Friday, March 20, 2009

Nikolai Gogol: The Nose

I read this second short-story of Nikolai Gogol's a month ago, but just didn't get a chance to write about it. It is hard to discuss this particular satirical story without ruining it. Furthermore, the story, as Gogol admitted himself, does not make much sense.

The Nose is about magical realism. A theme one may find in Woody Allen's movies, Family Guy, and South Park.



I was watching South Park the other day, and the Episode 1205 seemed awfully similar to Gogol's story, which was published in 1836. Only in the case of The Nose, the protagonist, Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, wakes up one day to find that his nose is missing. Yes, his actual, physical nose. Some critics have hypothesized that the disappearance of the nose is seen as a castration complex. Others have argued that maybe the story is biographical, since Gogol was insecure about his nose, apparently.

Whatever the case, the story is well-written, and very HILARIOUS. As, I mentioned before, what strikes me the most about Gogol's writing is the fact how relevant his narrative is.

In his life Gogol's work was censored, because he had the courage to criticize the government. Similarly, I feel, it is in shows like South Park where we get to truly see our society's double-standards, and ignorance. For instance, as far as I know, only South Park has been able to truly point out the hypocrisy behind The Jonas Brothers, and the cloning factory that is the Disney Network. Well, South Park, and the Onion.


Disney Lab Unveils Its Latest Line Of Genetically Engineered Child Stars

A few centuries from now, that is if the world ends up surviving the economic and climate crises, I could see people studying South Park to mock our ignorance.

Urmmm...okay, I am done ranting.

2 comments:

Maria Sondule said...

I do not like the Jonas Brothers. I guess I'm a bit prejudiced, but really any singer that comes out of Disney I automatically don't really like because I feel like it's part of Disney's evil plan to take over the world. TV, Music, restaurants... seriously, Disney's like one of those ooze things you see on TV that engulfs everything in its path.

Zany said...

I couldn't agree with you more. I feel the Jonas Brothers depict everything that's wrong with our society, over-consumption and mass-production.