From Carnivale to Sex in the City

Samantha: No man wants to fuck Granma's pussy.

Carrie: This is a child's birthday party.

-Today's Episode of Sex in the City

Ah yes, I watched it. I won't spoil anything for you, but jesus I can remember when watching sex in the city gave me hope and now I just feel awful. I look at their fabulous apartments and everyone having these great relationships, and to borrow a phrase from Scott Thompson of the Kids in the Hall, "I feel like...to puke."

I mean, ok I am going to spoil, Miranda suffers a miscarriage after only three weeks and she is devastated. OK, OK, I'm a little forgiving. But she has a great husband ( even if he does tea bag his balls on the white sofa-yick) and a FABULOUS APARTMENT and she is devastated by this minor set back. But what really kills me is she inspired to get out of the house in a lovely tribute to what looked like Audrey Hepburn from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" meets Jackie O from, and I kid you not, WATCHING THE ELIZABETH TAYLOR TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY FROM E! Christ, if only all depressions were so easy to cure. Fuck Freud just get basic cable. I mean, some of us have depressions that go beyond a half an hour of who's who in the life of Richard Burton. Some of can watch a whole frickin' mini series and still want to throw ourselves under the six train.

For me, I have been seriously considering that whole Emily Dickensen/ J.D. Salinger deal. Part of it probably stemming from reading Possession since the character of Cristabel LaMotte ( I admit the name is heavy handed-so are the character names Mortimer Cropper and Beatrice Nest) is based on Dickensen. Perhaps both of these people felt that they could not connect with others at all and it was too painful for them to live among people that they could not connect with. So instead of living in rejection everyday they simply absented themselves from the equation. This prevents rejection by others and technically puts them in the power position in terms of accepting or rejecting the attentions of others. It also might drive people to great extremes in order to make contact, weeding out, so to speak, those with less than extremely dedicated purposes.

I digress.

The other show that I watched tonight was Carnivale. The world of the carnivale has long been intriguing to scholars and artists. It has long been a source of fear to outsiders (think of the fear represented by films like "Freaks" the fear of contagion) and mystique (Allen's "Shadows and Fog" ends with the main character, a clerk, achieving his dream of joining a carnival to aid a famous magician). Rabelais ( oh yeah, I'll teach you all to call me anti intellectual) said the attraction of the Carnivale is it's "topsy turvey" aspect-it is a world in reverse. In keeping with this idea one of the most attractive scenes in the first episode of this show is when an attractive seemingly normal new comer to the carnivale is taunted and teased by the "freaks" the conjoined twins, the giant, and the bearded lady. In this world, the "normal" or the "healthy" are really the "freaks", and it also establishes that what we reject as abnormal has to do with the values of particular social group. The saying that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king is flawed. ( H. G. Wells explored this concept in his story about the land of the blind.) In the land of the blind, the blind would regard sight as an anomaly and reject the one eyed man as an outsider.

Carnivale avails itself to using stock characters, the french mentalist ( who may recognize from the show "The Pretender") is a blind man who can "see" with his mind. Of course, this archetype dates back to Tieresias, the blind prophet who warns Oedipus about his fate. Making him french just gives him a little more style. He is also more self reliant than Tieresias, for although Tieresias needs a boy to lead him about, our french "seer" is so gifted he can even cheat at cards.

The allure of the Carnivale and of freaks in general is a world where those who have been cast out can not only be accepted, but admired. It is also accepting of those desires that we are supposed to cast out ( ie. the "hoochi" girls).

This show, however, is based more on magical realism. There is no chicanery here. There are no fake unicorns or mermaids. There are no illusions or tricks. The mentalist can really see into the minds of others, and the faith healer can really heal others. This naivete to some degree does not give full credit to the power of Carnivale, the artifice and necessary illusion to it all.

Carnivale itself can date back to Bacchic or Dionysian rights. The idea of these orgiastic and drunken rights ( think Mardi Gras) is that there needs to be a balance. Individuals who try to repress everything are headed for a melt down and so are those who totally indulge in chaos. For a person to truly thrive there must be a balance, and Carnivale creates a safe world in which the chaos can be indulged. It is a seperate world with its own rules. Once the Carnivale is over, the old rules re-emerge, but we feel purged.

But in order for us to fully participate in the world of the carnivale there is a necessity for artifice or illusion. Carnivale to some degree is both about facing ugly truths ( the deformed, the naked lust, etc) and embracing artifice and illusion (fake "miracles", fortune telling etc.).

I'm hoping the story picks up.