Both Bakhtin and Eco’s notions of carnival center around the subversion of rules, and of what is accepted. Because religion creates rules, and much of carnival folk humor in the Middle Ages that Bakhtin mentions parodied the Church, I think it is fitting to discuss blasphemous humor. By satirizing traditions of Christianity, especially when coupled with something grotesque, blasphemous humor can upend the status quo and therefore, be a carnival ritual.
According to Bakhtin, “laughter penetrates the highest forms of religious cult and thought” (13). For this post, I have selected a scene from the Netflix show Santa Clarita Diet. The show follows Sheila, a suburban realtor who turns into a zombie that has to eat people to survive. After a string of murders in Santa Clarita, local policewoman Anne has begun to catch onto Sheila. One night in the desert, when Anne confronts them, Sheila and her husband Joel decide to pretend like Sheila’s penchant for man-eating is simply her carrying out God’s plan, and prove it to Anne by showing her the disembodied (and still alive) head of Gary who Sheila turned into a zombie (or, brought back from the dead). The incredibly pious Anne, taking it as a divine sign, promises to be Sheila’s most loyal disciple instead of taking her to jail. (Sorry, that last part is not in this clip and no one has posted it on YouTube).
Bakhtin says that “the essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is, the lowering of all that is high, spiritual ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body…” (19-20). This scene satirizes religion by taking something “high” (the rise of Jesus from the dead) and turning it into something grotesque (a bloody, rotting, decapitated head that speaks). This use of grotesque realism not only makes a joke about Christianity by showing its spirituality in fleshy corporeal form, but it also suspends reality and hierarchies by allowing the grotesque figure to be sacred.
“The basis of laughter which gives form to carnival rituals frees them completely from all religious and ecclesiastic dogmatism…Even more, certain carnival forms parody the Church’s cult” (Bakhtin 7). This quotation shows how grotesque humor can liberate us from the “dogmatic” rules of religion, and Santa Clarita Diet showcases this by imagining if someone of “high” spiritual values and beliefs were to come in contact with something of Earth – “earth is an element that devours, swallows up (the grave, the womb…)” (21), and thus was “degraded” down to the “material and bodily roots of the world” (19).
This is a really interesting example of the potential of grotesque realism to upend religious hierarchy by turning the symbol of the cross into something grotesque. Your point that how grotesque humour can free us from religious dogma made me think of the Monty Python film ‘Life of Brian’. In a way that is perhaps more ‘Carnivalesque’ than grotesque per se, ‘Life of Brian’ satirises sacred teachings, such as a mishearing of the Sermont of the Mont, subverting social norms of Jesus day.
I really love this example, it’s so fitting! Bakhtin’s descriptions about distortions of the grotesque body also apply really clearly here.
I think blasphemous humour makes so much sense within the context of Bakhtin’s argument. The show being set in suburbia adds another layer of rule breaking on top of the religious.