there is no cheering or the typical rowdiness found in American wrestling or most other spectator sports. This respectful environment in a departure from what we consider the norm in both the sporting environment and the treatment of the wrestlers.
In class, we discussed the purpose of carnivals and fairs in which the Carnivalesque and Grotesque flourish; are they tools of oppression or a snapshot of a utopian society? Sumo wrestling is a prime example of a bubble within which expectations and norms are inverted. The praise and acceptance of sumo wrestlers’ fat bodies is a direct contradiction to the idea of a perfect body across southeast Asia. It’s no surprise that societies across the globe favor thin, fatless bodies and delicate features. The wrestling ring is representative of more than just the performance space: it is a literal barrier between a world in which the carnivalesque thrives and where it is thrown to the side.
This prompt reminded me of the movie spirited away and the character Yubaba. In the movie she owns a bathhouse and is the main antagonist of the movie. She’s extremely greedy over money and gold, and in most cases outwardly expresses her obsession for money over her family. Thinking about the grotesque, she embodies many of the characteristics. The size of her head is exaggerated, she has wrinkles that run down every part of her face, and she has bug-like eyes. Her fingers are mangled, and her red nails are sharpened to a point. In many ways she is the classic “evil witch” antagonist that is sold in children’s stories. What stood out to me the most as a child watching this movie was that every part of her body was exaggerated and in-your-face. If anything, her character is also an embodiment of what a caricature is. She is portrayed as an evil- spirit in the movie, and her exaggerated features only add to this. She constantly berates her children and the main character in the movie. Although she may not embody every aspect of the carnivalesque, there is some type of madness that surrounds her character. Every scene that she is in, she is the main focus and there is a sense of fantasy associated with her presence. In addition, although she was an “evil” character, many aspects of her were terrifying and comical because of her physical portrayal. Traces of Rabelais’s work are also present in her character. I think about how her presence allowed for some aspect of humor. The madness that she embodies is in some ways funny, chaotic, and allows for a moment of escapism in the movie. The specific way her body is illustrated to move (or not move) only amplifies her presence in the scenes she is in. I also am thinking about how in the scenes she is in, the director pans into extreme close ups of her face, so that you can see every wrinkle, and watch her mouth move as she speaks. Most importantly, I think that her portrayal is a good example of contemporary appearances of the grotesque in modern media. Yubaba shows how grotesque bodies are used to tell a story, convey emotions, and bring an element of fantasy into the scenes she is in.
Link to an image: https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Yubaba
I really like the idea of analyzing Hayao Miyazaki films with the grotesque in mind. Especially in Spirited Away, where consumption, overconsumption, and abundance (and the consequences of these) are such a prevailing theme throughout the film. When we read about the infancy of Pantagruel, I was reminded of the character, Boh, Yubaba’s child. I was reminded of Boh mostly because he is also a giant baby (literally) with a highly exaggerated body, but also because his demanding and spoiled nature is similar to Pantagruel’s. In terms of baby Panatagruel’s endless need to consume, however, I also think he is reflective of No-Face, or Kaonashi, when they go on a rampage throughout Yubaba’s bathhouse, eating everything in sight, even living beings. There is a point when No-Face eats a frog (I think it is a frog if I am remembering correctly) and is then able to communicate through the frog’s voice. This is a really jarring moment, but it also depicts the interconnectedness caused by No-Face’s excessive consumption. Another instance of excessive consumption is at the beginning of the film, when the main character Chihiro’s parents are turned into pig’s due to eating food that does not belong to them. The animation during this sequence spares no detail, as the couple feast and grow and eventually transform. However, I do not think this is what Bakhtin would consider grotesque, but rather cruel satire. The transformation into the animal reminds of me the Napoleon caricatures Bakhtin discusses, where his nose is made to look like a snout or a beak. Bakhtin describes this as superficial satire and “deprived of true grotesque character” (316). While the transformation into an animal can be grotesque, and in fact, Bakhtin cites it as one of the most ancient grotesque forms, this transformation, in particular, is meant to be shameful. The parents are being, quite literally, greedy pigs.
Another Hayao Miyazaki film that I think displays the grotesque quite well is Howl’s Moving Castle (and this applies to the Diana Wynne Jones novel as well). The grotesque in this film is not so obvious as it is in Spirited Away, but I think it does emerge in the main character Sophie as her body goes through some very drastic transformations. Sophie is cursed to look like a very old woman, and because of this I think she embodies Bakhtin’s idea of the old and new body existing at once. Sophie has two bodies in one: her youthful body, and her old and exaggerated body (her nose, like a lot of Studio Ghibli characters, is very exaggerated). While Sophie does return to her “original” body by the end of the film, she still retains some of the old woman. Her hair remains gray, and the transformation itself is not instantaneous but happens gradually throughout the film as she falls in love with Howl. Even when Sophie is an old woman, she becomes young again in her sleep, making it clear that she is existing as both young and old all at once.
I think that Studio Ghibli films, in general, have a certain grotesque quality in all of them due to their attention to detail when it comes to the human body and food as well. Every meal is a feast in these worlds, as the drawings of food are luxurious and extravagant. And the human body (among other creatures’), especially with the older characters, is often exaggerated, with large noses, excessive wrinkles, and rolls of fat, etc.
I think Spirited Away is a fantastic manifestation of grotesque and carnivalesque culture not only for the characters but also for the whole mysterious world as a whole grotesque body. The bathhouse of Yubaba is a very complete and human-like whole. Its daily operation is very similar to people’s physical alternation of work and rest. The bathhouse has dirty baths and a boiler room, a rough staff dormitory, many beautiful dining rooms for guests, and a gorgeous office of Yubaba. This construction is almost parallel to the human body from the bottom to the top. During the business hours, the guest dining rooms look like the human belly in continuous digestion. The workers and guests of this world merged from grotesque individuals by the bathhouse into a grotesque entirety in a carnival. Moreover, similar to what we’ve discussed in class, workers in the bathhouse are never disgusted by their dirty guests. The dirtier the guests are, the more expensive bathwater they need, so dirt and foul are not avoided and are even welcome in this place. This is further illustrated by Sen’s reward after pulling out the huge pile of garbage from the River God’s body: In this scene, the workers and Yubaba, who have fear of such a huge foulness, break free from the fear and end with another carnival, and this experience makes them more fearless and even happy in front of No Face’s crazy demand.
I’ve never seen Spirited Away, but your description of the character Yubaba made me think a lot about the ways that Grotesque characteristics often intersect with non-physical traits in modern media. In your comment, you discuss Yubaba’s materialistic greed and gluttony, and I think that often in popular modern media the characteristics of the Grotesque are similarly used as physical manifestations of these non-physical things that we commonly perceive as bad or immoral. I think that this is one of the primary issues with the way that the concept of the Grotesque is modernly used. Whereas Bakhtin writes about Grotesque bodies that are celebrated and interconnected, Grotesque features are now often used to reflect a character’s inward ‘ugliness’ or to signify that the character is a villain or antagonist. This can be seen really commonly in children’s media; in most Disney movies (along with, it seems, Spirited Away), the villains are the characters that display the characteristics of the grotesque most obviously (they are often fat, very old, or have otherwise exaggerated bodies and faces). In this way, popular media has strayed from the image of the Grotesque depicted by Bakhtin in that Grotesque characteristics are used to repudiate and signify division between characters rather than to create a sense of interconnectedness.
My thought is fairly uneducated, because it’s about two things I’ve never seen, but when I was reading Bakhtin’s analysis of the carnivalesque, it made me think of the show “Sleep No More” in New York City (wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_No_More_(2011_play)). Sleep No More is a production I have not watched (although very much want to), but from my understanding it is an immersive performance of Macbeth (a play I have never read). The people watching the show enter at staggered times, and walk a series of warehouses, transformed into sets, at their own pace. They can interact with the actors and the sets, and sometimes fun and unexpected things happen as a result!
The main way that this reminds me of Bakhtin’s analysis is because unlike traditional theater, where there are “floodlights,” which Bakhtin uses to indicate division between the actors and the audience, everyone is on the same level. You can walk up to actors, and interact with them at times. The audience all put on masks; everyone is intended to be an equal. There are no best seats that can only be attained with wealth (not to say there are no wealth influenced dynamics there. for example, I think there’s a somewhat fancy bar on the roof).
This also reminds me of the carnivalesque because their interpretation of Macbeth is inspired by noir films, which tend to be very sexualized. There is nudity and lewdness in the show that the audience experiences up close as they walk through the sets. I’m sure there are more instances of the carnivalesque in Macbeth, but since I’ve never read or seen it, I feel pretty unequipped to comment further on the play itself.
First off I love Macbeth and now I also want to see this “Sleep No More”! I think that there are elements of both the grotestque and the carnivalesque in Macbeth. With the title of this modern play, it is referring to an exchange between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth soon after they murder King Duncan. Here’s a link to the scene https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/macbeth/page_58/
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
There’s an unnatural crime that was committed, the killing of a sovereign who was annointed by God, a dethroning. Macbeth takes up the crown himself, an act that mirrors carnivalesque tropes. But this play is very critical of the protagonists’ upward trajectory–it’s a tragedy and almost everybody dies. Still, the character who ultimately restores in Act 5 Scene 8 by defeating the embattled King Macbeth, Macduff, is identified as the only one who can do so by virtue of his birth:
MACBETH
Thou losest labor.
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.
I’m not sure if Macduff’s birth can be considered Grotestque or not. On the one hand, he was born from a distinctly human intervention and interrupted what would have likely been fatal for him and his mother. On the other hand, there’s something Grotestque about cutting open an entirely new hole in his mother’s belly. Macduff bypasses the normative passage way of a baby from uterus through the vagina. AND, we can connect this all the way to what is DEFINETLY a Grotestque part of this play, the Weird Sisters or Three Witches who open this whole drama. Most interpretations like Roman Polanski’s film depict them as ugly, with all the classic witch imagery: big noses, drooping features, either very old or young, messy hair and beards etc. They joke about farting to give each other a wind to sail with and they concoct unsavory potions. They also deliver what Macbeth interprets as a prophecy of invincibility:
Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.
There lies the loophole. The witches also give one of the most famous lines from the play that cements it’s place a text in conversation Carnival: Fair is foul, and foul is fair. This line is in the very first scene and variants of it is repeated as motif throughout Macbeth. Something topsy-turvy is afoot here and the forces of order must confront it.
As I was sitting in my common room watching What’s New Scooby-Doo? with my hall-mates, I noticed elements of the grotesque that were fairly large and important parts of the core fo the show: every character in the mystery gang is an exaggeration of a different archetype or persona. Shaggy and Scooby, for example, are the poster child for gluttony––in every episode, their insatiable hunger is present in every chase scene, every conversation, and is, therefore, central to the formula that makes the show so entertaining.
The monsters themselves are also a point of interest to me; they always involve a mask of sorts that hides the person within. This conjured images of the painting we analyzed yesterday by Bruegel titled Battle between Carnival and Lent. The use of masks and other façades in both forms of media is is an example of everyday injections of the carnivalesque and grotesque into the things we consume every day.
The impact that Bakhtin expects––or rather desires––from the carnivalesque and grotesque, however, are lost in representations such as these. The motivation and end goal of a children’s tv show nullifies the strong message that could otherwise be sent through this work. In this case, I believe the grotesque is used purely for entertainment and lacks the depth that Rabelais and other artists’ work contains.
I really loved this post. Regarding your comments about Scooby and Shaggy engaging with food in a carnivalesque fashion, I find it interesting that their bodies don’t then become grotesque. Although Shaggy’s body isn’t overtly attractive (when compared to Fred’s proud chest of Daphne’s tiny waist), he remains very small rather than becoming a fat guy. Although his appetite is a central joke to the plot of the cartoon, his and Scooby’s bodies aren’t. I also love the idea of including pets as companions in carnivalesque behavior.
Your point about how the villains of Scooby Doo engage in carnival behavior via the use of masks was also interesting to me. It makes me wonder what contemporary holiday is the most carnivalesque? Halloween for the dressing up and child-like joy? Or one of the holidays still grounded in its religious roots, such as Easter or Christmas?
One piece of media that reminds me of aspects of the grotesque and carnivalesque is Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and its many subsequent film adaptations. Oliver Twist follows the story of Oliver, an orphan, as he goes from a workhouse, to a gang of pickpockets in London, to finding his true family. The appearance of the characters represents a lot of the aspects of grotesque realism that Bakhtin writes about and Rabelais employs.
Everything about the personalities and appearances of the characters in Oliver Twist is exaggerated. In the beginning of the story, Oliver encounters the board at the workhouse, and they are mostly fat men who gorge themselves on food while the orphans in the workhouse starve. Their appearance and hypocrisy in their treatment of the poor people at the workhouse provides some humor in the earlier stages of the novel.
The character of Fagin is another example of this grotesque exaggeration. Fagin is an old man who sells stolen goods and runs the gang of pickpockets that Oliver encounters. In the novel, he is described as incredibly ugly and as an embodiment of evil. Dickens relies on many antisemitic stereotypes when describing Fagin’s appearance and mannerisms. Different adaptations of the novel treat Fagin differently, and perhaps the one that came closest to Dickens’ description of Fagin was David Lean’s 1948 adaptation. Alec Guiness played Fagin in this version, and he puts on a voice and wears a prosthetic nose. The makeup was inspired by the original illustrations accompanying the novel, done by George Cruikshank. The US release of the film was delayed until 1951 because of the antisemitism in the film. Here’s a clip from when Oliver first encounters Fagin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigmgUCxg_0. Although subsequent adaptations, especially the 1968 musical Oliver!, paints Fagin in a much more sympathetic light and not as the principal antagonist, Dickens and Lean still rely on grotesque characterizations.
I feel like Dickens’ use of grotesque imagery works in a different way from Rabalais’. Bakhtin represents the grotesque as something empowering, but I feel like in portrayals of Fagin it others people as opposed to unifying. The grotesque is about making people laugh and connecting to a universal experience, and it made me wonder who the intended audience of the grotesque is. Is it really for everyone, or does it differ depending on the creator or the time and place in which the work was created.
Another example of his exaggerated characterization is the Artful Dodger, a child pickpocket who works for Fagin. He is described as a child that acts like an adult. In a bizarre turn of events, the character is played by a forty-year-old man in the questionable 1933 adaptation of the novel. When he is first introduced in the novel, Dickens writes: “His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment–and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them.”
He wears the attire of a grown-up, and his entire character is a parody of a gentleman. This connects to the carnivalesque concept of making a mockery of serious things and laughing at the societal constructs and conventions that bind people. In the novel, the Artful Dodger gets arrested for stealing a snuff box and deported to Australia. In the courtroom, he loudly proclaims: “I am an Englisman; where are my privileges?” Despite his lower status, he acts like he’s on the same level as the judge and the police officers and what is high is lowered and what’s lowered is heightened. The other people waiting for their trial in the courtroom are moved by what he says and shout out in agreement, creating a carnivalesque space, even if for a moment. The only adaptation I have seen that includes the Artful Dodger getting arrested is from 1982, and I have included a link for the scene: https://youtu.be/srzTKguyAhg?t=3240.
When I think of an example of the grotesque represented in our modern culture, I think of an individual named “Big Sexy” who performs during stoppages at Syracuse Crunch hockey games. He takes his shirt off, and being a rather large individual, shakes his body around, dancing, and patting his belly. He embraces his fatness and has become rather famous in the local Syracuse area, everyone cheering him on just as loud as they do for the Crunch. His name, big sexy, is interesting because it doesn’t line up with what is stereotypically “sexy”. His dancing reminds me of the Fat Bottom Revue performers we looked at last week in class. His dancing also brings carnivalesque features. Ironically, Big Sexy is also the owner of the Syracuse Crunch. His dancing in front of everyone with his shirt off, takes him out of his suit and tie, and allows everyone to have a good laugh. It breaks away from the serious social order, and for that moment when he is dancing in front of the crowd, he isn’t the owner of the crunch in a suit and tie, he’s just big sexy. His actions are an example of a departure of the established order, which is an example of the carnivalesque.
This post reminded me of a comedian named Gabrial Iglesias (though he also goes by ‘Fluffy’), since he’s also a one-man act that brands himself around his size. I know him from Youtube videos he was in in the early-mid 2010s, though not particularly well; quoting his Wikipedia page: “Iglesias often references his weight in his comedy, often saying, “Oh, I’m not fat, I’m fluffy”, elaborating that there were five levels of fatness, “Big”, “Healthy”, “Husky”, “Fluffy”, and “DAMN!!!” He later added a 6th level, “Oh Hell No!!”” Obviously there is some element of the grotesque at play here– this is a fat man doing comedy (ostensibly) about his fatness. As with Hairspray, I’m a little hesitant to say that his grotesqueness is totally in line with the utopian version that Bahktin envisions since he seems to be trying to side-step the word fat in exchange for other words with other connotations )though this may also be some kind of hierarchy-reversing move), even if it’s not deliberate. I think the most carnivalesque part of this act (and I say this being unfamiliar with his act) may be the fact that he (and, per Bahktin, the world *through* him) is the center of the farce. He’s not above it, he’s in it, and, by virtue of his embodiment, we are in it too.
(Also, apologies that this post comes a little late!! I was positive I had clicked post last night until a few minutes ago.)