mr brown is such a cultural phenomenon in singapore that scholarly research should be ascribed to such an icon.

in my recent research in trangressivity in art i discovered that the carnivalesque as described by Mikhail Bakhtin is;

impolite and aggressive, saying what cannot otherwise be articulated; making the private all too public is one of the humourist’s greatest skill. In that sense, the dialogical is welcomed. But it’s also the voice that tells the truth, that breaks taboos, and is most apt to be feared, “cured” or silence. It’s the voice of the ventriloquist’s dummy, the uninhibited child, the court jester and the hysteric.

 

Tucker, Marcia. “The Attack of the Giant Ninja Mutant Barbies. “All That She Wants: Transgressions, Appropriations, and Art.” Bad Girls. Ed. Tim Yohn. NY: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1994, 31.

doesn’t mikhail bakhtin’s theory possess an uncanny resemblance to the crux of mr brown’s “L’infantile terrible of Singapore”?

i also hypothesize that the l’infantile terrible is not simply translated to mean terrible baby, but a reference to enfant terrible – the avant garde’s inner child* that is allowed to be “bad” in creative and productive ways.

a closer understanding of the avant garde – the advancing of visual, literary, or musical arts, characterized by unorthodox and experimental methods in cultural realm – further reveals that the humourist’s of mr brown’s inner child operates as a poignant agency.

*Tucker, Marcia. “The Attack of the Giant Ninja Mutant Barbies. “All That She Wants: Transgressions, Appropriations, and Art.” Bad Girls. Ed. Tim Yohn. NY: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1994, 42.