Trump/Ubu

[djAdvocate]

i have brought this up before, but i keep coming back to it.

for those of you that don't know the reference, Ubu Roi is an absurdist play written in 1896 by Alfred Jarry.  the main character has struck me, almost from the first moment he became president, as eerily close in manner and temperament to Trump.


dangerousminds.net/comments/king_turd_this_absurdist_play_from_1896_could_have_been_written_about_donal

here is a description of the character/plot:

According to Jane Taylor, “The central character is notorious for his infantile engagement with his world. Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification.” Jarry’s metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero—fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, cruel, cowardly and evil—who grew out of schoolboy legends about the imaginary life of a hated teacher who had been at one point a slave on a Turkish Galley, at another frozen in ice in Norway and at one more the King of Poland. Ubu Roi follows and explores his political, martial and felonious exploits, offering parodic adaptations of situations and plot-lines from Shakespearean drama, including Macbeth, Hamlet and Richard III: like Macbeth, Ubu—on the urging of his wife—murders the king who helped him and usurps his throne, and is in turn defeated and killed by his son; Jarry also adapts the ghost of the dead king and Fortinbras’s revolt from Hamlet, Buckingham’s refusal of reward for assisting a usurpation from Richard III and The Winter’s Tale‘s bear.


it is a masterful skewering of leaders that are pathological and stupid, and it cuts right to the bone, imo.  there is very little light that can pass between the silhouette of Pere Ubu and that of Trump.

if you disagree, be prepared to articulate WHY, because after 7 years of watching that idiot intently, i can no longer see any measurable distance between him and Ubu.

[djAdvocate]

the next paragraph in that piece is almost as good as the one i copied above:


“There is,” wrote Taylor, “a particular kind of pleasure for an audience watching these infantile attacks. Part of the satisfaction arises from the fact that in the burlesque mode which Jarry invents, there is no place for consequence. While Ubu may be relentless in his political aspirations, and brutal in his personal relations, he apparently has no measurable effect upon those who inhabit the farcical world which he creates around himself. He thus acts out our most childish rages and desires, in which we seek to gratify ourselves at all cost.” The derived adjective “ubuesque” is recurrent in French and francophone political debate.


i think this explains the Cult of Trump to a degree.  they get infantile pleasure in swatting people with a shit covered toilet brush.  there is a lot to learn from this 125 year old play.

spoiler: it ends badly for Father Ubu.

[mollyanna58]

Mar 9, 2022 19:54:10 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

spoiler: it ends badly for Father Ubu.

Promises, promises.

[dondub]

DJ... you have posted some of this before. Brilliant find and connection to Trump in all regards.

[djAdvocate]

Mar 9, 2022 20:01:28 GMT -5 dondub said:

DJ... you have posted some of this before. Brilliant find and connection to Trump in all regards.

i just can't let it go.
i came across this play in college.
but the image has stuck with me.

when Trump became a public figure, i didn't really think of Ubu.  there are lots of assholes like him.
within weeks of him becoming president, however, the parallels were undeniable.

[Tennesseer]

Mar 9, 2022 19:58:04 GMT -5 mollyanna58 said:

Mar 9, 2022 19:54:10 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

spoiler: it ends badly for Father Ubu.

Promises, promises.

[Tiny]

I'm a fan of Shakespeare - MacBeth is one of my favorites, but Hamlet is the one I LOVE to hate.    
I've seen or read the  "Henry plays" countless times over my lifetime. 

All of these plays have some theme of what makes a good ruler or what obligations a ruler has to his people, or should rulers be measured with the same moral yardstick as everyone else (along with all sorts of other entertaining stuff.)    Shakespeare's rulers and generals are flawed and human and rarely one sided.      (I'm pretty sure trump had no qualms or misgivings or thoughts that his actions as President carried great weight and effected millions of peoples's lives or even life and death of the military.) 

I have never heard of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry and so had to google.  and see that's it a parody of Shakespeare.   I also see that there are some youtube videos of the play - which I will eventually watch.      


All that said... trump is most certainly everything opposite and contrarian to Shakespeare's kings and princes and generals.    I'm kind of amazed when someone doesn't see trump as literally playing a villain.  The way he says things, the mannerism, his apparent intent... he's a villain.  And not a nice one with backstory that explains how he got the label of villain and he's most definitely NOT trying to be a better person or to change.   And seems to unaware of all of it.  

all of which would indicate to me - that a parody of Shakespeare's royalty (and generals) could easily produce a trump like character (and perhaps a royal court that kow tows to him performing absurd things which result in dire consequences in order to curry favor.) 


and just an aside:  
trump is certainly NO Sir John Falstaff either.    

[djAdvocate]

Mar 9, 2022 21:03:23 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I'm a fan of Shakespeare - MacBeth is one of my favorites, but Hamlet is the one I LOVE to hate.    
I've seen or read the  "Henry plays" countless times over my lifetime. 

All of these plays have some theme of what makes a good ruler or what obligations a ruler has to his people, or should rulers be measured with the same moral yardstick as everyone else (along with all sorts of other entertaining stuff.)    Shakespeare's rulers and generals are flawed and human and rarely one sided.      (I'm pretty sure trump had no qualms or misgivings or thoughts that his actions as President carried great weight and effected millions of peoples's lives or even life and death of the military.) 

I have never heard of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry and so had to google.  and see that's it a parody of Shakespeare.   I also see that there are some youtube videos of the play - which I will eventually watch.      


All that said... trump is most certainly everything opposite and contrarian to Shakespeare's kings and princes and generals.    I'm kind of amazed when someone doesn't see trump as literally playing a villain.  The way he says things, the mannerism, his apparent intent... he's a villain.  And not a nice one with backstory that explains how he got the label of villain and he's most definitely NOT trying to be a better person or to change.   And seems to unaware of all of it.  

all of which would indicate to me - that a parody of Shakespeare's royalty (and generals) could easily produce a trump like character (and perhaps a royal court that kow tows to him performing absurd things which result in dire consequences in order to curry favor.) 


and just an aside:  
trump is certainly NO Sir John Falstaff either.    

to be clear, what Jarry does in this play is to use the MOTIFS of Shakespeare to create an anti-hero.

[Opti]

Mar 9, 2022 21:03:23 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I'm a fan of Shakespeare - MacBeth is one of my favorites, but Hamlet is the one I LOVE to hate.    
I've seen or read the  "Henry plays" countless times over my lifetime. 

All of these plays have some theme of what makes a good ruler or what obligations a ruler has to his people, or should rulers be measured with the same moral yardstick as everyone else (along with all sorts of other entertaining stuff.)    Shakespeare's rulers and generals are flawed and human and rarely one sided.      (I'm pretty sure trump had no qualms or misgivings or thoughts that his actions as President carried great weight and effected millions of peoples's lives or even life and death of the military.) 

I have never heard of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry and so had to google.  and see that's it a parody of Shakespeare.   I also see that there are some youtube videos of the play - which I will eventually watch.      


All that said... trump is most certainly everything opposite and contrarian to Shakespeare's kings and princes and generals.    I'm kind of amazed when someone doesn't see trump as literally playing a villain.  The way he says things, the mannerism, his apparent intent... he's a villain.  And not a nice one with backstory that explains how he got the label of villain and he's most definitely NOT trying to be a better person or to change.   And seems to unaware of all of it.  

all of which would indicate to me - that a parody of Shakespeare's royalty (and generals) could easily produce a trump like character (and perhaps a royal court that kow tows to him performing absurd things which result in dire consequences in order to curry favor.) 


and just an aside:  
trump is certainly NO Sir John Falstaff either.    

Macbeth and Hamlet are the two Shakespeare plays I know the best. I'm not familiar with Ubu Roi although it sounds like I would have liked the last one of the series the most.

I didn't realize sit Ubu sit was a reference to DJ's OP Ubu. Watched a small portion of the video, the opening credits, and could tell this would not be an easy thing for me to get today. So perhaps later. 

[swamp]

Mar 9, 2022 19:49:32 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i have brought this up before, but i keep coming back to it.

for those of you that don't know the reference, Ubu Roi is an absurdist play written in 1896 by Alfred Jarry.  the main character has struck me, almost from the first moment he became president, as eerily close in manner and temperament to Trump.


dangerousminds.net/comments/king_turd_this_absurdist_play_from_1896_could_have_been_written_about_donal

here is a description of the character/plot:

According to Jane Taylor, “The central character is notorious for his infantile engagement with his world. Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification.” Jarry’s metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero—fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, cruel, cowardly and evil—who grew out of schoolboy legends about the imaginary life of a hated teacher who had been at one point a slave on a Turkish Galley, at another frozen in ice in Norway and at one more the King of Poland. Ubu Roi follows and explores his political, martial and felonious exploits, offering parodic adaptations of situations and plot-lines from Shakespearean drama, including Macbeth, Hamlet and Richard III: like Macbeth, Ubu—on the urging of his wife—murders the king who helped him and usurps his throne, and is in turn defeated and killed by his son; Jarry also adapts the ghost of the dead king and Fortinbras’s revolt from Hamlet, Buckingham’s refusal of reward for assisting a usurpation from Richard III and The Winter’s Tale‘s bear.


it is a masterful skewering of leaders that are pathological and stupid, and it cuts right to the bone, imo.  there is very little light that can pass between the silhouette of Pere Ubu and that of Trump.

if you disagree, be prepared to articulate WHY, because after 7 years of watching that idiot intently, i can no longer see any measurable distance between him and Ubu.

Yeah, I got nothing.  You win. 

[djAdvocate]

well, i was not looking for victory.  but i hope you enjoy the play.  

[djAdvocate]

i would like one of the Trump people to comment on the comparison, but i guess that is asking too much.

[dondub]

Mar 10, 2022 16:38:07 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i would like one of the Trump people to comment on the comparison, but i guess that is asking too much.

Oh Hell yes?

[djAdvocate]

more amazingness on the same topic:


www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/king-ubu-trumps-dadaist-precursor

i had to read this line (originally in French) three times, it is so poetic:

It is no longer buffoonery or farce; it is the sound of the social contract, that of Hobbes no less than that of Rousseau, dissolving in the acid of a social discourse gone mad.