The Internet: The Carnival and the Spectacle

“It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade…”
Edgar Allen Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

On the morning of Thursday 6th July, American anti-abortion blogger Pete stumbled across an online article written by a Ms Caroline Weber, expressing her relentless joy at the prospect of an upcoming termination (www.theonion.com/content/node/33680?issue=4227&special=1999). Using such phraseology as "I am totally psyched for this abortion!" "those pro-life activists made it pretty clear that, unlike me, they actually think abortion is bad and to be avoided. Are they nuts? Abortion is the best!” and “it wasn't until now that I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a child I had no means to support", our hapless hero Pete felt moved enough to pen a typically distainful response on his blog March Together For Life. Barely able to contain his ire, he presented a series of arguments disputing the various comments the author had made – regarding her assertion that she had the pro-life lobby to thank for her abortion, due to her inability to receive contraceptives as a result of their political lobbying. Pete cooly suggested that Ms Weber’s pregnancy was due rather to her folly of having had unprotected sex before marriage. He finished his scathing diatribe with the words “every baby you see… is going to wake you up to the realization that you killed your child.” (http://marchtogether.blogspot.com/2006/07/murder-without-conscience.html - Please be aware this link contains disturbing and graphic images.)

Ouch. And yet, despite Pete’s sincerest intentions, it has made him a laughing stock on the Blogosphere, and something of an Internet celebrity over night. This is not because of his self-righteous political stance (indeed his blog is considerably more reasoned and less vitriolic than many of his Christian Right contemparies), but due the fact that the objectable article in question was a satrical piece on the considerably popular website The Onion. Many bloggers on all sides of the political spectrum lined up to pour condemnation on Pete. Anti-abortionists criticised him for his inability to distinguish between satire and real-life resulting in making their movement look ridiculous. Pro-choice commentators seized upon his mistake as undeniable proof of both the ignorance and the sense of humour faliure on the part of their conservative counterparts. His blog’s comments section was filled with thousands of responses from people revelling in his shame – most notably the poster who wrote “I laughed so hard I just aborted my child. Thanks for nothing baby-killer!”

Pete posted shortly afterwards a series of entries in an attempt to redeem his character, one in particular claiming that the joke was on everyone who had responded, as he himself had intended his piece as satire. This of course did not wash with any of those who had forwarded on and linked to his blog post with such gleeful abandon. Responding to a comment that it was simply ridiculous that any semi-educated person could neither know of The Onion, nor gage the obvious satirical nature of the article, Pete responded defiantly - yet confusingly - that this was conclusive proof of the failings of the public education system that meant that people found it amusing to ridicule an issue so close to his heart. Contradicting his previous stance that his original post was a joke, he added that he had at first taken The Onion article seriously because he had come across similar opinions in “his field”.

It is all too easy to laugh at Pete. His original indignation, his inability to back down and his brazen hubris have made him ripe for parody. As a pro-choice feminist myself, it is particularly difficult to have a degree of sympathy for a man who takes the view that women who have abortions are murderers. Pete has posted a disclaimer at the top of his now infamous post with a picture of a bloody, nearly-formed feotus, and the words “can you face the truth? This is what you all are laughing at. This is what you are responsible for. Go ahead, laugh at abortion if you can.” This of course surfaces almost forgotten memories of the Brass Eye paedophile special on television in the UK, where Chris Morris and other well known satirists were vilified in the tabloids for making a mockery of the issue of child abuse. Of course, on viewing the television programme, it was clear that Brass Eye was actually attacking the hysteria and sensationalism of the issue by both the media and the public. Many critics, particularly the politician that commented on the “unspeakably sick” nature of the programme, were revealed to not actually have even viewed the episode and were commenting based on mere hearsay, whilst the Daily Mail (and the other usual suspects when it comes to stoking of the fire of moral panic) tried to emerge from the whole debacle without a hint of egg on their faces. Like the irrepressible Pete, they were roundly mocked for their lack of intelligence and inability to grasp the subtle humour required; much like Pete they claimed in their defence that such a subject was so sensitive that any attempt to make light of it displayed a disgraceful lack of ethics.

It could be argued that these so-called arbiters of public decency have a point. There are some subjects that seem impossible to appear amusing. The usually hilarious George Carlin once took a bash at making jokes about rape (“I can PROVE to you that rape is funny! Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd!”), but his routine left myself and many others feeling a tad uncomfortable. The inevitable conclusion I can draw from this is that humour, when derived from mocking touchy subjects – abortion, paedophilia, rape, murder, racism or whatever – comes not from the matter itself, but from the way it is approached. Specifically, in the cases of The Onion and Brass Eye, they take their material from the reaction rather than the issue. The fictional writer Ms Weber is not poking fun at the process of abortion nor the attitude of women entering the process – The Onion is satirising the respective fears that the issue provokes in the minds of both the pro and anti lobbies. If Pete had responded with good humour and grace, admitting his blunder, it is likely that his public humiliation would have disintegrated like an unwanted embryo in a Marie Stopes clinic. Many of us with strong politics can appreciate the mistakes that can be made when a person stumbles across an inflammatory opposing opinion, only to realise after a momentary lapse in humour that it was all a silly joke. The problem with the Internet and particularly the Blogosphere is that an unforgiving audience can manipulate your every mistake for their own entertainment – sympathetic and rival commentators alike can mirror your half-baked ramblings and post their own opinions or responses on their respective websites. Regular readers of blogs will recognise how they can be in themselves spider webs of links to other people’s own Internet journals. Notably there is a phrase to describe a blog that contains a collection of links to other blogs and articles regarding a particular topic, the “blog carnival”, an expression that raised an ironic chuckle of mirth when viewed in relation to Pete’s dilemma.

The word “carnival” nowadays evokes images of lithe, large-breasted women dressed in elaborate feathers, sashaying down the sun-baked streets of Rio, or less sexily, rickety floats covered in bunting and followed by disinterested Brownie Packs parading down small town High Streets. The traditional carnival was a fascinating social phenomenon, one in which men would dress as women, the poor as kings – it was a day when the hoarding masses could ridicule the ridiculous in a way that they would never have been permitted by their feudal landowners on a non-carnival day. Distilled in a mixture in pagan rituals and political control, the carnival would allow the lowest in the social system to walk amongst the highest in the land, poking fun at the pecking order that 364 days of the year kept them poor and their social betters privileged. Rather than a source of oppression, at carnival the order was parodied to the point of the grotesque. Laughter was a substitute – it cut across the chain of command and allowed the proletariat majority to expel their anger, tensions and fear through a less destructive way than outright dissent. The social identity claimed by the participants from their clothing was ridiculed by the masquerade of carnival – a crown is essentially just a hat, likewise a bucket can be a crown. The authorities not only allowed such behaviour, they often went as far as to condone and encourage it, despite that the government and the Church were increasingly lampooned. Central to the carnival was the “Lord of Misrule”, a figure plucked from the lowest rungs of the social system, and he would play the role of King for a day. He was a joke, the village idiot who in the topsy-turvy world of carnival was afforded the highest of stations.

In the subversive world of the Internet, Pete is just that – the jester in a festival role-play. Whilst Pete is not in any sense anyone’s better, his self-proclaimed virtuosity and moral faultlessness left him a suitable participant for the “Lord of Misrule” - dressed in a paper crown and sceptre of cardboard, insistent that he is in on the prank, unwilling and too proud to admit that the joke is rather on him, whilst his fellow bloggers smirk and throw rotten tomatoes. Like the Lutheran parodies of the Papacy during the Reformation, Pete’s role has taken on a political slant. As priests and monks were regarded as sexual hypocrites in the eyes of the early Protestants, preaching abstinence from the Pulpit all the while maintaining a series of mistresses and lovers, Pete’s attempts to demoralise and criticise those he sees as lesser people has unfortunately for him backfired – he has become an effigy for conservative stupidity and duplicity, much like the Papal Bull that was paraded through the streets of Germany. Like the exaggerated and monstrous masks that would once have been adopted by the revellers, the Internet provides a level of anonymity that allows the individual to point, laugh, and critique their object of derision above and beyond what would usually be socially acceptable. The urges that would as a rule become suppressed for fear of personal repercussion are in this scenario encouraged, and excused by the words “it is not real life, it is merely parody”, or in the context of Pete, “it’s only the Internet, it’s not to be taken seriously”.

The Internet has been often compared to a Victorian freak show, and like the Bearded Lady or the Elephant Man, Pete’s case leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Some of the cruellest bloggers overstepped the mark, publishing poor Pete’s full name, address and telephone number, encouraging their readers to contact the anti-abortionist directly. Suddenly, the line between the carnivalesque other and Pete’s day-to-day life blurred. The traditional carnival that only lasted twenty-four hours had encroached into the personal realm – it was no longer a series of binary code on a computer screen that caused such mirth but a real life, living, breathing human being. However obnoxious or vile his opinions may have appeared to his detractors, attempts to bully and intimidate his person actually allowed Pete to claw back some form of moral superiority. The carnival itself – the subversion of the order – had itself been subverted.

In the resulting aftermath, it could be suggested that Pete came out on top. The Lord of Misrule may be an uninformed subject of contempt, but he now comes across as a sympathetic character. Moreover, his website which before would receive 400 hits a day if he was lucky, is now getting something in the region of 45,000. Amongst the many who piled in to add their name to the list of those who felt the need to tell Pete how very stupid he is, there will have been a few that would have been receptive to his views, and as a result he will become something of a celebrated figure in the pro-life movement. You have to wonder if many of the well-meaning bloggers who chuckled at Pete originally have created Frankenstein’s monster – a figure that they produced and now cannot control. Pete himself sums it up in his own blog – you can almost imagine his satisfied grin as he typed the words, “who’s had the last laugh now?” Who has indeed?

By K Blythe

Copyright July 2006

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