A Satisfied Fool

I'm spread quite thin sometimes, easy to see through. Yes, I have real affinity for British Humor, and I definitely have an interest how humor can illuminate how we conceive of knowledge or life's nuances. Sometimes, like now, I'm at a loss of words but still want to put something out there. So I'm combining all these aforementioned things into one post here. I want more people to watch some Karl (On the left, a poster circulating of Karl that aims to boost his popularity around the world).

It's difficult to argue he's a genius (as Ricky Gervais once said: "If you think Karl's a genius, you're an idiot!"), yet there is also the other side of idocicy. A profound sort of backwash comes when you drink from the cup of knowledge, what is left is Karl. What is left is bittersweet hooch, which when drank, allows us to see the subplots of society. We see what others miss, and that's a really special skill.

The Videos, "Satisfied Fool":

Part 1:

Part 2:

And Finally, Part 3:

GroupHug

Anybody been there? It's bizzare, and frighteningly addictive. And the title's apt, it's a social experiment that should be looked at closely. (http://beta.grouphug.us/random)

I think I have a problem. Yesterday I had to eat dinner at my sisters house, but I havnt [sic] been eating. I am trying to lose weight. When she left the table for a moment I stuffed the food into a napkin. I was afraid to throw it in the trash because I thought she might find it. I stuffed it all in my bra and it wasn’t noticible [sic] because I had a big sweatshirt on. I had to stay there another hour with food stuffed into my bra and I was afraid I smelled. I’m truly pathetic.

Egad. These, I suppose, are the new sites of cultural resistance, the new areas of discourse. Take, for example, the topic of eating disorders. Not only do we have a (relatively) new way of communicating with each other in GroupHug, we have an expanded discourse on an old topic like anorexia. Does this remind anyone of sexuality and Foucault? It likely should.

Notes on Bridget: Finding the Generous Humor in Shame

Below is an essay I wrote about shame, humor, and postmodern sensibilities. It's a longer read, not really the blog type, but in any case, enjoy.

Whilst you feel like you need to say something to help your cause, nothing tangible comes out when you try – you are at one moment aware of how devoid of a sense of yourself you can be, and at the same time, necessarily on display for others, real or imagined, to see. It is, of course, the violent petrifaction associated with shame, perhaps as universal a feeling as any. Even though we want to step away from this feeling, it is predicated with pain. Bridget Jones, in many ways a comedic pariah of contemporary shame, suffers this condition throughout Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. Bridget, often left speechless in the wake of shame, provides a wealth of examples when she narrates the failings of her life: “Not being a natural liar, I ended up mumbling shamefacedly to Geoffrey, [about her love life] ‘fine,’ at which point he boomed, ‘so you still haven’t got a feller!” (11). Like Bridget, we often cannot avoid the pain shame brings, and perhaps equally unavoidable, the stinging realization that for others, this may be as comical for them as it is painful for you. As Bridget draws out, shame and humor are often intimately related. How can this be the case?

What undoubtedly is brought to light when articulating shame and humour in the same capacity is the seeming tension between the two concepts. On a basic level, they appear to be near binaries in a continuum of emotion, from despair to elation. Moreover, when we strive to contrast these concepts, at least superficially, we have many ways to do so. Certainly, there is the clear social aspect to both shame and humour; the dynamic interaction could be a prolific way to approach a critical comparison. Perhaps equally engaging, one could look at the physiological ramifications of shame and humour. Yet, in either case, I believe, one is bound to fall short of their goals – if one intends to fully explain why shame can be comical – because these methods treat both as though a comparison can bring the two concepts into coincidence. They are, as mentioned, too paradoxical and binary for coincidence. Instead, the more fruitful approach is to demonstrate how they are not concepts, theories, or even fully defined terms at all. Rather, unifying a workable model of shame and humour rests on recognizing that they are sensibilities; in other words, they represent a way of seeing the world particular to the individual. Therefore, the success of this essay is contingent on effectively reading Bridget Jones’s Diary in relation to the sensibility of shame and humour in contemporary culture, something I intend to accomplish by reading Fielding’s work through an analysis steeped in Susan Sontag’s canonical Notes on “Camp”. The result, I expect, will be a more unified presentation of shame and humour in one specific context, Bridget Jones’s Diary, which will open an opportunity for new dialogue and discourse in a larger project of theorizing shame and humour as recognition of a cultural shift.

Both Fielding and Sontag appear on the cultural stage at times of distinctive culture paradigm shifts. Whereas Fielding is writing during the late 1990’s, a time where identity politics became wavering sites of confusion for those trapped between Madonna “Vogue” and Dawson’s Creek, Sontag’s early works came nearing the beginning of fragmented personalities. Maturing her academic thought during the climate of Andy Warhol’s factory scene, Sontag was one of the earliest theorists to claim that things in popular culture could be talked about critically, and more importantly, that these issues sat in a conflicted scheme of contexts. Although Sontag’s essay, Notes on ‘Camp’, deals with the notion of Camp specifically and not humor and shame, more generally it works to demonstrate how complex ideas can be expressed by their unstable context. Co-opting Sontag’s voice, I too would like to find similar ends in some aspects of shame and humor: “though I am speaking about sensibility only – and about a sensibility that, among other things, converts the serious into the frivolous – these are grave matters”. In a sense, Sontag seems to be speaking directly towards how Bridget lives her daily life, where the serious becomes frivolous – transforming the shameful into the humourous.

The endearing nature of Bridget surely stems, in large part, from the seemingly unending shameful situations she puts herself in around others. In a profound sense, Bridget contextualizes herself in a matrix of shameful relations in such a way that she engages with people with full knowledge that their interactions will be embarrassing for her, and likely, comical for everyone else. For instance, Bridget is forever embarrassed at the ludicrous situations she puts herself in to appease her mother’s wishes. Attending a ‘tarts and vicars’ party in the garden of a family friend, Bridget regrettably arrives without being given notice that the theme was abandoned, “I [Bridget] couldn’t believe this. I mean, did she think that I dressed as a bunny girl normally or something?” (Fielding 169). Obstinately mocked, Bridget is left to explain the conspicuous lack of her boyfriend, Daniel Cleaver – a truly shameful (shameful for whom, perhaps, is debatable) event. Nevertheless, even if the reader sympathizes, it is extremely difficult not to laugh. Fielding wrote Bridget purposively to be caught in constant shameful circumstances, and furthermore, for these to be funny. However, as a book enters common parlance interpretations vary, and conversely, there are those who are repulsed by the idea that these types of shameful instances are funny. The next step, consequently, is to likely explore where this divide takes our understanding of shame and humor.

Shame, one could argue, is a moment of social experience where external premises become internalized as negatively consequential. According to James Twitchell, shame is an internalized other, a watcher that represents the cultural gaze felt by a subject (39). Partially correct, Twitchell seems only to corner shame in a particular way, pejorative and limited in its scope. Humour, in rebuttal, applies the opposite logic; it takes that which is internally motivated and makes itself public in a moment of pleasure. The challenge occurs, of course, in the event where the divide between humor and shame act simultaneously and our faculty of sense towards the two becomes bewildered. Twitchell’s definition fails to express all the aspects of the shame/humor interplay. At any given moment where shame and humor combine, Twitchell fails to recognize that a more intricate emotional response occurs, one which might not be anthropologically explainable. In retrospect, however, it may be possible to salvage a sense where the readers can reconstruct some semblance of a unified position, one where the malice of shame is intertwined with the supposed benevolence of humour. There are those, perhaps, who may suggest that the comedy defuses shame. Also, there are some, surely, who will claim that humour found in shame is mean spirited. I, however, will take a much softer stance and suggest neither are necessarily the case; the humor in shame is an esoteric condition, and, as such, it is impossible for everyone to be in on the joke. Nevertheless, there is a unison, which necessarily not everyone will be privy to, that allows a space where shame can be comical and painful simultaneously – being on the inside of the shameful joke. Being in on the joke may even apply, or maybe likely does apply, for the person being shamed. Bridget, for example, can present the collapse of her love life with the adroit cultural references that some may find humorous while others will not. Fielding demonstrates this, narrating as Bridget, “whinging” (British slang for a comically annoying whine) in the wake of finding her boyfriend, Daniel, to be a cheater: “I’m falling apart. My boyfriend is sleeping with a bronzed giantess. My mother is sleeping with a Portuguese. Jeremy is sleeping with a horrible trollop, Prince Charles is sleeping with Camilla Parker-Bowles. Do not know what to believe in or hold on to anymore” (181).

Bridget’s romantic collapse hints at what I present as a larger cultural paradigm, one where multiple interpretations are evoked, and in being evoked, create separate camps of inclusion and exclusion, of the humor and the shame. The roots of this condition, as I have begun to present, can be distinctly seen in Sontag’s view of Camp. Again, I find her model to be apt in a greater sphere of analysis regarding the multitude of possible contexts one given event can have, in particular, on shame and humour: “[it] is esoteric – something of a private code, a badge of identity even”. This is a difficult position to take, perhaps, because it is elusive to demonstrate and is necessarily so. However, wisps of this sentiment can be found in judgments readers take when encountering the instances of the confused shame and humour. There are those who laud the exploits of Bridget, enamored with her “real-to-life” tendencies, reflected in customer reviews from Amazon:

Bridget Jones is a little beyond the usual marriage age, and she feels it because people keep reminding her that her clock is ticking. She is literate but not always competent. Her love life is a mess. She worries about her weight, her smoking, her drinking, and just about everything else. In fact, she keeps a meticulous record of her failures. Often she is funny, seeing the foolishness of it all. And sometimes she is in despair and insecure. She is always a social and physical klutz. And these flaws in her make her come alive. (Long)

In this review , we find a reader who “gets it”, assuming, of course, that there is indeed something to “get”. What should not be taken from this review, however, is that this sensibility for Bridget that the reviewer demonstrates is in anyway universal. Neither should one understand this in the sense that this is a more correct reading than any other, especially one that does not seem to “get it.” Again, it remains an esoteric enterprise, which furthermore, is not consistent between all times and all places. It could be the case, in any type of social setting, that we could become more like this second, less favorable, reviewer:

After the first 50 odd pages I revisited the site and re-evaluated my interpretations of customer's reviews. Had I missed something? Yes, there were a few skeptics in the reviews and those that just did not "get her". Refusing to believe I am someone that can not "get" Bridget, I persevered [sic], determined to find that missing link that would catapult me into a raving reviewer. Around the middle of the book I realized that it had improved somewhat, but I had yet to have huge guffaws, loud, raucous laughter and the temptation to down a bottle of scotch and smoke a pack of fags (Hansen).

Reflecting on the review, it certainly seems as though the reviewer lacked a type of cultural currency that alienated her from all of pop culture enjoyment. Rather, the reviewer suggests that, in this case, she simply did not “get” Bridget.

Ultimately, there is a fundamental feature that allows shame and humour to coexist. Even in the same context, in this case Bridget Jones’s Diary, one does not overwhelm the other and annihilate the emotions it formerly carried. Only here, in this convoluted place of finding the inclusive and exclusionary in the same, paradoxical, concoction of shame and humour, can we begin to properly express the elusive nature of the two together at the same time in the same society. Yet, in the same breath, although we as an audience may feel driven one direction or another, this does not preclude our understanding or appreciation for recognition of the other emotion, either immediately or in reflection. The struggle shifts, therefore, because we no longer strain to locate the matrix of shame and humour, but rather how to justify it, a matter of taste to be sure. How do we prove this? As is my modus operandi, I refer back to the method Sontag used to find the sensibility of the elusive Camp because of the similarities in ambiguity:

Taste has no system and no proofs. But there is something like a logic of taste: the consistent sensibility which underlies and gives rise to a certain taste. A sensibility is almost, but not quite, ineffable. Any sensibility which can be crammed into the mold of a system, or handled with the rough tools of proof, is no longer a sensibility at all. It has hardened into an idea.

From this vantage, I further endeavor to pursue the consequential issue in the mixture of shame and humour: can it be culturally justifiable?

Throughout youth, there are moments where nearly universal ideals are passed down as common sense – things we find often to be neither common nor sensible at all. One such case intimately involves humour and shame: it is important to laugh with, not at, people. To this end, author Kelly Marsh contextualizes the common sentiment expressed about the failure of Bridget and the shame she is put through as a consequence, particularly by those critical of Fielding’s book: “Her diary revels hilariously in her insecurities, her mistakes, and her failures even as it qualifies her successes; as a result, critics suggest that the humor of the novel is not consciously created by Bridget but rather at her expense” (52). This charge by the critics, that the humor is at Bridget’s expense, surely cannot hold true in all cases, there is something more nuanced occurring. It will help to refer back to Bridget, so obviously pained by her shameful experiences, but often without being privy to the humor we as readers find in the moment. In this excerpt, Bridget experiences the normative shame accompanying dating a younger man as an older woman, and what is worse, getting lost on the way to his apartment:

Feel like Old Woman of the Hills. Was so long since had been on a date that was completely full of myself and could not resist boasting to taxi driver about my ‘boyfriend’ and going to my ‘boyfriend’s’ who was cooking me supper. Unfortunately, however, when I got there, Number 4 Malden Road was a fruit and vegetable shop. (Fielding 217)

Although we may laugh, is this simply laughing at, not with, Bridget? To this end, I cannot say – it feels like something only particularly answerable by the ridiculed. However, what can be delved into more voraciously are the sensibilities involved. Certainly, there are cases where laughter can be done with the intention to wound. This, however, is of little concern to this discussion, because, ultimately, the intent of the laughter is thinly veiled. Rather, the difficult question is of a different variety: how are we supposed to “read” humour in cases where the intention is not to inflict harm but there exists the assumption that we are not laughing “with” the shamed? Vitally, is this not what we mean when we ask if shame and humour are compatible?

Throughout this inductive process, it has made the most sense to refer Fielding’s instances of shame to a societal trend elaborated in the work of Sontag. However, I have been extremely sensitive to calling the shame and humour discussion equivalent to the sensibility of Camp, for there are certainly instances where this simply does not apply. Fortunately, contextualized as it is, it feels appropriate to now make the leap to definitively call Bridget’s shame a mode of Camp. What allows this paradigm shift, both in the context of this essay and in society, is a relationship of confused identity, where shame can foster laughter, and humour garners shamed humility – the exclusive, and elusive, laughter “at” a subject with harmless intent. Yet it is not enough to say this claim simply exists, the issue of presenting this as true must bear relevance.

Since we have previously explored the relationship of inclusion and exclusion in shame and humour, and this does not seem to garner any prolific realizations in the explication of why we allow ourselves such liberties, there must be another way to contextualize the relationship. If there is one relationship that must necessarily be emphasized, therefore, it must be found in the brush off colloquialisms like “chillin’ out”, “takin’er easy”, or “kickin’ back”. It is, quite simply, a reactionary method of deflating the anxious, and this is fundamentally a modified sensibility to the serious. If this can be taken as a condition of modern sensibilities, which I believe that it must be, it seems appropriate to use the words first used by Sontag to describe this mode of humour with Camp sensibility: “The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to ‘the serious.’ One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious” [emphasis added]. Essentially, while we recognize that the consequences of shame, and perhaps much more important, the causes are of shame are tremendously serious, approaches like humour and laughter can visibly blur and complicate the relation. Whereas the issue of shame is surely serious, we can begin to approach it in a frivolous, playful manner.

Envisioning a world where the distinction between shame and humour become increasingly blurred, especially when looking at Bridget Jones’s Diary, it becomes more convincing that the two create a sensibility reflected in the very way we come to perceive the world around us. Personally, this begins to make the most sense, which is to say only in relating the impossibility of ever fully understanding the entire issue do we make progress. To do so, I believe the type of codified, shame/comedic relationship found in Bridget Jones’s Diary makes the most sense if looked at in terms of Sontag’s notion of Camp. If, for instance, we read Sontag’s notion of Camp we can begin to extract some of the malice that plagued some readings of humour in Fielding’s work:

Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy [...] Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism).

With camp sensibilities fresh in our minds, it is now the case that we can read about Fielding’s Bridget with a “sweet cynicism” that does not provoke malice, despite laughing at Bridget’s failures:

Sink into morbid, cynical reflection about how much romantic heartbreak is to do with ego and miffed pride rather than actual loss, also incorporating sub-thought that reason for Fergie’s [Sarah Ferguson] insane overconfidence may be that Andrew [Duke of York] still wants her back until he marries someone else, har har [sic]. (191)

In the first section of the previous quote the audience is triggered to laugh at Bridget’s shame, a shame that has been brought to the forefront throughout the course of the entire book. However, there is an interesting tonal shift in Bridget’s own diction, one that amplifies and strengthens the association of shame and humour with Camp, where Bridget turns to the miseries of Fergie, the former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson. She seems to present the same sort of comical shaming, without passionate malice, to the woes that plagued Fergie in the tabloids at the time. Drawing out the connection, Bridget’s participation in this type of playful, campy, “sweet cynicism” reveals that like the reader who “get’s it”, Bridget, too, is among the esoteric camp humor.
One can get away with certain things, for instance, a joke about how terrible a friend looks, if the person is wise in picking opportunities. Certainly, there are types of jokes that can be told in closed circles of close friends; you can shame a close friend, with a comedic tone, in ways that one would never dare try with a casual acquaintance. Perhaps, it is this sort of sentiment, the dynamic that humor can play in a small group of friends, of a small group dynamic, that can be utilized to characterize the sensibility of camp humor and shame. Since we have constructed shame, humor, and camp together in an esoteric grouping, the most obvious move to make is to appeal to simile; the benevolent humor in shame circulating throughout society today is like the playful mockery in a group of friends.

To this point, there is one aspect that remains unresolved. While I have said how shame and humor relate to groups as well as relationships to a complex, frivolous relation to the serious, this method would fail without answering an underlying question: why is it so funny? Certainly, in shame, we are laughing at some sort of failure of intention; the way things worked out was not as the actor intended. To reconcile our thoughts, Sontag gives us the words to express the humor of shame: “it doesn’t sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success of certain passionate failures.” Bridget, in many ways, is permeated in what can be best called passionate failures: “[Bridget] is adept at identifying her shortcomings, but rather passive in the face of change. Such a large list of resolutions [each day in her diary and at the beginning of the year] seems to guarantee failure” (Whelehan 23). By celebrating the failure of intention found in shame like we find in Bridget, the awkward social repercussions of shame become subjects of laughter, a laughter that sees failure as success and shame as humorous. Undoubtedly, this is a Camp sensibility that evolves out of a mind state seeking pleasure, one with enough personal and cultural reflexivity to recognize that if given the right intentions, even shame can be humorous:

Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of "character." . . . Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as "a camp," they're enjoying it. (Sontag)

This resonates strongly with Fielding’s work; Bridget is an endearing, lovable character who we want to give the benefit of the doubt, to laugh alongside her failures. We enjoy the failures of Bridget, largely because we are set-up to laugh up at the mixture of seriousness and playfulness with which she approaches her life. Bridget intends to avoid dating pitfalls in her New Year’s resolution: “[she will not] fall for the following: alcoholics, workaholics commitment phobics [sic], people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts” (Fielding 2). This is funny. This is meant to be funny. We allow it to be funny because we have a Camp sensibility to know that it is not meant to be exceedingly hurtful. Furthermore, we understand that Bridget is not so vulnerable that we cannot laugh at her plight without it being taken maliciously: “[…] Bridget underplays […] herself: she owns an apartment in central London, holds jobs in publishing and television, attracts desirable men, and maintains her family relations and a wide circle of true friends” (Kelly 57). We have given ourselves the authority to relax, to lighten up.

Perhaps this relationship of humor and shame offers the evidence for a cultural shift in how we view shame in the context of humor in society. Perhaps, however, it is not. While reading Bridget Jones’s Diary, one does not get the sense that finding humor within shame – while maintaining a sense of benevolence and compassion – is altogether revolutionary or new. This is on one hand troubling, considering the lack of investigation afforded this type of relationship; and on the other hand, exciting, given the potential for more work to be done in the area. What may be most apt, ultimately, is to claim that the way we come to conceptualize the relationship between shame and humor and formulate ways to speak about the two – for example, using the language of Camp provided by Sontag – is the cultural shift we should now be focusing on. Furthermore, this shift can be given a favorable, optimistic outlook. As the relationship between the serious and frivolous - perhaps the real paradigm shift - becomes queered, we begin give justifications as to how we can laugh at shame, and what is more, have all parties partake in this laughter. This, as Bridget would say, is “v.g.”, very good, indeed.

In Anticipation of the Next Season

I speak only in cliches because they speak to a certain type of cultural appropriateness: music brings you back to your youth, memories flood back and sweep away the layers you have covered in dusty corners of your mind.

And I'm a child 80's, someone who values this refreshing replay of memories in new context always. A child who loves cultural detrice, cleverness over intelligence, reference over originality. Remember this song? Maybe my favorite song ever, LFO gets that pop culture is for everyone, the pop beat enthusiast, and the one who despite hating the music, loves that they get the references. It is a playful type of life, this song is a brief play for the children of the 90's.

Rubbish Words

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just live our lives simply and pleasantly, absent of worrisome things like facts, truth, or reality? We could see the world in a much different way if we paid no attention to these things, but few amongst us have the audacity to live like this.

Karl Pilkington is one of these few. In many respects, it takes a special person to shed the conventions of rationality and break free of trivial issues like global warming or politics, and instead, focus on what’s happening in the world of monkeys or why you never see old men

I stumbled upon Karl by accident. One boring evening I was rummaging through my roommates DVD collection and found the British version of the Office. I was hooked; I watched the whole series in a night. Immediately I searched for more comedy from Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant, famed writers of British comedy series The Office and Extras. What I found was Gervais and Merchant’s radio show starring Karl as the oft opinionated producer. I became so enthused by Karl’s babbling that I nearly forgot about the first two comedians. Rarely heard from in the early episodes, Karl began to become more of a presence when a pattern of outrageously off the cuff comments started to be broadcast with increasing frequency. Karl began to rise to fame with his commentary that some would call genius—comedic and philosophically.

Karl didn’t come in with a big bang. As a child, he grew up in Manchester and frequently missed school to go on holidays because they were cheaper when the other kids were in school. The council estate Karl was raised on (a community of low cost housing units) leaves little wonder he grew up strange, “Karl's school and its catchments area were near a chemical plant. This could explain his inherent fascination with freaks (‘I just like odd stuff’), as the school contained a couple of (unrelated) pupils who had big heads and webbed hands, together with a boy with a pigeon chest and a boy whose father had big eyelids”. Down the street, Karl often describes the neighbours who kept a horse in their living room, and the crazy lady who pushed a carriage containing a brick with a face painted on it. Dropping out at 15, he enjoyed many jobs like a paper route and dance DJ until one day he found a hospital radio room where he started a pirate station to occupy himself when his dad was in the hospital. The hospital kicked him off the air—he was scaring the patients—but Karl never looked back from that point and soon moved to London to pursue a career as a radio producer. Coming from these experiences, it’s no wonder his viewpoints come off a bit weird.

Karl has often been described as having a perfectly round, bald, Charlie Brown head. A blank expression crosses his oddly shaped face, with sad eyes that don’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. His mouth hangs slightly open, a sign many would see as dullness or ineptitude. He is the butt of many jokes, often subjected to head squeezing from friends; a reality he begrudgingly accepts. But it’s neither of these that distinguish him; Karl has made a name for himself by making outrageous comments. Karl, who has been a radio producer in London for many years, is a man of deep mediation and complex thought which he is not afraid to publicly voice. Unfortunately, it’s just most of the time these complex thoughts aren’t that good.

Still others, including close friends, claim the opposite about Karl’s intellect. As Gervais puts it, “received wisdom says there’s a fine line between a genius and an idiot. Not true. Karl’s an idiot, plain and simple. Very simple. Some people have proclaimed him a genius, but they’re idiots.” But is this always the case? Let’s take a look at Karl’s theories to put this claim to the test.
eating Twix bars. As Karl has so deftly pointed out, “if you saw an old fella eating a Twix, you would think, ‘that's a bit weird innit?’” In a world where truth and knowledge are so heavily regarded, how can any one possibly figure out the nuances of daily life? Lucky of all for us, there’s Karl.

"I look at life like a big book and sometimes you get half way through it and go 'Even though I've been enjoying it, I've had enough. Give us another book'"- Karl describes his life in “book form”

Somewhat amazingly, Karl has managed to write a book full of musings and life philosophies in The World of Karl Pilkington. With the help Gervais and Merchant, Karl speaks to all topics, a modern day renaissance man. To many it’s amazing that Karl can read a book, never mind write one; “unencumbered by knowledge and impervious to logic, Karl ambles down a heuristic path to enlightenment under the edifying influence of Ricky and Merchant.” Much of the fodder comes from Karl’s tendency to absorb seemingly random trivia from all around him, leading into surreal stories that come from misunderstood and misattributed stories. Famously, Karl tells of the time NASA sent a monkey up on a space shuttle. But the truth ends there, as Karl continues to explain how the monkey controlled the spacecraft by using banana dispensing levers. And as far as he’s concerned, it’s the absolute truth. It’s as though once a story leaves his lips, it becomes crystallized knowledge in his own mind because he will disregard any rebuttal regardless of fact, probability, or reason. Actually, as he often claims, "knowledge is almost annoying", and he frequently laments substantiated knowledge shown to him that he feels merely complicates his life. Gervais “attributes [Karl’s idiotic theories] to what he calls Pilk mental ‘filter’, describing it as a process in which Pilkington receives sensible, accuringtonn'sate information and mentally translates it into what Gervais and Merchant frequently describe as ‘absolute twaddle’”.

So if what Karl says is absolute drivel, why do so many people like what he has to say? Perhaps it’s because as strange as the things he says are, there’s always the sense of ‘wait, I kind of see what he’s saying’. For instance, Karl bumbles his way around the steeped traditions of the Catholic Church wondering, "it's the way they also said they've now got a new pope. He's hardly new is he? Why didn't they learn from the last one? They keep taking on old people! Me dad couldn't even get a gig in B and Q [a do-it-yourself home renovations store] and he's only 60!" Often the audience is left to sympathize with Karl, who just can’t quite grasp complicated things like evolution or longstanding social structures. However, as people openly shake their head dumbfounded by Karl, privately each of us is afflicted by instances and degrees of blissful ignorance. In fact, there are few amongst us—excluding those who are lying—who won’t admit to at one time or another feeling as though there were a train of thought that wouldn’t stop at our station. The difference may be as simple as perceptions of stupidity versus intelligence, one where we either remain on the tracks or careen off the trail and find another path.

"Does the brain control you or are you controlling the brain? I don't know if I'm in charge of mine." - Karl unintentionally expresses the complex question, who controls what and how we think?

Can it be the case that the idiot can also hold the paradoxical role of philosopher, genius, or even trusted adviser? As tempting as it might be to simply discard the idiotic ramblings as worthless, it may benefit us to take the difficult task of examining the opposite. Karl, a modern day court jester, in many ways mimics the traditional role that the jester held in court and literature. In literature, for instance King Lear, the jester was the source of “uncommon commonsense” and honesty. As Karl does on-air, the jester had an open license to speak candidly and without hesitation or regard to common conventions. Ironically, when bright men said similar things to the jester in a more academic or refined manner, they were incarcerated—or worse. In a strange twist of fate, the jester, who was the lowliest occupant of the court, became the most trusted and useful adviser to the king. Karl, a modern day jester, often unwittingly and unceremoniously fills this jester role for the world to hear.

It’s hard to convince anyone that something so superficially stupid might contain significant wisdom. That’s fine. Even if Karl gives you intellectual dyspepsia, prepared properly Karl provides a feast for notably brighter individuals to digest. If nothing else, the inane comment can be the sign as a fissure in commonsense and a good place to investigate ourselves. As Karl questions standards of beauty, something the most intelligent theorists struggle with, it’s difficult to decipher weather he is profound or obtuse:

You can be an ugly baby and everyone goes "awww innit nice?" There was some women in a cafe the other week that I was sat in, and she came up and she sat down with her mate and she was talkin' loudly goin' on about "oh the baby's lovely." They said it's got, er, lovely big eyes, er, really big hands and feet. Now that doesn't sound like a nice baby to me. I felt like sayin' it sounds like a frog. But I thought I don’t know her, there's only so much you can say to a stranger. I don’t know what kept me from sayin' it.

What’s more, he’s partly, maybe completely, right. Not everyone can be above average in looks, not everyone can be beautiful. We can’t disregard an average, and is it any better to be a low degree of beautiful as opposed to simply ugly? Furthermore, as Karl notes, these notions are so deeply engrained in our societal conventions how do we even begin to talk about them? Although not intentional, there is a lot to discuss from the philosopher with little restraint and real life practical insight.

Is Karl a genius? Perhaps. That’s up for each of us to decide. Likely, in most cases, there will be no doubt that his nonsense is merely disposable fluff. However, just as each of us can have those embarrassing “duh” moments that reveal our underlying stupidity, it’s equally possible to find those moments of sheer brilliance in the jester’s rants, because these are the starting points for deeper inquiry. Yes, we are indeed lucky to have Karl Pilkington.

Acknowledgments

When reading this essay, one will immediately recognize that there are liberal usages of quotations and facts without any regard to proper academic citations. Karl would be proud. Any attempts to properly incorporate these citations came off sloppy and brutish. I wouldn’t have that disgrace that pages of such an obviously monumental piece of fine art. I will admit, however, that I couldn’t have possibly completed this piece without drawing from a few exceptional sources that seemed to have melded into one voice. The foremost source of drawings, quotations, and facts is the fantastic book, The World of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant, and Ricky Gervais. Other sources include www.google.com’s image search feature, are personally created, on www.rickygervais.com, or are from the awesome resource www.pilkipedia.co.uk. I would suggest starting with any of these places for your now obviously burgeoning Karl fascination.

Pulp Fiction on the Postmodern

Vincent can cut a rug with the best of 'em. And nobody fucks with Marsellus Wallace. But, everyone knows Jules is one Badmutherfucker. What's his connection to the Postmodern? Jules is "linked to a "thing" beyond postmodern simulation.... [T]his is perhaps most marked when he moves on from being a simulation of a Baptist preacher, spouting Ezekiel because it was "just a cool thing to say...." In his conversion, Jules is shown to be cognizant of a place beyond this simulation, which, in this case, the film constructs as God." (Gromley). He hit's the sublime Nihilistic at it's heart. From Ezekiel 25:17,

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

I'm trying, desperately, to link this to the type of Postmodern Lyotard purports, one where the nature of Kant's sublime makes us discard metanarratives and question what it means to be living in world where reason is collapsing around you.