The Grotesque Body and Trickster Reflections

Prompt 1. The grotesque and the trickster

I understand the grotesque, especially through Stewart, as something that is seemingly normal or natural exaggerated or distorted in strange ways. Especially in mass culture or media we are often both intrigued yet repulsed by the grotesque or unnatural.

On page 105 Stewart states “The parading of the grotesque is often the isolation and display of the exaggerated part”, and “In the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth century the presentation of the grotesque image in farces, parades, floats, and street entertainments was accompanied by the collection of money and sweets.” Carnivals seem like a union between the grotesque and entertainment. The grotesque through entertainment (or the trickster) might be a way of coping (or mediating) with the distortion of our world.

One example of the grotesque in contemporary culture that comes to mind is Edward Scissorhands in the Tim Burton film. Although I saw this movie really young, I found it to be quite terrifying and tragic. Edward Scissorhands’ character is portrayed with “goth makeup and dangerous hands” but really is a “child of peace”. The tragedy of a misunderstood and ostracized character was too much for my young brain.

Photo by Tom Driggers via Flickr

Prompt 2. 

I had a tough time with this topic and this paragraph. I’m not sure that I quite understand the idea of mediation in this context. Is the text trying to say that the way man (and can we dismiss man and say people or human) mediates or confronts desire is by making their desires known? I appreciate the example in the post below where Chad offers up Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. I think this example of people wanting their stories told is totally relevant to our current culture, especially seen in our addiction to social media and the constant broadcasting of our everyday lives.

The sentence I fixate on in Stewarts page 117 where it says “…no object for a (person’s) desire which is constituted without some sort of mediation – which appears in their most primitive needs: for example, even their food has to be prepared.” This makes me think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The bottom of the pyramid is the basic food, water, warmth, and rest. I see desire as something that might belong to higher-level esteem needs yet totally fundamental to everyone.

Is Instagram culture an example of the relationship between desire and mediation?