Issue 1 - On The Grotesque

By Aisling McGorrian

When I think of “the grotesque”, I think of something disgusting. Something slimy, ugly, smelly. Yet when the team decided on “grotesque” for this issue’s theme, we said it doesn’t mean everything in the magazine has to be horrific. I hate horror. I don’t watch it, I don’t read it, and I will never write it. So what am I left to write about? Sitting at my laptop, puzzled, I looked up grotesque in the dictionary; “Comically or repulsively ugly or distorted.” Well, at least I got the ugly part right.

Almost halfway through my English degree, I can’t believe I wasn’t aware of the comic aspect of the grotesque. Or at least, I wasn’t consciously thinking of it when I heard the term. Once I started scrolling through images that appear when you search “grotesque”, the comic element of it clicked. Of course the grotesque is about comedy. Grotesque paintings and sculptures are hideous and disturbing, but they’re also funny to look at. The faces they depict are so unrealistic, you can’t help but be amused. The enlarged eyes, their poses, the stories they’re telling, it’s all gross and disgusting yet funny. The comedies of the Ancient Greeks are famous for their crowd-pleasing, grotesque masks. The masks used in Ancient Greek theatre had to be big so those in the back of the audience could see, and the comedic dramatists took full advantage of this opportunity to make their characters look ridiculous. Every facial feature was enlarged, with some masks used to mock prominent figures in society. Grotesque, at its genesis, was about laughter.

The grotesque we know today is much different to the concept understood by our ancestors. Our media is full of disturbing news and images—war, famine, incel culture, nuclear science, environmental disasters. It makes us uncomfortable. I used to wonder why people write horror stories, why people like the grotesque. When I think about the world we live in, I think I can understand why. We can’t control the whole world, but we can control what we create. When images and videos of war and destruction are broadcast on the television, grotesque art seems, to me, a natural response. That’s not to say I think harm and suffering are “grotesque”, but I do think that grotesque creations are a way for us to deal with the constant “end of the world” media we are shown. The grotesque can hold up a mirror to our society, asking us if we are so disturbed by the idea of selling and cooking Irish children to deal with a food crisis, why are we not disturbed that in 2022, there was a 41% increase from 2021 of registered victims of human trafficking in the EU. It’s easy to laugh at Swift’s A Modest Proposal; it’s so farfetch'd, it’s never going to happen. Hopefully.

So what is the grotesque of the 21st century? Is it something that must have a political agenda attached to it? Is it still comedic? We certainly still laugh at horrifying things—I distinctly recall forcing myself to laugh while watching Five Nights at Freddy’s game plays—but does that equate to grotesque? The more I think about it, the more I believe the everyday is grotesque. We are in the era of romanticising every minor element of our lives; probably because the reality is that our lives are mundane, boring and unsurprising. They’re not the polished videos we post online. Our real, honest lives involve using the toilet, stepping in dog poop we didn’t see, going on god-awful dates. Not all parts of life can be beautiful. Even the things that are beautiful can be grotesque. Love is amazing and life-changing and the best part of life, right? Love is also two sweating bodies sharing a bed, and feeling your significant other’s toes touching your toes. Feeling their hot breath on your neck, but not in the intimate way of whispering in your ear. In the ‘they are fast asleep and have no idea they breathe out of their mouth’ way. Your personal space sacrificed in the name of love. It sounds like hell. Yet it is done. Every night, millions of couples choose to look beyond the grotesqueness of the human body because they love one another.

The grotesque is impossible to place within one box. It’s uncomfortable. It’s ugly. It’s funny. Horror is grotesque. The world is grotesque. We are grotesque. As you read the rest of these pages, read with an open mind. Be willing to come face to face with some disturbing truths. Not everything is rosy. Some things are just snot green.