Grotesque Humor

Today in my first class, the Faulkner seminar, we had the privilege of hearing Dr. Gillum speak about what he calls the grotesque humor of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. He calls it, "art with bad manners that's mixed with comedy.... it's funny but also deeply shocking and disturbing." It was a fascinating lecture (I say that with a grain of salt because lectures are rarely interesting). What I kept mulling over was how something is labeled "grotesque" and who decides what is grotesque and what is not. The body, for example, is often seen in Western culture as disgusting and filled with unruly desires and smells, but according to the American Indian culture there is nothing gross or disgusting about it. I thought this was interesting.


But i'm more concerned with the comedic aspect of grotesque humor. Why do we laugh to mask our uncomfortableness? Why do we beautify the horrific, gross aspects of life such as death in As I Lay Dying? Specifically in that book the Tull family goes to extreme lengths to honor their mother's last wish to be buried in her family plot the next town over... the only problem is after she dies they have to drag her rotting, smelling body across the county.... the comedic property of this novel is how they deal with it... the events they must overcome to fulfill Addie's dying wish.... So the readers, while understanding that Addie's death is very much the gravity of the story, still are able to laugh at the situation. How is that?


While our American Indian Literature class was watching Sherman Alexie's movie, "Smoke Signals" the same thoughts about grotesque humor continued rolling around in my head. Here the audience is given two characters; one who has severe anger towards the past and the second understands his history and is able to make light of it all. Thomas, the second aforementioned character, embodies what Dr. Gillum would call grotesque humor, the deeply serious intertwined with humor and comic relief. It illuminates what the documentary Reel Injun said about humor being all the Indians have left. They keep it, use it, and hold on to it for dear life in order not to be overcome by the horrors of their past. So while they can talk about the genocide at Wounded Knee they can also make humorous comments because that's their way of dealing with the past. This is most clearly obvious when looking at how different cultures deal with funerals. Are elaborate funerals for the deceased person? No. They're for the ones still living and who have to deal with the aftermath of death. So also the American Indians must use humor as a way to deal with the aftermath of all the death and destruction that they've experienced as well.