The Aesthetics of Play in Reunified Germany's Carnival

Author(s): Felicia Faye McMahon

Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 113, No. 450, Holidays, Ritual, Festival,
Celebration, and Public Display (Autumn, 2000), pp. 378-390
Published by: American Folklore Society
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 FELICIA FAYE McMAHON

The Aesthetics of Play in Reunified

Germany's Carnival

On 11 November,two days afterthefall of the Berlin Wall, carnivalenthusiastsin

Chemnitzcelebrated by dressingin nightgownsand runningthroughthe streetsas they
openly mocked the old regime.In playformssuchas carnival,bothsenseand nonsense
exist side by side, but not infrequentlythe latterdisintegrates
into disorder,with no
referenceto any contextoutsideof itself. Such a conditionis possiblebecauseof the
paradoxicalnatureof play, and I heresuggestthat nonsensein and of itselfshouldbe
considered the essentialelementof "carnival
aesthetics."However,whenotherinfluences
suchas politicsoverridethe carnival,thisplayfulnessis essentiallylost, and thefestival
becomesideological displayas evidencedby the historyof the Germancarnivalknownas
"Fasching."

MY FIRSTENCOUNTER WITH THE GERMANCARNIVALTRADITION was in Elzach, Germany, in

1985 when Germanywas still divided by the Berlin Wall into two distinct countries.
As we walked along an unlit street on a frosty Februarynight, out of the darkness
individualshapesbegan to appearand expectantfestivalparticipantshuddled along the
narrow streets.We heardthe faint sound of flutes in the distance.Everyone strainedto
see. We suddenly saw fiery torches held by demonlike bears hopping out of the
darkness.Hundreds of red and green costumed figures appeared,their faces invisible
behind wooden demon masks, their heads covered with tricom hats bedecked with
thousands of snail shells and trimmed with giant red balls. I pulled away from the
torches waved in my face by the garish, red figures. My ears reverberatedwith the
hollow thud of inflatedpig bladdersbound to slenderswitchesand wielded weaponlike
by the prancingfiguresat curbside.The effect was electrifying,and I reeled disoriented,
hurled backward to some primeval consciousness.The masked figures called Narren
(fools) bellowed to the crowd repeatedly,"Narri!"and the crowd responded loudly,
"Narro!" A band of clownlike figures continued the music as the demons built a
bonfire and burned a monstrous demonic effigy. The lilting, hypnotic music pierced
the dark night air as the flame-silhouetted revelers pranced about the fire. With a
studied adroitnessthey leapt over the fire, soaringabove it to the cheersof the clustered
onlookers. This ritualcontinued until the flamesdied. Then, sweeping the ashesaside,

at SyracuseUniversity
Felicia Faye McMahon is ResearchAssociatein theDepartmentof Anthropology

Journalof AmericanFolklore113(450):378-390. Copyright ? 2001, American Folklore Society.

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 379

several satyrlike creatures turned their attention to the enthused crowd and chased
squealing young girls into the late-winter night. Others strode into the restaurants,
encouraging us to spend the evening in revelry. Precisely at midnight, all merrymaking
abruptly halted, and the crowd made its way homeward through the frigid, dark, and
now quiet streets. Completely stunned and emotionally exhausted, I made my way
back to my hotel room. My memory pleaded for an answer to the question that
tumbled about in my head: What was the meaning of all of this?
Over the years a number of historical, sociological, and psychological approaches
have been applied to the analysis of festival. For example, since the concept of structure
and antistructure was introduced by Victor Turner in 1969, many anthropologists and
folklorists (Babcock 1978; Falassi 1987) have considered carnivals as prime examples of
cultural rites of inversion. This is not to say that in festival there is no structure; indeed,
it is just an alternative structure, acceptance of which creates a bond among partici-
pants. A part of Turner's theory, however, incorporates the earlier works of Edmund
Leach (1961) and Max Gluckman (1963), who interpreted festival as a "release" or
"safety valve" by which groups avoid actual conflicts that might threaten the society
itself. Although for Turner there are elements of release from the accepted order of
things, he also saw the symbolic action of festival as dramatically structured in festival
elements such as the "rag-tag" costumes of clowns when costumes are intentionally
designed to give the appearance of disarray.
The seeming reaffirmation of the usual structure through the antistructure of festival
is now accepted by almost all more recent festival theorists. Although inversion is
assumed to be the essential element in carnival, Bauman and Abrahams (1978) have
shown that gross exaggeration can just as easily replace inversion. Geertz (1972),
furthermore, argues that festivals in general serve as cultural metaphors of identity on a
grand scale. Ferandez (1986) suggests that the "meaning" of these performances is to
convince not only others outside the cultural group but its very members as well of
their distinct group identity. Because of the flexible and complex nature of festivals,
however, it would be simplistic to suggest that any one interpretation takes precedence
over another. Furthermore, most theories fail to give credit to the nature of festival
playfulness as an enduring ludic statement in itself. This article addresses these scholarly
deficiencies and posits another approach to the study of festival by examining in detail
one such cultural expression, the German carnival.

Carnivalin GermanyToday

The variety of interpretative approaches above are in large part made possible
because of the labile and playful nature of festivals like the German carnival. Known in
the various regions of the Germanic cultural milieu as Fasching, Fasnacht, Fastnacht, or
Karnival, the celebration now takes place even in the formerly Communist East
Germany where it had been officially suppressed following World War II.1 While
technically beginning in November and extending through most of the winter
months, the festival activities reach their zenith during the pre-Lenten season. The
most "traditional" of these celebrations are considered to be those that take place in the
heavily Catholic regions of southwestern Germany. Here the townsmen don a variety

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380 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

of wooden masks unique to each individual community in a series of celebratory

activitiesleading up to Ash Wednesday;these are often accompaniedby a wide range
of revelry traditions.The final focus of the activities is a bonfire built in the village
squareat sunset on Shrove Tuesdayupon which an effigy of one of the maskedfigures
is burned. This latter, participantssay, signifies the Winteraustreibung, literally "the
driving away of winter." Afterward,the buffoonery continues until midnight, when
suddenly all such festival play ceases, and, in the predominantly Catholic areas,the
Lenten fast then begins. In large northwesternRhineland cities like Cologne, on the
other hand, Karnival,as the festivalis known there, takesthe form of grand-scaleurban
parades on the order of the American Macy's Day Parade; in Protestant North
Germany,however, carnivalis not celebratedat all. Yet in easternGermany,which is
primarilyProtestantand until 1989 was a separateCommunist country, Faschinghas
actuallybeen celebratedin some communities for over a decade and even prior to the
dissolutionof the Easternbloc.
In the course of my own researchI noted the existence of several themes of the
German carnival that, in certain contexts and for some participants,may coexist
simultaneously, although outside the framework of the festival these often seem
contradictory.Among them are historicalcodes, East-West identity, and male domi-
nance. In play forms like the carnival,both sense and nonsense exist alongside one
another;but frequentlythe nonsense aspect disintegratesinto sheer disorder,with no
contextual reference to anything outside of itself, becoming Wahnsinn,or nonsense
once removed. Such a condition is possible because of the paradoxicalnature of play
itself, and I suggest here that it should be consideredthe essentialelement of carnival
aesthetics.

History of the German Carnival

Germanscholarssuch as Bianca Stahland others have tried to determinethe reasons

for the persistenceof Faschingin their country. Pastresearchon the festivalhas focused
on what these scholars call "mythic codes," which are references to pre-Christian
survivals(Stahl1981). For example, it is known from written church prohibitionsthat
a mid-winter pre-Christianfestivalin many German towns was banned by the clergy
during the Middle Ages only to resurfacein the period afterthe French Revolution,
during which the church was secularizedand the stricturesagainstthe festivalwere
disregarded.Renewed carnivalcelebrationswere seen again in later periods as well,
such as duringthe 19th-century GermanRomantic Movement, the Third Reich, and
the yearsafterWorld War II and most recently in the easternregions of the reunified
Germany.Yet, although the identifiableorigins of Faschingmay never be completely
known, the Germansof the southwesternpart of the country claim that their form of
the festival is the "authentic"version and that the eastern German festivalhas been
"invented." In western Germany, however, Fasching is a staged and highly stylized
activitythat hasbecome a majorindustry,attractingmany foreign touristseach year.At
the easterncelebrations,on the other hand, there is a noticeablelack of tourists,and the
festivalis performedby easternGermansfor their own community members. In fact,
my presenceas an outsiderat the festivalwas a highly irregularand rareoccurrence.

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 381

Festival is always contextualized in both innovation and repetition. Just as the

chronological framework of the performance changes, so do the meanings of the
contextualized activities. Thus, the highly staged parades and community events per-
formed today by the Narren are relatively recent inventions for tourists to southwest
Germany, although they may have some resemblance to activities described in written
historical references. For example, the Fastnachtspiel(carnival skit) of today may resem-
ble the Shrovetide play that emerged in the 15th century, the first secular drama of
pre-Reformation Germany. At that time, the assorted farces that made up the festival
were mixed with satirical attacks on greedy clergymen and themes from pre-Christian
German literature. These were considered threats by the clergy, and the festival itself
was banned by the Pope until the 18th century because it parodied Christian practices
adapted from heathen cults.
The same may be said of specific festival images. Indeed, while the ornate and
expressive masks such as that of the old hag (Hexe) worn during the moder festival in
southwest Germany today may be historically coded, they are not mythological
survivals of pre-Christianity. In fact, there is no record that the masks and costumes
worn today are the same as those used in the celebrations of pre-Christian tribes or in
pre-Reformation Germany. Rather, the historical record shows that, until the 19th
century, Fasching costumes, far from being conservatively established in appearance,
exhibited a great deal of variety and differed from year to year (Bausinger 1990). While
it is possible that modem interpretations of images from the early spring festivals of
pre-Christian times have been incorporated with the old, the motivations behind
festivals change just as historical periods change. Thus, pre-Christian beliefs have little
bearing on modem functions of Fasching.
As a result one can only suggest that old images have taken on new meanings. These
festival images are not survivals of earlier times but, rather, selected images that towns
choose to represent certain "past" references, real or imagined, and sometimes endow
with political significance. During the Third Reich, for example, Fasching served as a
tool for propaganda and was a socially sanctioned form of "play" during which hostility
could be directed against "enemies" of the government. In other words, a community
member could dress up as a stranger and intimidate and frighten others while the
community, likewise, could act out a feigned fear of the masked figure. In this way, the
carnival was co-opted for political purposes, and the use of festival "hostility" became
acceptable in an officially sanctioned manner. The manner in which festival play was
used as a tool for National Socialist propaganda during the Third Reich is also apparent
from existing written evidence in the form of Fasching satirical skits (Stahl 1981). Even
among the festival participants themselves, meaning can be multilayered. For example,
the Elferrat (Council of 11) of the Fasching group that I interviewed in the eastern city
of Chemnitz recalled that during the carnival season in the spring of 1989 (before
anyone knew that the demise of the German Democratic Republic was imminent)
their Fasching party was attended by certain "odd guests" who were actually members
of the Stasi, the secret state police. After someone noticed the presence of these
intruders quite by chance, the Elferrat members, already playing raucous music on
washboards, became especially noisy and crazy. The resulting cacophony broke up any
conversation among festival participants, thus serving to defeat the purposes of the

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382 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

secret police. Importantly, in the festival of 1995 a kind of "playing with play" from
the past took place as the "history" of the washboard band incident was set to rhyme
and redramatized in my presence:

The carnivalspeech made by the new landlord"Hollerbach"was "not halfbad."

(Afterall, we still lived in the "zone.")
There arrived"strangecharacters"who didn't laugh at our jokes!
It was good luck that they "overlooked"our jokes,
And nobody had to go off with them.
It was a miracle that nothing happened,
Otherwise we would have had to go out to the next carnivalpartydecimated!
A group of three would have had to rule.
At the end there was a "riot"
(Conversationssuddenlystopped in the hall).
The Washboardband-really dexterous-wielded their loud instruments.
With loud colors, washboard-rubbing.
Glassesand panesrattled!

In 1995 when this skit was reenacted, however, I was unaware of this particular bit
of group history. During later interviews with group members, I learned the signifi-
cance of this humorous skit for some of the participants. When the Elferrat members
march in a washboard band at current festival celebrations, they are demonstrating to
themselves a kind of"playing with play" in which nonsense from the past is recounted
playfully in the present for those "in the know." Yet the same nonsense has an entirely
different significance for spectators like myself who do not know this bit of history.
It is still possible both to see this type of performance as festival self-reflection and to
enjoy crazy routines such as this dramatization as a "carnival aesthetic" when each
participant tries to gain a dominant voice by becoming the biggest fool. Certainly this
tendency to use jest as a means to "foolish power" is consistent with the "upside-
down" world of carnival. In analyzing the southwest German Fasching some theorists
have considered the traditional use of a pig's bladder tied to a pole and wielded by the
Narren as a survival of an ancient rite of incorporation; but when this usage is seen as a
carnival aesthetic, the Narren wave the bladders for effect as a degraded amusement
because a pig's bladder on a pole is a comical object with obscene connotations ("Piss
on you!"). An East German border-crossing skit, too, can be both a parody of life in
the former East Germany and, as memories of the former government fade, a fond
nostalgic reminiscence or a statement of resistance to current western domination. But
the routine may likewise disintegrate into confusion-Wahnsinn, utter nonsense-
without identifiable reference points and may be performed just for fun.
One may reasonably argue that every festival takes place within a specific historical
context because play does not take place in a social vacuum. When situated within the
context of the recent reunification of East and West Germany, the emphasis on men
masking as women suggests more than one possible interpretation. In both East and
West, during carnival men can remove themselves from the dominant norm of "acting
like a man" and instead may choose to represent themselves as stereotypical women:
childlike, incompetent, and yet alluring and erotic. Such representations not only

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 383

replicate gendered social relationsin a reunified Germanybut, interpretedpolitically

and culturally,can be seen as portrayingthe power relationshipsbetween East and
West in a reunified Germany where the more affluentWest still wields the greater
economic control.

Fasching and Social Structurein Southwestern Germany

I later learned that beneath the seeming randomnessof the remarkableactivities

themselves there exists a strict enforced hierarchyin the Hexenzunft, the structured
community organizationresponsiblefor the festivalin Offenburg. For example, the
Hexenzunft, an associationmodeled afterthe guilds of the Middle Ages, consists of a
core organizationof men who plan and enact the Faschingactivities.Only Hexenzunft
officials are allowed to wear the costumes, and the elaboratehand-carvedwooden
maskscannot be bought or sold, being carvedby a specialGermanwoodworker who
creates them only for the Offenburg community. Those who join the group are
granted the honor of dressing as Hexen after they have performed two years of
community service. "Strangers,"in reality disguisedresidentsof the town, are intro-
duced into the community in the following way. The least frighteningare introduced
first. These are the unmasked Alti (elders) who are older married women of the
community who have performed more than two years of public service. Although
they do not mask their faces, they wear the 18th-century costume that is said to have
been the attirefor women in that area.Then the Buttel,or messengers,arriveon the
scene ringing bells to warn the crowd of the evil eye of the Hexen. These are the
young unmarriedmen of the community who will one day apply for membershipin
the Hexenzunft. Next, younger women outfitted as birdlikefigurescalled Spattlehansel
make their appearance.Their costume is rag-tag, and although they approach the
crowd, they usually only pat heads and fondle faces but do not try to frighten the
crowd. Although these women are members of the Hexenzunft, they wear the men's
"hand-me-down" costumes because the Spattlehanselwas the costume worn by men
prior to the introduction of the Hexe-who are now at the center of this festival,
whereas the female Spittlehanselis relegatedto the margins.The majorityof members
who wear the Hexe mask are men, but a very few women sometimeswear the mask.
At the center of this festivalplay is the presentationof strangeness,which is heightened
by the role of the Hexen. It appearsthat this privilege is accordedto some women to
heighten the festival effect because this makes it difficult for spectatorsto discern
whether they are being grabbedand groped by a male or female Hexe. During the
carnivalthroughout Germany,men are often dressedas women or, as in Offenburg,as
the Hexe, a human-eatinghag who can also be playful.The Hexe is saidto be a parody
of the old priestessin Germanfertilityrites, but the realityis that the figure of the hag
has been invented in the recent past. I learned that the actual use of the Hexe mask
datesto 1933 and that the maskwas designedby an Offenburgwood-carver.
The last to be introduced is the Hexenmeister, in the form of a devil-like creature
with horns, who is alwaysmale and who representsthe most terrifyingfigure in the
festival.Thus, the pitch of Faschingcontinues to be elevated by an orderedhierarchy
in which men are the most powerful. All of the masked revelers,however, employ

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384 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

torches or inflated pig bladders to tease the crowds and to keep the pitch elevated.
Simulated pig bladders are now used in Germany, but as late as the early 1900s real
bladders were tied to poles in the manner of the festivities before the World War II
period, when the festival was reinvented (Bausinger 1990).

Carnivaland Tourismin SouthwesternGermanyToday

On Schmutzigerdonnerstag,the "dirty Thursday" before Ash Wednesday and the

traditional opening of "High Carnival," it is now customary in Offenburg for the
Hexen to summon residents to the city center (Stadtmittel)at 6:00 a.m. to serve a special
festival bean soup (Fasnachtbohnesuppe), which the crones say "will make the children
grow into strong Hexen." Community members also play a role in this event by selling
food for ridiculously low prices. For example, a grocery item that would actually cost
three marks might be sold for a mere three pfennig and so forth. The Hexenbaum (old
hags' tree) erected on a nearby roof is decorated with shoes and other unlikely objects
and signals the topsy-turvy nature of festival activity by drawing attention to "things
out of place." The Hexen literally take the keys of order from the local authorities
when the Burgermeister (mayor) turns over the city key to the Hexe, and the Hexen are
thereby given authority to create chaos. Spontaneous dramatizations are likewise
improvised by the Hexen, and the street itself becomes a stage for an impromptu
theater performance with no set text. There is also intense interaction between the
Hexen and the spectators. Tourists and certain onlookers (like myself) are singled out as
"foreigners" and are pulled into the midst of the activity by the costumed figures.
Naturally, because they do not know what is going on, they struggle with the Hexen
to get away. Yet the Hexen invariably chase those who escape and drag them back to
the center of the street, which serves as a kind of festival arena. Sometimes they chase
their victims down the street completely away from the crowd only to leave them
there, all to the intense amusement of the rest of the onlookers. In the understood
script of festival, the "role" of tourists singled out by the Hexen is merely to contribute
to the general atmosphere of chaos and confusion because they are surprised, afraid,
and unsure of what to do. The festival activities continue apace as the days pass, and
echoes of the ancient Winteraustreibung are evident. Thus, throughout the period
leading up to Ash Wednesday the Hexen continue to approach tourists and to shake
them physically in an attempt, so I was told by community residents, to "shake out
winter."
In other cases the emphasis is on reversal of the normal, an essential element of the
carnival. For example, on Friday, usually designated as Ruhetag (day of rest), in some
towns special "festival pancakes" (Fasnachtkuchen)are fried at home, and during a
celebratory Hexenball both local and national politicians are lampooned. Reversal is
especially evident on Saturday morning when the usual farmers' market becomes
instead the Hexenmarkt. At all other times of the year, of course, the produce and
foodstuffs sold in the community market plaza are brought in fresh from local produc-
ers, but the vegetables that the Hexen offer for sale at their tables are sadly withered and
bruised substitutes, dressed up in costumes reminiscent of the crones themselves. The
Hexen try to sell (read: force) these parodic rotten vegetables on shoppers to raise

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 385

money for their activitiesfor next year. Pranksand buffoonery continue on through
the week until the Hexenfrass(hags' feed) on Shrove Tuesday, an afternoon event
reserved for the children of the community. The Hexen line the balconies of the
narrowstreetsand throw down sausages(Blutwurst), oranges,and candy to the crowds,
and the children in return tease them by calling, "Gizig, gizig, gizig isch die Hex.
Wenn sie nicht so gizig war, gab sie au ebbes her" [Stingy,stingy, stingy is the hag. If
the hag weren't so stingy, she'd give us something]. According to one festivalpartici-
pant, the throwing of treatsis for good luck (Gluck).At the same time spiced wine
(Gluhwein)and alcohol (Schnapps) are sold to the adultswho indulge freely until the
Hexenmeistermakes an appearance.Then the Hexen disappearuntil 6:00 p.m., once
againa liminaltime. The stage has been set for the climax of the festival.
Symbolism and the emphasison a chaotic reversalare nowhere more evident than
duringthe activitieson the finalnight of Fasching.Although all of the public events are
carefullystructured,this spectacularevent is especiallyadvertisedand stagedfor tourists.
All is quiet until a town band reappears,playing marches and other militarymusic.
Afterthe crowd gathers,in the middle of the plazathe festivalbonfire is ceremoniously
lit. As the lighted boughs crackle,through and over the flamesthe Hexen spring.This
is the Hexensprung (hags'leap), and the officialact of Winteraustreibungis saidto begin
amid fireworks and cheering. During the entire ritual the crowd repeatedly yells,
"Schelle, schelle, Sechser, alli alti Hexe, Narro! Wir sind froh!" [Shake, shake the
six-piece, old hags!Craziness!We are happy!],and the loud music continuallyechoes
throughoutthe entire town. Moreover, like the Narren at Elzach duringthis time and
throughout Fasching, the Hexen too bellow out "Narri!"and the crowds eagerly
respond "Narro!"The antiphonic words, meaning "foolish" or "crazy,"typify the
unpredictableand chaotic characterof the festivalscene becauseall spatialand temporal
relationshipsare dislocatedand all culturaland social paradigmsare seemingly called
into question (Abrahams1987).

Fasching Eastern Style

In the formerEast Germany,Faschingbegan to be celebratedjust before the end of

the period of official censorship, which, like the Berlin Wall and the system that
erected it, came crumblingdown in late 1989. Before I began to researchthe Fasching
festivalin the "new" Germany in 1995, I was unequivocally told by West Germans
that Faschinghas never been celebratedin the eastern regions of Germany because
people there, like in northern Germany, were largely Lutheran and that such public
performances had been banned by the Communist government. Yet neither statement
was quite true. Indeed, as my investigations revealed, the celebrations so often associ-
ated with West Germany are very much alive in its eastern counterpart.
In 1995, on 11 November at 11:11 a.m., the "fifth season," as Fasching is known
throughout eastern Germany, opened in the city marketplace in the old city of
Chemnitz in the southern state of Sachsen. Five Fasching groups from various towns in
eastern Germany, unmasked but wearing various sequined or feathered hats and
costumes, marched with their bands through the city streets. They gathered at the City
Hall, where the Biirgermeister was summoned and the members of the Elferrat

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386 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

demanded that he turn over the key to the city (a symbolic event that takes place
elsewhereas well). After a seriesof satiricalspeeches,the groupssang and then marched
away until evening. At this point I quickly introduced myself to one of the Elferrat
members, who was dressed in a green and white sequined jester hat, and asked if I
might join the group to take photographs.I was invited to the celebrationthat night,
designatedthe "guestof honor," and seatedat the Stammtisch (reservedtable).From my
perch above the crowd, I had a bird's-eye view of all that went on that night.
Whenever the Elferratentered or exited the room, they marchedin a circle, extended
their armsin a militarysalute,and roared"Rosarium!"three times while militarymusic
played. The group paraded,mimed, sang, and danced as the crowd joined in. At one
table, spectatorseven dropped their pants. And the evening's activitieswere especially
inspired;for, although Februaryis the month when Faschingreachesits peak anyway,
this occasion was especiallyimportantto the Elferratgroup membersbecausethey had
been celebrating the festival for ten years, even in the face of opposition from the
Communist government, and this was their "Faschinganniversary."
The group engaged in similaractivities during the "High Fasching"period in the
daysleadingup to Ash Wednesday. For example,in a nightly seriesof 11 performances
at a local restaurant,men in long blond wigs and the short-aproneddressesof the rural
folk sang a German popularsong entitled "Heidi" when the carnivalhost announced
that, although in Russia the women are saidto be beautiful,EastGermanyhas its own
form of beauty-an obvious form of self-mockery and a dig at eastern Germany's
former oppression.The group also enacted comic skits about former routine daily life.
One such mini drama depicts a tourist and an East German customs officer. The
officer,who is supposedto be attendingto his officialborder duties, is oblivious to the
presence of the tourist and fastidiouslycleansthe toll gate with a tiny dust cloth. Such
self-mockery representsa kind of play about stereotypes of German cleanlinessand
order as well as pointedly examining in satiricalfashion various aspects of German
official and popular culture. In another comic routine, the men entered bare chested,
wearing huge black top hats that covered their heads and arms. On each man's chest,
"eyes" and a "nose" were painted, and each man's navel was prominently outlined
with red to representa "mouth." This "mouth"seemed to open and close as each man
gyrated to the music for no reason other than the mere absurdityof it all. For two
hours the 11 men and a few women became quick-change artists,as it were, as they
costumed themselves with many disguises,among which were ballet dancers,belly
dancers, and exotic "tribal women" who, with bouncing "breasts"of large pink
balloons and holding spears,danced to the music of "Back in Zaire." Afterwardthey
formed a washboardband and began playingtheir cacophonic "music"by blowing on
watering cans and vigorously rubbing their washboards.After two hours of absurd
dances, comic songs, and controlled chaos, the men, dressed again in their green
Elferratcostumes,joined the generalgalaas they ate, sang, and dancedwith the rest of
the crowd until long past midnight.

Women and the Carnival

Contradictorystatementsabout social and culturalconstructsnot only arepossiblein

festivalsituationsbut are actuallypartof the festivalcontext itself.Placingmale masking

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 387

at the center of this German carnival suggests that when men mask as women, they are
equating the "other" with the less desirable qualities of being female. At the same time,
the concomitant debasing of other cultures also suggests that, in comparison to men,
women are less advanced culturally, even "primitive" if you will. By equating woman-
hood with those undesirable qualities, then, men can symbolically claim that as a
gender they are naturally more intellectually and culturally competent even while
playing the complete fool. Men's statements about women's emotional passivity have
kept the women of eastern Germany out of most carnival activities, and the tensions
are nowhere better noticed than in the significant differences in style between the skits
of men and those of women. When I asked men why so few women masqueraded as
men in the carnival skits, they answered that women are not interested in parody. Yet
the women told me about a skit they performed in 1993 that had been popular and, in
spite of its popularity with the crowd, was edited out of the anniversary revue of 1995.
This skit, a timely piece that lampooned contemporary cultural and political figures in
scenes of the Pope waltzing with the Devil or former German Democratic Republic
dictator Erich Honnecker drinking Schnapps with West Germany's Chancellor
Helmut Kohl, featured the women dressed as unlikely couples of males who danced
and sang together in clearly incongruous situations. Thus, women masking as men
enabled them to comment on what men were doing and allowed them to interpret
men's behavior from a feminine perspective, giving them a voice and interpretive and
representational power. By editing out the instances in which women impersonate
men, however, the dominant male perspective is able to frame the event as less
important. Similarly, Offenburg women are "kept in their place" when allowed to
wear a costume no longer desired by males. Likewise, although the announcer of the
1996 activities in the eastern carnival was a woman, it appears that during the carnival
the men alone determine roles that women can take. This one lone female announcer
for the male-dominated anniversary carnival is not enough to give voice to women.
Indeed, the gesture may be seen as just a form of tokenism because, while a few
women may be admitted to all-male communities, their infrequent presence actually
points up their subordinate position.

Conclusion

According to Stallybrassand White,

The "top" attempts to reject and eliminate the "bottom" for reasons of prestige and status, only to
discover,not only that it is in some way frequentlydependent upon that low-Other, but also that the top
INCLUDES that low symbolically... [T]he result is ... a psychological dependence upon precisely
those Others which are being rigorouslyopposed and excluded at the social level. It is for this reasonthat
which is SOCIALLY peripheralis so frequentlySYMBOLICALLYcentral.[1985:5]

The introduction of an economic system destabilizing to the former orderly (yet

patriarchal) society can be represented through the female body, which itself is also
considered an unpredictable threat to stability that must be controlled. Carnival skits
focus on the female body to communicate this threatening shift of the economic

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388 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

system: both the economic body and the unrestrainedfemale body appearcarival-
esque when they are unconstrainedand become a threat to male dominance. As a
consequence, it is possible to interpretthe female body in these festivalactivitiesas a
metaphor for economic anxieties. The impulse to debase and subordinatewomen in
the context of economic uncertaintyand its attendantsocial dislocationmay suggest a
correspondingattemptto control the limited economic resourcesdirectedprimarilyby
men to other men in the form of employment. In the festivalcontext of Faschingsuch
observationsare telling. Indeed, it may be symbolicallyimportantfor men to imper-
sonate women under the threat of economic dislocationthat all easternGermansare
currentlyexperiencing. Times have changed: there is a 37% unemployment rate in a
region where full employment was once guaranteedto all citizens as a birthright.East
Germanwomen claim that they have lost even more than the men: women as a group
are experiencing 70% unemployment since reunification.In a patriarchalculture, of
course, men generally control access to power, to status,and to economic resources
with little accorded to women. Gender categories,moreover, are fixed to ensure and
maintainthis economic and political dominance for men. In an articleentitled "Ger-
many's Glass Ceiling" in the 8 May 2000 issue of Time, it is reported that in 1999
female executives in Germanyheld only 9.2% of managementjobs as comparedwith
43% in the United States and 28% in Switzerland (Wallace 2000). Thus, during
Fasching,the male parodyof the female dancersin the Eastor the GermanHexe mask
in the West may derive from and reinforce a wide range of power relationstied to
systems of gender inequality in German society; and ratherthan giving voice to the
woman from the bottom up, these expressionsbear many elements of the patriarchal
social organization,its norms, and its ideology. Insteadof contestinggender constructs
and social relationshipsbased on them, they reinforce a conformity to patriarchal
values. And unlike those festivalactivitiesthat question other culturaland social norms
(such as politics and religion),malesmaskingas femalesreinforcesthe establishedorder
of things in the form of male hegemony.
Following another line of interpretation,males maskingas femalesin East Germany
has less to do with male dominanceover femalesthan with the economic superiorityof
western Germany over eastern Germany. As Susan Morrison suggests, eastern Ger-
many is usuallypersonifiedas a woman, and West Germanyis frequentlydepicted in
political cartoonsas a man: "Eastmeets West afterthe Wall is opened. But it's Ms. East
and Mr. West" (1992:35). When eastern German males mask as females, they are
taking control of the western Germanstereotype of the East and using it to mark the
easternGermanidentity in order to distinguishthemselvesfrom that of the West. This
processis much like a woman who intentionallycostumesin a way thattakeson men's
stereotypesof women and demonstratesthat the processis more complicatedthan the
simple inversion of the relationshipbetween sense and nonsense. It is possible that if
many individuals or groups were to abandon traditional gender roles, patriarchal
institutions would be forced to change and the disparitiesof power and privilege
between men and women might be lessened. However, this would not necessarily
mean an end to males maskingas females.Instead,sometimesnonsenseis taken to such
an extreme that it becomes once removed from itself and interpretationbecomes
clouded. Further, the washboard band, a skit about males at urinals, the Narren

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 McMahon, The Aestheticsof Play in Carnival 389

jumping over the bonfire, and the Hexen selling rotten vegetablesare all carnivalacts
that sharea "carnivalaesthetic"in which play is not subsumedto anotherprocess. It is
true that power, reversal,and identity are indeed aspectsof festivals.Yet, as has been
recentlypointed out, "Festivalscan obviously be construedin such terms.But to do so,
and especiallyto seek to understandtheir mode of being within those narrowcontexts,
is to deny the festivalthe kind of autonomy of artisticform that has been allowed to
other forms of performanceoutside of the sociopathologicalprocess"(Echeruo 1994:
139).
In other words, it would be simplisticto see the activitiesand intentions of such
festivalsassignedto any one categoryor reduced to any one level of interpretation.In
the case of all of the carnivalexpressionsoutlined above, it is clearthat meaning is not
static,multiplemeaningscan and do exist, and "playingwith play"createsthat "infinity
of nothingness"(Stewart1979) that can provide new spacesfor multiplemeanings.In a
sense, this is the festivalbending back on itself, that is, self-referenceor "play about
play." Further, as Michael Holquist (1972) explains, nonsense provides the rules for
giving meaning to itself, for it begins with no content, ends with no content, and is a
pure process that has no end other than itself: "it does what it is about." By avoiding
reductionisttheoriesthat ignore the importanceof nonsense, the key carnivalaesthetic,
and its locus of significancefor participants,we can then account for the crazinessin
festival amusements.As a result, I would like to suggest that the use of the German
terms Sinn, Unsinn,and Wahnsinn(sense, nonsense, and "crazy-sense"or confusion)
best capturesthe importanceof carnivalaesthetics.
This consideration of the importance of the ludic or carnival aesthetic is often
overlooked because in Western thought it has been customaryto think of play as a
secondaryepistemologyand, therefore,not reallya centralexplanationfor festivalsand
so forth. However, many decades of research demonstratingpositive connections
between play and social health, as well as recent interpretationsof play's biological
function as that of adaptivevariability,stronglysupportthe view that playfulnessis the
primarymotivation for festivalsand other forms of play (Sutton-Smith 1997). Abra-
hams (1987) contends that the energy so apparent in festivals is created by the
topsy-turvy nature within the festivalitself which createsdisturbance"for the fun of
it." At the same time, when the festivalis co-opted or other influences override the
festival, this playfulnessis essentiallylost, and the festivalbecomes ideological display.
Therefore, we should not lose sight of the ludic element in and of itself as the primary
vehicle for generatingthe energy that can also convey multilevelmeaningsfor carnival
participants,both Eastand West.

Note

Research for this essaywas conducted during 1984-87 in western Germanyand again in 1995-96 while
I was a FulbrightLecturerat the Technische Universitatof Chemnitz in easternGermany. I thank Roger
D. Abrahamsand Brian Sutton-Smith for reading very early versions of this essay.A version of this essay
was read at the 1997 Conference on Holidays, Ritual, Festival,Celebration,and Public Display at Bowling
Green State University.
1I only became aware of the existence of the carnival in eastern Germany by accident during my
Fulbrightgrant. Until I lateracceptedan invitationto participatein the "InspectingGermany Symposium,"

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390 Journalof AmericanFolklore113 (2000)

14-17 September 1999 at the University of Tiibingen, Germany, there was no awarenessamong West
German scholars that the carnival even existed in the East, before or after the reunification in 1990.
Interestingly,one journalistwho mentions my researchin her articlein Die Zeit even went so far as to call
the easternfestivala "bizarrecustom."

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