May 2015 © Nemanja Protic, 2015
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THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PANTAGRUEL: THE FUNCTION OF GROTESQUE AESTHETICS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD NEMANJA PROTIC A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO May 2015 © Nemanja Protic, 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines whether the grotesque, an aesthetic form associated with the carnivalesque literary mode and commonly seen as aesthetically and politically subversive, can resume its function within the contemporary context in which carnivalisation of everyday life is a frequently noted aspect of capitalist culture. Locating as its primary image the human body in the process of often-violent deformation, this study explores this problem by theorising the grotesque as Janus-faced: existing on the boundary between the Symbolic and the Real. As such, I argue that the grotesque is: a) deeply related to cultural attempts to challenge hegemonic structures, even as these challenges become themselves implicated in the power structures they oppose (Chapters 1, 2, and 3); and b) a concept that reveals the realm of the Real as independent of human consciousness while also being of profound interest for this consciousness and the subjectivity which it underpins (Chapters 3 and 4). In outlining this argument, this study deploys the theories of Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek, and Alain Badiou, as well as the work of Jacques Rancière, Henri Lefebvre, Thomas Metzinger, Catherine Malabou, Quentin Meillassoux, and Ray Brassier. It, furthermore, works its way backwards from the Anglo-American cultural scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s (Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds), through elaborations of punk anti-Thatcherite London(s) of the late 1970s/early 1980s (Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, and Iain Sinclair White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings), to post-1968 attempts to reinvigorate a progressive vision of the USA and write it (back) into existence through Gonzo autobiography and journalism (Oscar Zeta Acosta’s The Revolt of the Cockroach People and The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). In this way, the argument of this work tries to find a path – through a deformed human body in works of literature, film, and comics – toward a non-human world that can be deployed in the service of a progressive political vision, even while the autonomy of this non-human world is recognised. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This would have been a very different, more barren, work without the guidance of Marcus Boon to whom I am, foremost, grateful. His ability to recognize the direction in which I was often-blindly stumbling and his determination to illuminate my path were – at times grudgingly – appreciated. His knowledge, patience, coaxing, and harangues all played a very important role in fattening this text and making it ready for consumption. Without the intellectual generosity and seasoned advice of Art Redding and Ian Balfour much of what’s presented here would have been considerably tougher to chew – and far more peppered with split infinitives. I would also like to thank Thomas Loebel, Shannon Bell, and Steven Shaviro for taking the time to read this work and spend a Monday afternoon in May discussing it enthusiastically in a small, windowless room. In addition to people listed above, Darren Gobert, Marie-Christine Leps, Jonathan Warren, Ross Arthur, Susan Warwick, Kathy Armstrong, and Dunja Baus made my experience at York University an exciting and challenging one. In ways too many to count, they facilitated my growth as an academic and as a person. A heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Milena & Vladislav, Tamara & Sonia, and Ljiljana & Danko whose love, care, and support – often dispersed in odd ways and gargantuan amounts – is always noted and cherished if sometimes unremarked upon. And finally, to Ana, who taught me that love is also both Symbolic and Real: here’s hoping we grow grotesque together. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT . ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii TABLE OF CONTENTS . iv LIST OF FIGURES . v INTRODUCTION – Grotesque Multiplicities . 1 CHAPTER ONE – Brutalised Bodies . 58 CHAPTER TWO – Londons Calling . 117 CHAPTER THREE – The Transcendental Adrenochrome . 202 CHAPTER FOUR – Plasticity and the Real Grotesques . 276 CONCLUSION – “—All Us Zombies—” . 368 WORKS CITED . 376 iv LIST OF FIGURES INTRODUCTION – Grotesque Multiplicities Figure 1 – “A punishment on the train,” a still from Snowpiercer . 2 Figure 2 – “Tilda Swinton’s Mason,” a still from Snowpiercer . 3 Figure 3 – Cover of the Vertigo edition of V for Vendetta (detail) . 23 Figure 4 – The comic art of R. Crumb . 38 a) “Stoned Agin!” from Mitchell, W. J. T. and Art Spiegelman, page 34. b) Back cover of Insect Fear by Robert Crumb, 1970. From The Complete Crumb Comics, Vol. 7: Hot ‘N’ Heavy (1970 – 71). Figure 5 – Francis Bacon’s Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988) . 39 From www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-second-version-of-triptych-1944-t05858 CHAPTER ONE – Brutalised Bodies Figure 1 – The opening shot of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (IB) . 70 Figure 2 – “The American West in Europe,” a still from IB . 73 Figure 3 – “The one-count of IB’s opening credits,” a still from IB . 95 CHAPTER TWO – Londons Calling Figure 1 – “Gulls and skyscrapers,” from From Hell . 122 Figure 2 – Maggie Regina (1983) by Peter Kennard . 128 From www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kennard-maggie-regina-t12485 Figure 3 – The Maggie puppet, from Spitting Image . 133 Figure 4 – The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut . 142 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre Figure 5 – “The Fourth Dimension,” from From Hell . 163 Figure 6 – “Jack,” from From Hell . 165 Figure 7 – “Ripping into today,” from From Hell . 166 Figure 8 – “The Pasteboard Queen,” from From Hell . 192 Figure 9 – “Eddy and Annie,” from From Hell . 194 Figure 10 – “Victoria’s Gull,” from From Hell . 198 v CHAPTER THREE – The Transcendental Adrenochrome Figure 1 – May ’68 Slogans . 206 Figure 2 - Execution of a Viet Cong prisoner, photograph by Eddie Adams . 208 From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3672428.stm Figure 3 – A grotesque Nixon, by Ralph Steadman . 211 From http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/illustrations-20060504/rs144- richard-nixon-38844742 Figure 4 – Steadman’s Duke and Gonzo . 221 Figure 5 – Apple’s “Think Different” campaign (1997) . 238 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_different Figure 6 – Steadman’s vomiting Gonzo/Acosta . 255 CHAPTER FOUR – Plasticity and the Real Grotesques Figure 1 - An original drawing of Delany’s creature, by Brice Hall . 293 CONCLUSION – “—All Us Zombies—” Figure 1 – The final image of Lob and Rochette’s La Transperceniege . 368 Figure 2 – George A Romero’s 1968 zombie . 371 From http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/in-pictures-the-evolution-of-the- zombie-movie/article12686958/ Figure 3 – The zombie-hunting mob in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead . 373 Figure 4 – The fungal zombie of Last of Us . 374 Figure 5 – London Calling (from Dylan Dog: Morgana by Sclavi and Stano) . 375 vi THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PANTAGRUEL: THE FUNCTION OF GROTESQUE AESTHETICS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD vii INTRODUCTION Grotesque Multiplicities Grotesque Content, Grotesque Expression Two thousand and thirteen’s Snowpiercer – a film directed by Joon-ho Bong and starring Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, and John Hurt; produced in South Korea and filmed in English and Korean in the Czech Republic; adapted from a 1982 French graphic novel La Transperceneige written by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, published by Casterman and (in 2014) in an English translation by London’s Titan Comics; worked on by a long list of Korean, US, Czech, German, French, Indian, Dutch, British, Chinese, and Canadian companies; and distributed in North America by The Weinstein Company and Anchor Bay Entertainment – was made for about 40 million dollars, making approximately 87 million in its theatrical run worldwide. Its narrative is set in a world frozen by global warming and humankind’s belated attempts to avert its effects, a world in which the only (human) survivors live on a perpetually moving train travelling around the globe. At the front of the train: the hedonistic, decadent, and at times twisted rich, enjoying every kind of train-grown luxury. At the back: the tired, poor, huddled masses living in/as wretched refuse and subsisting on a protein-rich diet of crushed insects made into gelatinous bars the colour of congealed blood. The world of Snowpiercer is replete with grotesque situations and images, both in the colloquial sense and the more specialized sense of the term to be used and discussed here. The filth and squalor of the back of the train as well as the poor’s voracious ingestion of the protein bars (preceded in the early desperate days of the train by cannibalism) mark their world as grotesque, a melding of “the dystopian class struggles of … Orwell novels and the grotesque characters of … fantasists Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro” (Howell). The occupants of the back Figure 1: A punishment on the train are here instantiations of what Slavoj Žižek and Terry Eagleton write of Oedipus at Colonus, a representative of human wretchedness who ultimately turns into an “inhuman monster” and the “scum of humanity” (Žižek, The Ticklish Subject 182). “Oedipus’ polluted body,” Eagleton writes in words that also adeptly describe the populace at the back of the train, signifies … the monstrous terror at the gates [of respectable society] in which, if it is to have a chance of rebirth, the polis must recognize its own hideous deformity. … In becoming nothing but the scum and refuse of the polis – the “shit of the earth,” as St Paul racily describes the followers of Jesus, or the “total loss of humanity” which Marx portrays as the proletariat – Oedipus is divested of his identity and authority and so can offer his lacerated body as the cornerstone of a new social order.