That is the Nature of the Grotesque: You can't Look Away

I was watching Pete Buttigieg on Fox TownHall the other day, and he made this interesting comment when asked about President Trump. He said that it is the nature of the grotesque that you just can't look away. That statement had multiple meanings for me. For instance, I could identify how it captures the entire gamut of all I've been saying about stand-up comedy and jokes because I am yet to know a joke that does not stir up the abnormal, the incongruous, denigration, in fact, in general, the grotesque. In spite of the negativities that they elicit, jokes still make us laugh, smile or even have a sense of wellness when they do not offend us.

What is the grotesque? A few examples will suffice.

I was at CDG Airport in Paris. I just finished using the toilet - I always do. Airport toilets always call to me whenever am passing through. Perhaps, I should even do an article on airport toilets I've visited. Maybe next time.

So, I came out with all my hand luggage after doing the inner room business. I was going to take a taxi to my destination and I wasn't quite sure where that place is and how long it will take me to get there. So I needed that short visit to be able to withstand whatever comes next. Am out of this toilet, and I walked to the bank of bathroom sinks to wash my hands like I've always been taught to do. And I didn't see a handle to turn the tap. Sure, I pressed the top, tried to turn it to different sides and to push it up, and nothing came out. I stood there wondering what I was supposed to do with the tap in order to make it give me water to wash my hands. Even where I came from originally, water does not always run from taps, but they always make exceptions for international airports. Hence, I was sure that water should be running from taps in CDG of all places. So, I pretended as if I was busy with my bag as some people walked to the rank of sinks to wash their hands. You can imagine how foolish I felt to see that all they did was put their hands under the tap and water automatically poured out in generous measure. I felt really stupid.

Now, that I got you laughing (at me, most probably), may I tell you that that story didn't happen exactly like that.

But if we pause to think about why we laugh at jokes, you find out that a good number of jokes actually make fun of other people. It is safer to laugh at others. But when the joke is about us, we may find it offensive and could become quite reactionary in diverse ways.

Aside jokes, there are other instances where the grotesque attracts and holds attention more than its others. I remember when I was in Primary Four. We were on recess. Don't even bother to ask me what we called it then, when we had no knowledge of what the word meant. Some folks were playing football and we were the supporters in the wings. Soon, one of the older boys probably in Primary Six came around me. I cannot remember exactly what happened: but in what looked like play, he punched me in the eye and I fell to the sandy ground covering the wounded eyeball with both palms. I could only see orange colour, nothing else. I could hear everyone in that field all around me as I laid in the sand. Out of the shame of standing up in front of all the pairs of eyes surrounding me, I decided to feign that I have fainted. I held my breath, closed my eyes and laid still. Some even believed I was dead. Then the teachers got involved and I was carried by some senior boys to the office of the Headmistress, a goodly woman known only as Mrs. Orefo - God bless her soul.

Long story short. I was revived with water. Or so they thought. By the time the water had succeeded in doing the magic, the culprit was already kneeling down and multiple teachers were raining abuses and canes on him. He was pleading and trying to tell them that we were just playing that it was all a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. But I wasn't playing with him. He was always picking on me cause he was bigger and two classes ahead. Well, in order to thank me for not dying on them, I was given a boiled egg. I can never forget that. It was a treat! While this guy was on the other side of the room being questioned, harassed, threatened and flogged intermittently, I was on the other side enjoying my egg with relish. Everyone's attention was on him, on the grotesque, the "abnormal" boy, possibly a bully who punched a more junior student to the point that he fainted; and not on me, the one compensated for waking up from fainting that never happened. So, none could witness the relish with which I ate the egg and even ended up leaving the shell in the plate with which the teachers brought the egg. I supposed that in that "state of health" there's no way I should be packing dirt. It is not a privilege that comes often.




Permit me to use this scenario to describe the world of today. The story is not about me, but about the human nature that thrives in scandals, sensationalism, gossip, controversies, just call it the dirt, grime and sewers of other people's lives which just burst in the open. If you doubt me, watch the news. Almost all breaking news is about one state of the grotesque or the other. Not done with those, people still add the gossip columns, the leak channels and other internet outlets for revealing real and imagined secrets of other people's lives. And I ask: who doesn't have a dirty secret? Who hasn't done something he or she is no longer proud of? Who? Just who?

And yet, in spite of the juicy details of our own lives, we take pleasure in circulating, mocking and celebrating those of others whose only crime is that their own skeletons are now out of their cupboards. Isn't it just like Jesus and the woman accused of adultery, who was brought to Him with the intention of knowing whether He will oppose their obeying the Law of Moses in stoning the woman. When Jesus asked those who haven't sinned to cast the first stone in John 8:7-9; the field immediately became cleared of humans except Jesus and the woman.

As I read that portion of the Bible over and over, and as I talk more about it, I am drawn into thinking about the silence of the narrative on the whereabout of the man that she committed the sin with. How did they know that she committed adultery if they didn't find her with a man? And if she was caught in the act like they claimed, where is the man? Or was she committing adultery with herself? I am sure those people know the difference between adultery and masturbation. So, if she was caught with a man, why did they let him go/escape?

But the most worrying aspect is: Could the man caught in the act with her be among those waiting to stone her? Even if he was not among her accusers, I see everyone of them who dropped stones at the point of being shown their own consciences the same way I see this other man. It is the same adulterer running in all of them. And that's one of the saddest aspects of being human: accusing and even executing judgement on others for lesser crimes or same ones that we commit. We are quick to judge others and condemning them even when we know we do worse things. We are also quick to laugh at jokes about others because we feel we are better than them. Just when I mentioned the joke about me and the CDG taps, your reaction might betray that you are also culpable to that human nature - mocking others because they don't behave like us. To what extent would you say that because I have no idea as to how to use a tap with sensor rather than handle that I am primitive and unintelligent? We often fail to realise that there are instances of ignorance for everyone especially when two different cultures meet. There are things that even children know in one society which old people cannot even think of in another society. And that is exactly how human life is: ignorance and knowledge exist side by side in equal measure.