Grotesques and Tricksters

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Rick and Morty - Season 1 - Episode 6 

For some reason I struggled to grasp the importance of understanding the grotesque and especially the trickster.  Stewart, on page 105 talks about how we think of the grotesque as a collection of parts instead as an organized head to toe analysis.  I feel like that is a valuable take on how we view this subject.  She also give a history of how humans who were considered grotesque were displayed and utilized in the late middle ages.  These creatures from Rick and Morty are known as Cronenbergs, probably named after the director David Cronenberg who directed the remake of The Fly where Jeff Goldblum slowly turned into a grotesque fly.

The Fly (1986) Dir. D. Cronenberg

On page 111 Stewart writes, “Even more crucially, the façade of the pitch or patter makes it of little significance whether the freak is authentic or not.  It is the possibility of his or her existence that titillates; it is the imaginary relation, not the lived on, that we seek in the spectacle.”  To me this is talking about how our imagination is more grotesque than any physical thing.  We can then continue to imaging the thing within our own space doing grotesque things.  And then there is the thought of what is beyond our imagination. 

Dark matter is a possible something grotesque that is beyond our imagination.  We can’t see it but we know its there.  We don’t know what it is but we have data of the effects it has on objects around it.

Finding the trickster in our culture is proving to be difficult to me.  Allow me to through out a few possibilities.  Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report was playing a character with extreme conservative political views, yet the words he said shed light on the hypocrisies of the logic.  Another possible example is the Pied Piper who wasn’t paid properly so he led all the children in the village to their death. 

Are vampires tricksters?  They can change into animals such as bats.  They drink blood.

Twilight

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I believe this subject may fall under Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame.  I’ve heard an updated quote in a documentary about Josh Harris who was in the beginning of social media and live streaming in the late 90s.  He said “People want 15 minutes of fame everyday.”  I would add, if everyone is famous than no one is famous.  Much of this is people just wanting their stories told or their “desire recognized”. 

We live in public (2009) Dir. O. Timoner

Earlier on page 116 its says, “…the nude, without distortion there cannot be depiction of movement.  And yet, on another level, the ideal of the body exists within an illusion of stasis, an illusion that the body does not change…” To me this references body dysmorphia and the pressures social media conjure to be accepted by society for how you look in a still photograph thinking that it translates to real life.