Tim and Eric’s ‘D Pants’ (2009) embodies (pardon the pun?) Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of grotesque degradation as associated with the carnivalesque. In late-stage capitalist society, I would proffer advertisements as a kind of postmodern ‘high ceremonial gesture’; they are quasi-sacred ritualistic tools that dogmatically reaffirm the official values and structures of society.[1] In this way, the central parodic concept of the ‘D Pants’ sketch degrades official and serious elements in the same vein as medieval ‘parodia sacra’- via a transference to the material sphere.[2] The skit employs certain formal elements, such as direct address, infographics, product shots, use of a green screen, and contrived dialogue directed beyond the frame to a non-existent neighbour, which are reminiscent of TV marketing tropes. However, the product in question is a highly impractical solution to diarrhoea, thereby bringing the form to a ‘material bodily’ level.[3] The central preoccupation with uncontrollable defecation establishes a conception of the human body as uncontainable- ‘it is not a closed completed unit; it is unfinished, outgrows itself, transgresses its own limits’.[4] Although the inventor-entrepreneur, as representative of the ‘economised man’, attempts to keep humans as isolated ‘biological individual[s]’ via his faecal containment device, I for one do not believe that the diarrhoea almost never runs away through the tight elastic round the ankles.[5] When the D Pants split in the final shot, the wearer’s body has truly become grotesque. Their body, in a way that generates intense abject horror, has become fully open to the outside world and no longer has clearly defined boundaries. The carnivalesque and grotesque spirit of this ‘second world’ that Tim and Eric create is surprisingly enticing.[6] Let us ditch consumerist individualism and let our shit flow together as one!
[1] Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Introduction’ in Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1968), 20.
[2] Ibid., 14.
[3] Ibid., 18.
[4] Ibid., 26.
[5] Ibid., 18-19.
[6] Ibid., 6.
Bibliography
Bakhtin, Mikhail, ‘Introduction’ in Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1968), 4-30.
Filmography
Adult Swim UK, ‘D Pants: Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eSVa6sqz0g&ab_channel=AdultSwimUK [05/02/23].