In ‘Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin describes the concepts of the ‘grotesque body’ and the ‘carnival spectacle’, which occurs when a typically serious ritual is parodied. He states that in the grotesque body, ‘the stress is laid on those parts of the body that are open to the outside world’, and argues that this body is ‘something universal, representing all the people’. This could apply to an example in which everyone in the entire universe’s fingers were elongated into flappy, hot dog-like appendages, as seen in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The protagonist Evelyn finds herself in a universe in which not only is she in a romantic relationship with her home-universe nemesis from the IRS, Deirdre, but everyone has flappy hot dog fingers. Even the soundtrack in this scene is played with errors, as if to mimic instruments being played with these fingers.
The clips of Deirdre flapping her hot dog fingers at Evelyn in a mating ritual-esque dance are intercut with clips from the same universe of a film in which a couple with identical fingers do the same thing. In that film, the couple proceeds to insert their hot dog fingers into each others’ mouths, feeding them to each other while a mix of mustard and ketchup cascades down both of their faces and necks. Bakhtin refers to feasts as common events for carnival and comic spectacles to occur, and this is evident here as this visually striking finger-feast appears to be apart of a ritual that is commonplace in this universe.
Bakhtin discusses how this grotesquerie gives way to a metamorphosis and shows a cycle of birth and death. In the hot dog fingers scene, Evelyn undergoes a moralistic metamorphosis. Her rejection of hotdog-finger Deirdre is a result of her looking into the Everything Bagel in a different universe and becoming cruel and nihilistic. Deirdre’s reaction of heartbreak causes Evelyn to re-evaluate her actions, and prompts her to repair the damage that she has done in other universes and try to bring happiness to the people around her.
I agree with your assessment of the scene as an example of the grotesque, especially considering the emphasis that Bakhtin puts on the parts of the body that are orifices and those that protrude. Eating and sex are two activities which he explicitly defines as relating to the grotesque, so the imagery of the insertion of hot dog fingers into mouths invokes both elements, yet in an especially unfamiliar and unnatural way.
I really like that you started off by explaining its connection to religious parody, it’s a part of carnival that I fear I didn’t fully comprehend or take note of. Also how you talked about the music of the scene was very clever!
I remember hot dog fingers being one of the most laughed at moments in EEAAO when I saw it. The adjustment of the score to imitate it being played by someone with that physical quality was a great bolster of humor.