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Carnivale:
An American Freak Show
Historically, American traveling carnivals have seemed to share
little with the carnival tradition that traces its roots to the Roman
Saturnalia, through the medieval and Renaissance periods, to carnival
celebrated today as a pre-lenten festival.
An American carnival may illustrate clearly the profanity,
bawdiness, and upsetting of all cultural laws necessary to the
celebration of carnival; however, its very structure keeps the carnival
that sets up for a week in New Hope, Missouri distinct form New
Orleans’ Mardi Gras, a clear ancestor of historic carnival.
The traveling carnival of America is first a business, not a
celebration. It is a business operating
year round, weather permitting, not an event linked to the
renewing promise of spring. As
a business, the carnival operators, sideshow freaks included, do not
participate in the revelry they sell.
The rides, the peep shows, the tarot readings are all a commodity
in a capitalistic pursuit; thus, economically at least, the American
carnival reinforces rather than inverts the norms of its culture.
Only in its strangeness, its mystery, does the American carnival
seem to share anything with the ancient festival from which it took its
name.
In
2003, HBO launched a program that bridges the apparent divide between
historical carnival and the traveling entertainment enterprise known in
America as the carnival. HBO’s
Carnivale, set in the early 1930’s, follows
two plots. One is the story
of Ben Hawkins, a young man with the ability to heal crippled bodies,
cure disease, and give life to the dead.
By chance or by unknown design, a traveling carnival comes upon
Ben as he is attempting to bury his mother on the family farm before the
bank’s bulldozers can seize the property.
Compounding the urgency of the bulldozer and the mystery of this
quiet young man, the viewer sees chains on Ben’s ankles just as a
police siren is heard in the background. The carnival whisks Ben away before he can be caught by
the police and, reluctantly, he becomes a member of a new and strange
family. Carnivale’s
other story is that of Brother Justin, a preacher with his own
mysterious gift who has one leg in the evangelical ministry and one leg
in the rising social gospel ministry.
Brother Justin uses his dark gift to accomplish his social goal
of creating a place of worship for down-and-out Oakies; in one instance
he makes a poor thief vomit silver dollars, and in another Justin forces
a landowner to see visions of his own pedophilia, which leads the
landowner to suicide. Even
if they don’t catch Michael Anderson‘s introductory instruction that
“To each generation is born a creature of light and a creature of
darkness,” viewers understand from the outset that the show’s theme
is the battle between good and evil.
The problem is, who is good and who is evil?
This blurring of traditional moral roles created by the
characters of Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin is the first sign that Carnivale
is not going to be a show about your typical American traveling freak
show. It is also the first
indicator that Daniel Knauf, the program’s creator and primary writer,
reached beyond P.T. Barnum and into the historical idea of carnival to
find his show. Even those
moments of seeming difference between this program and historical
carnival reinforce the understanding that carnival is about challenging
the known and upsetting expectations.
In the midst of the confusion created by murky plot lines and the
unexpected twisting of moral comfort, the Carnivale viewer
participates in what could be the darkest carnival ever celebrated.
An important component of carnival is the inversion of social
roles and cultural norms illustrated by the characters of Ben Hawkins
and Brother Justin. Yet,
the most striking inversion in Carnivale is the reversing of the
foundational elements of carnival itself.
Beginning with ancient carnival celebrations, the festival has
centered on the agricultural revival and renewal promised with spring.
Even the Christian celebration, with its focus on spiritual
renewal, is tied to the agricultural season of new birth.
In an ironic twist, Carnivale is set in the most
unfertile, unregenerate period in American history, the Dust Bowl days.
The circumstances seem so barren of hope that it is tempting to
think there is no carnival renewal going on.
That is, until the program offers its first example of Ben’s
gift. In Episode 1, just as
the carnival is pulling out of town, Ben encounters a young girl whose
crippled condition has prevented her from riding the ferris wheel.
Ben lays his hands on the girl’s legs and her body is healed,
even as the surprisingly fertile fields surrounding the two die away.
At this moment is becomes clear that Carnivale is about
human renewal and not botanical renewal.
The significance of Ben
s gift in relation to carnival
is best understood by its importance to those around him.
Ben’s ability to give life is slowly disclosed to his new
carnival family, but the leadership behind this band of freaks
apparently knew of it before the carnival found Ben at his mother’s
graveside. The identity of
the carnival boss is itself unknown, he/she/it is a presence referred to
as management who “exists“ behind a curtain in one of the carnival
trailers and communicates through the dwarf named Samson, but the boss
has a real interest in keeping Ben with the carnival. With everything in America dying, the carnival itself faces
financial collapse, and Ben is the power it needs for entrance into real
carnival, a state where the down and out can be rich and bad luck turns
to good. Part of what
management must manage are the threats to Ben that exists both inside
and outside of the carnival. Brother
Justin, connected to Ben through the dream they share, is threatened by
the good Ben seems to represent. Lodz,
the blind carnival seer, is a dark element of that dream and Ben’s
presence threatens his ability to keep his past and perhaps his purpose
concealed.
While vague, the dream hints that Justin and Ben are connected in
a more tangible way, and this reinforces the idea of carnival in the
program. Part of the dream
shows two men, one formally dressed and one in a WWI uniform, sharing a
toast in a diner. In
another part of the dream, the two men are in a trench in the midst of
war. As Justin is
experiencing the same dream as Ben, it becomes clear these two men are
linked to the preacher and the healer, most likely as the fathers the
younger men never met. In his essay, “The Meaning of Carnival in The Brothers
Karamozov,“ Roger Anderson points to the crisis that results during
carnival with the destruction of the carnival king, the social confusion
that follow, and the promise of new beginnings that comes with the
choosing of a new carnival king. For
Anderson, Alesa and Dmitrij represent the continuity of carnival, taking
over the role of king after the destructions of Father Zosima and Fedor
Karamazov. In this case,
the carnival of Karamozov has two kings and two successors.
Carnivale suggests Ben and Justin similarly serve as the
successors to the carnival kings. It is clear that one represents light
and the other dark, and so each are necessary to provide the difference
that makes possible carnival, a time when “rank, privileges, norms,
and prohibitions” are suspended (Bakhtin 10).
It
is easier to locate the elements of historic carnival in Carnivale
than to place the show within the artistic genre of the grotesque.
Clearly, the celebration of the body that occurs both inside and
outside of the stripper‘s tent is grotesque, as is the language used
within the carnival family. The
body is openly celebrated with such lines as, "I've fallen off the
roof, so I ain't taking off my pants tonight" (I’m having my
period so I won’t strip bare tonight), "She's got plenty of snap
in her garter" (she sure is sexy), "...here to prove once an'
for all whether it is true what they say about oriental women. Is the
basket swinging straight up 'n' down or sideways?!" (I’m going to
prove whether Asian women are anatomically like European women or not),
and
"Who
says we always gotta be stickin' our fish ponds in everyone's
face?" (why do we always have to put our crotches in everyone’s
face?). In Carnivale,
such talk is not limited to whispers, but is spoken freely within the
carnival family and to those who pay their nickels for a night of
entertainment. It is the
type of openness found in the baring of breasts that is part of the
public celebration of Mardi Gras. Such
discourse is the “special type of communication impossible in everyday
life” that occurs during carnival.
According to Bakhtin, “This led to special forms of marketplace
speech and gesture, frank and free, permitting no distance between those
who came in contact with each other and liberating from norms of
etiquette and decency imposed at other times” (10). The only thing preventing this grotesqueness from initiating
a complete sense of carnival is the censoring by outsiders who prefer
judgment over participation in the festivities.
The
grotesque can also be found in the images of Carnivale.
The landscape is lifeless and the people are unattractive
physically and behaviorally. Brother
lusts after sister, a bearded women lusts after a blind man, a father
puts his daughters on stage as strippers.
In the background are a lizard man, Siamese twins, a giant, and
there is a dwarf leading the show.
Grotesque images, “remain ambivalent and contradictory; they
are ugly, monstrous, hideous from the point of view of ‘classic’
aesthetics, that is, the aesthetics of the ready make and completed”
(Bakhtin 25). Yet, within
carnival and in Carnivale they become the norm.
The
element of grotesque missing from Carnivale is the laughter.
The viewer is able to chuckle at the language, but its intent is
not humor any more than the show’s intent is humor.
The theme of good vs. evil in Carnivale has been magnified
beyond any potential for joviality.
Because of this, Carnivale is an example of what Bakhtin
identifies as Romantic Grotesque. Romantic
grotesque is full of terror and secrets, and “All that is ordinary,
commonplace, belonging to everyday life, and recognized by all suddenly
becomes meaningless, dubious, and hostile.
Our own world becomes an alien world” (38-39).
All of the confusion of carnival has been displaced from its
specified festival time and has consumed all time.
It is no longer a separate time when people put on masks and
dance for a brief relief from the everyday; it is a time when the masks
become permanent and the dance never ends.
Behind each face is a secret, the potential for deception.
Ben faces so many lies while trying to trace his father that he
has no basis for discerning truth.
Justin seems to be using a collar and a cross to do Satan’s
work, but when, in the final episode of the first season, his eyes turn
into black orbs, the possibility arises that he is following a more
distant master, ala X-Files. And
just who the hell is management and what is he/it trying to hide?
Outside of those cities that stage a yearly Mardi Gras, any
carnival experience in America will necessarily be limited to the
Romantic grotesque. Carnival
is far too alien to the Puritan rooted Protestant ethic of America to
ever be accepted or even tolerated, if even for a brief time. Its very
difference makes it terrible, and the terror forces things to remain
hidden. So, while it may
have not traditionally fit the historic idea of carnival, the American
traveling carnival is inextricably linked to that element of carnival
that is the Romantic grotesque.
The physical appearance of carnival freaks and the behaviors
associated with all carnival workers keep the carnival outside of
American social norms. Perhaps
the worst affront to those norms is the traveling, gypsy life of the
carnival, which is antithetical to the American Dream idea of a plot of
land and a house to go on it. In Carnivale, the traveling freaks
and carnies exist to entertain, but they are kept on the outskirts of
town, a safe distance from those they come to entertain.
When the carnival arrives at Tipton in Episode 3, the sheriff
comes to tell Samson the carnival is not welcome.
While unable to stand against the authority of the sheriff, the
carnival is broke. To save
themselves, the carnival plans the greatest and most ironic freak show
ever - a tent revival with Ben the healer as the star freak.
A carnivalesque reversal of roles occurs, with the carnies
assuming the masks of those who would most like them to disappear. The
local reverend who has agreed to allow the revival in exchange for half
of the gate becomes the side show barker, luring the curious in to see
the show. And the people who come to receive healing become the show,
the freaks whose physical imperfection makes them so terrifying yet so
irresistible. There is no
laughter, indeed the revival ends with death and a hint of coming doom,
but it is an almost complete carnival experience.
What is inconceivable in American reality become believable in Carnivale.
Believability is reinforced by socio-political factors.
In a pre-9/11 world, this display of the Romantic grotesque would
have been less recognizable to the average viewer.
At the time of the program’s airing, however, Carnivale’s
audience was conditioned for the possibility of this deceptive, hostile
world Knauf created. While
American’s like to believe they can identify good and bad, random
security checks at airport gates and, even worse, stories of the
collusion of Americans with Islamic fundamentalists have weakened any
sense of clear discernment. While
the dark haired, foreign neighbor down the street was once just seen as
different, he is now suspect, so potentially different he is freakish.
Carnivale is a very real world for the post-9/11 audience
for whom anything but the Romantic grotesque would seem out of place.
Carnival
has historically been an experience when those relegated to the fringes
of life can, if only for a time and if only in the imaginary venue of
festival, experience life as an insider.
Freakishness, otherness, becomes the temporary standard.
Carnivale, with its mystery, its supernatural power of
renewal, and its band of freaks, takes the American brand of carnival
transforms it into an ancient form of carnival.
It is an American program, sculpted by the religious genetics and
contemporary experience that are distinctly American.
It is a show that refuses to be limited to religious time -
it is carnival for all time, for life.
Works
Cited
Bakhtin,
Mikhail. Rabelais and
His World. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1984.
Works
Referred to
Anderson,
Roger B. “The Meaning of
Carnival in The Brothers Karamazov.”
The Slavic and East European Journal.
23.4 (1979): 458-478.
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