In his introduction to Rabelais and His World, Mikhail Bakhtin argues that “The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is, the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract”.[1] The film Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, USA, 2022) takes this theory of the grotesque to extremes, and highlights how absurdist humour functions in similar ways to the grotesque.
In this clip, Jobu Tupaki (an alternate universe version of the protagonist’s daughter) describes how she has put everything in the world onto a bagel. While the subject of the weight and meaning of the entire universe can certainly be described as “high” and “abstract”, the everything bagel represents the popular, the everyday and the trivial. Reminiscent of the famous assertion in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ is simply ‘Forty-Two’, the fact that the lofty subject of ‘everything’ is made tangible in bagel form certainly constitutes a degradation in Everything Everywhere All At Once.[2] This degradation is also seen through Jobu Tupaki’s belief that nothing matters, and her general apathetic manner towards the unusual and surprising events throughout the film, and her indifference even to her own ability to create them, as seen in this clip:
However, this is certainly not the “realism” that Bakhtin has in mind, but is rather an absurdist form of humour. The explosion of the police officer into confetti, the sudden appearance of a face in the back of Jobu Tupaki’s head, and the blood suddenly becoming ketchup are all completely unexpected to the viewer, and are also impossible in real life, which is what makes them absurd and laughable. Therefore, Bakhtin’s ideals about the grotesque can also be applied to the absurd, highlighting how close these two comic modes are.
[1] Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Introduction’ in Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968), 19.
[2] Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (London: Picador, 2002), 152.
As a big fan of ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’, I think your association between this movie and Bakhtin’s theory is very interesting! What surprised me about EEAAO the first time I watched it was how unpredictable and absurd it was, especially the second scene you mentioned: everything that happens in that scene is so unexpected and confusing and all you can do is laugh and don’t think too much about it. I think the main reason why this scene is so so absurd is to prove Jobu Tupaki/Joy’s point, her nihilistic idea that ‘nothing matters’. If nothing matters then even the most absurd things will look ‘real’ and ‘normal’.
I like your use of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as an example of Bakhtin’s idea of grotesque. When I think about it now, this novel truly is a great example of absurdity and grotesque as a result of “lowering all that is hight” – even its title manages to combine something as great and as the ‘galaxy’ with such simple, down-to-earth terms as ‘hitchhiking’ and ‘guide’.