In time, the majority of fads and fancies that once appealed to past generations tend to fall from favour. Such is the fate of the Grotesque. Carnivals from the US to Europe and the UK had a surreal, scary edge as if the participants had dispensed with common reason, rather like the wine maddened followers of Bacchus. One could surmise that sinister peculiarity as opposed to beauty was the sought after effect especially at fetes with pagan origins such as Halloween, although the green faced hag of yore has been replaced by foxy pinup witches. Despite the continuing popularity of Edgar Allan Poe, the modern reader contextualises the author’s luridly grotesque tales to a bygone era. Even if we no longer recognise the grotesque, it is still very much in evidence, for example the footage of NY Mayor, Rudy Giuliano, sweating black hair dye like Dirk Bogarde melting in ‘Death in Venice’ or Donald Trumps’ carrot toned three tier fat -ruffles that swathe his neck. Whilst these two political gargoyles are regularly lambasted, their grotesqueness is overlooked. In a society where God has been devalued, worship of the ever young denies the unseemly aspects of humanity. There should be no reason on earth why a young Japanese girl wearing bunny ears whilst giggling and skipping should appeal to an internet audience of thousands but by focussing upon the infantile, we deny death, the ever looming shadow. One young Japanese actress/model committed suicide at the age of 16, fearing that she was no longer desirable. We are now in the age of mass deceit courtesy of a youth obsessed media aside that is from cinematic horror. Relegated to the big screen, the ‘Lady in Black’ and ‘It’ enable us to manage fear in a safe environment When it comes to dressing up, ‘Cos-Play’ favours high gloss glamour although it is quite startling to read warnings not to scratch mere flesh whilst wearing acrylic nails. It seems that we have forgotten Heinrich Hoffman’s cautionary poem ‘StruwwelPeter’ otherwise known as ‘Shock Headed Peter’ (1845.) A concerned parent and physician, Hoffman created one of the creepiest most enduring characters in the annals of childhood literature to scare his 3 year old son into keeping his hands clean in an age when basic cleanliness was still something of a rarity. With his mussed up hair and freakishly long nails, ‘StruwwellPeter’ was to prove an inspiration upon director Tim Burton’s vision of ‘Edward Scissorhands’ who bypasses the grotesque for the plaintive thus befitting an audience who have learned to keep the shadows at bay rather than face them directly.
Nina Antonia 