n had obvious cathartic value—peasants could “blow off steam” in what was highly
stratified society—Bakhtin also believed that they represented a subversive, non-rational form
of cultural politics.
The human body figures as a central trope in grotesque realism. The body, aligned with the
earth, humanity, mortality, and physical appetites for food, drink, and sex, offers a ready-made
counterpoint to the self-denying message of Catholic doctrine. The essence of grotesque
realism is excess and inversion. By parodying official aesthetic values, peasants could also
call them into question. If we can think of grotesque realism as the content or message, the
form or medium for this bottom-up critique of society is what Bakhtin called the carnivalesque.
Cultural critic John Fiske (1989) describes carnival as follows:
“Carnival may not always be disruptive, but the elements of disruption are always
there. It may not always be progressive or liberating, but the potential for
progressiveness and liberation is always present. Even in the carefully licensed,
televisually modified versions there are traces of the vitality and energy of popular
forces that survive defiantly and intransigently.”
Carnival takes three forms: (i) ritual spectacles, e.g., fairs, festivals, Mardi Gras; (ii) acts of
comic inversion, parody, and clowning, e.g., slapstick comedy, Monty Python’s jokes at the
expense of English bureaucrats and class; and (iii)英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】 the use of profane or “bad” language, e.g.
swearing. Carnival speaks through the grotesque realism of the body, and it asserts the
repressed nature of the body and ordinary people as defined in society. Laughter is also an
important code for the communication of carnival, as with a simple sound or gesture it calls
prevailing values into question. Think of the Monty Python skit about the Ministry of Silly
Walks, and the critical potential of the carnivalesque should be clear.
Carnival is very much in evidence today. It’s in trash talk shows, in music festivals, in
Hallowe’en and Caribana, in fan culture in sports events, in Gay Pride parades, in Vegas, in
youth subculture, in pro wrestling, at stags, in fraternity and sorority hazing, and in club culture. Whether or not carnival retains its critical edge, or has become a mere outpost of consumer
capitalism, is an issue debated in the communication field.
What Bakhtin’s ideas about the late medieval period, and the persistence of the carnivalesque
in the contemporary world do, is to demonstrate the limits of both the political virtue and the
range of modern rationality. To be sure, modernity and reason are very much implicated in one
another. But rationality by itself does not encompass all that makes us modern. If we can
accept that the carnivalesque is the cultural means by which we refuse to take ourselves too
seriously, we can respect how necessary its chaotic and scatological a
本文来自：英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】 |
论文编号：
lw200707250738407077 
