User blog:Qarce/Clown Nosed God

(Inspired by reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman)

In America, who does God belong to? The church, the pope, or Ronald McDonald? God is an immigrant brought along with the Irish sailing from the harbors of Ellis Island. Just like Mad Sweeny, he is a leprechaun and to locate him we must follow the rainbow only to find a church at the end of it. With the luck of the Irish, we might just get to Heaven unless we are a pedophiliac or rather “silly” rabbit who can get all too greedy with kids’ lucky charms. Make that joke what you will (pervert), but Mad Sweeny is presented as a satirized stereotype. He is a seven-foot-tall leprechaun who is in a bar when we first meet him, and tells Shadow all about coins just after they get in a fist fight for his gold. His height might be a little exaggerated for people who have heard of leprechauns as midgets but other than that he is a little too on the nose. Other than that, his character is not given much depth after that point. In Ireland, the myth of the Irish fairy brings luck and good fortune, but America steals the parable and manipulates the “luck of the Irish” into greed to fill our coffers. It twists the folklore into the derogatory and stereotypes the Irish.

The myth of Aphrodite is also twisted into the goddess of herpes and genital warts in the story. A goddess of love and beauty is turned into a mere prostitute who needs to ask to be worshipped and money in order to feel beautiful. Her worship is only measured by how much money the man has in his stained jeans. What is thought to be a woman who exudes desire relies on her likeness to be adorned by fake breasts and the neon “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!” than just her own body alone. And Thor is a pussy. A Norse god of thunder who strikes his enemies down with one blow from his mighty hammer sought the easy way out when things became seemingly too much for him. America has now taken his likeness and plastered his fake golden locks onto the silver screen to fight enemy A.I. His ultimate marker is not his hammer but the epileptic seizure inducing brand name Marvel. Thor now plays pretend with his battles in the Valhalla known as Los Angeles only to retire in the cast iron tomb of his trailer.

What does this have to do with folklore and Neil Gaiman’s story American Gods? Well, just before the beginning of the book, Gaiman opens with a quotation by Richard Dorson, “One question that has always intrigued me is what demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greek- Americans the vrykolakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the old country. When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my informant giggled…pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America,” (Gaiman). This is a valid point. The idea of the holy cross meant to embody the figure of Jesus Christ has been reshaped and reformed in America by the McDonald’s mascot into the golden arches. They congregate as early as six o’clock in the morning for their Fruit ‘N Yogurt Parfait while praying to their clown-nosed god for nary a hair to be stuck in their purple mesh laden with granola bites.

What does this add to this artistic communication known as folklore? “Folklore was to take its place alongside literature, music, and the arts as a controlled expression by proletarian ideals” (Dorson) and it has. Take for instance, when Shadow is in Cairo, Illinois, he remembers a cellmate mulling over KFC chicken, “…they changed the name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC because they don't serve real chicken any more. It's become this genetically modified mutant thing, like a giant centipede with no head, just segment after segment of legs and breasts and wings. It's fed through nutrient tubes. This guy said the government wouldn't let them use the word chicken,” (Gaiman). One of the prevailing folktales in America is GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) which have caused an outcry for health concerns among people who have wondered what is in their food and the thing gathering mold at the back of their fridges. These stories have made their place in the American folklore food pyramid on the same plane as poisonous chemtrails in the sky and mercury poisoning radiated by those spiral light bulbs the media tells you are good for the environment. The point is folklore is governmentally sanctioned by the meat tubes at the back of your local Taco Bell approved by the FDA. Kidney’s cost twenty-five thousand dollars on EBay. Chili is made out of people. Global warming is, indeed, for tax.

(This is an excerpt from my final essay in my Topics in American Literature class) :)