Major Research Essay

    Rebellion is a force that can reconstruct culture and society by actively disobeying established conventions and instituting new customs which oppose tradition and promote hegemony. Jonathan Kaplan’s film Over the Edge functions as a strong example of rebellion. The movie focuses on a teenage uprising in a fictitious developing exurb called New Granada. The adults who design and develop New Granada fail to consider the neighborhood kids who consequently are left with nothing to do. As a result the children turn to drugs, alcohol, and vandalism to relieve their boredom. New Granada’s parents attempt to put a stop to their kid’s rebellious behavior instead of critically thinking about the reasons behind it. Ultimately, their lack of understanding spurs a violent uprising amongst the youth of the community. The adolescents’ disregard for authority and their radical behavior directly correlates with the central theme of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s text, Rabelais and his World. Bakhtin’s concept of “carnival” epitomizes the ability of rebellion to suspend social hierarchies and redefine personal and institutional relationships (Shields 97). This is portrayed in Over the Edge. Likewise, electronic dance music culture, also known as “rave” culture, has many carnivalesque characteristics.
    Carnival’s power to generate equality dissolves society’s affiliations with status and reputation. In “Living in a Carnivalesque World”, Carolyn Shields refers to Bakhtin’s concept of carnival as, “a way... of reforming and renewing relationships “(97). This aspect of carnival is established in the film Over the Edge. In the movie, the rebellious kids engage in drug use, theft, and vandalism, actively reforming and renewing a relationship with the community that has neglected them. Within the youth rebellion, the adults’ reputation and status as authority figures loses significance. The kid’s actions reflect the “transforming power” of carnival (Shields 98). Although the collective rebellion itself is temporary, the death of the cop and the destruction of the recreation center are not. This is analogous with characteristics of carnival; “although impermanent, it [carnival] is longer lasting it its effects” (Shields 98).
    The rebelling kids in Over the Edge take violent measures against the adults and authorities of New Granada. Shields discusses how concept of carnival suspends “hierarchical structures that determine our ‘proper’ place- including the acceptable way of talking, dressing, laughing, and celebrating” (101). In Over the Edge, the kids engage in behavior which the community considers unacceptable. By doing so, they actively remove themselves from what Bakhtin refers to as their “proper place” which the community’s adults have determined. As a result the kids work to establish the carnivalesque concepts of no rank or privilege (Shields 104). They talk using profanity and vulgar language. According to Bakhtin, this alternate approach to communication offers new perspectives and allows the children to express themselves “in the fullness of the moment” (Shields 106). The resentment the kids harbor towards the police in the community is clearly indicated when Abby calls an officer a “stinkin’ pig.” In carnivalesque fashion, Abby along with the rest of the children “seize the opportunity for free expression” (Shields 106). This type of vulgar language is considered “grotesque” to the adults of the community. To the kids in Over the Edge and Bakhtin, accepting the grotesque as just another aspect of reality is empowering (Shields 107).
    Recent decades have produced a contemporary version of Bakhtin’s carnival with electronic dance music culture. These modern carnivalesque events are known as raves. In his text Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin says, “In carnival everyone is an active participant, everyone communes in the carnival act” (Shields 99). Akin to carnival, raves are not spectacles; they are festive affairs in which everyone participates. A recent rave in Los Angeles, California appropriately titled “The Electric Daisy Carnival” drew approximately 185,000 people. Corina Knoll’s article in the LA Times recounts how people rushed the gates to the venue in attempt to overwhelm security and get inside. Knoll describes a witness report that hundreds of people stormed into the event, climbing the fences and trampling food and drink tents: “It was like a water fall of people” (1). The element of absolute participation at raves like The Electric Daisy Carnival conforms to Bakhtin’s definition of carnival.
    In “Living in a Carnivalesque World”, Shields discusses carnival’s association with a public forum unrestrained by social barriers which promotes equality and communal participation (102). She recalls the agoras of Ancient Greece which were, “the focus of political, commercial, administrative and social activity” (Shields 102). Like raves, the agora and and its proceedings are open to everyone, and participation is the basis of success (Shields 102). Equality and togetherness are central themes of rave culture, where the dance floor is equivalent to the agora as both offer refuge for the socially marginalized to express themselves (Brabazon 22).
    According to Bakhtin, certain societal norms which divide and separate people are suspended during carnival. First, “everything resulting from socio-hierarchical inequality among people [discontinues]. All distance between people is suspended, and a special carnival category goes into effect: free and familiar contact among people” (Shields 99). During raves, the illicit drug ecstasy is regularly consumed because it creates an elated sense of togetherness (Brabazon 21). Ravers report that, “sharing emotions and common purpose facilitate feelings of belonging and consolidates attachments and identifications” (Hunt, Moloney, and Evans 43). Carnivals and raves both transform peoples’ relationships with each other by altering the norms and expectations of ordinary social behavior (Hunt, Moloney, and Evans 125). A raver told journalist Reed Johnson that The Electric Daisy Carnival “describes world peace in one small place.. because here everyone gets along. Thats what’s so attractive” (1). Another attendee described the music as neither California, Chicago, New York, or Asian music: “It’s global music” (Johnson 2). A participant in a study on the rave scene outlined in the book Youth, Drugs, and Nightlife reaffirms these sentiments of unification:
    There’s just something about being in a mass of people that are all throbbing to the same beat... there’s a unity, a realization that whatever differences we may have outside of this just really don’t matter... There’s a desire for that to expand beyond just that setting to, like globally. I think the human race could learn something from that. (Hunt, Moloney, and Evans 43)
    Like carnivals, raves unite people. In an article from the journal Youth Studies Austraila titled “Dancing through the revolution”, Tara Brabazon cites Steven H. Chaffee’s assertion that “Listening to music is the most universal mass communication behavior” (20). During the rave, people interact through dance and everyone is united through ubiquitous music regardless of their respective identities (Brabazon 23). This reaffirms the rave’s carnivalesque ability to temporarily dissolve social hierarchies and reform relationships. People do not need to be literate, nor do they even need to speak the same language to share the experience of the rave (Brabazon 20). “Undressed of lyrics and the biography of an artist, it [electronic dance music] is marinated in cosmopolitanism, transculturality, and the diaspora (Brabazon 20).” Because conventional identities are suspended during a rave, participants are able to “act and speak in a zone of familiar contact with the open ended present... to consciously rely on experience and free invention” (Shields 106). Like carnival, raves have the ability to temporarily remove preconceived notions of identity, allowing opinions to be formulated directly from first-hand experience.
    The new modes of communication that carnival establishes offer the opportunity to obtain a new outlook on the world, to understand the relative nature of all that exists, and to embrace a completely new order of things (Shields 105). In the rave scene the acronym P.L.U.R functions as a carnivalesque mode of communication. The electronic dance music culture’s mantra “Peace.Love.Unity.Respect” structures socialization and establishes the foundation upon which ravers interact (Hunt, Moloney, and Evans 40). One interviewed raver claimed that going to raves helped him realize that he should be more open-minded (Hunt, Moloney, and Evans 40). His testimony applies to Bakhtin’s concept, carnival laughter. Bakhtin asserts that this form of laughter “frees human consciousness, thought, and imagination for new potentialities” (Shields 122). In her article “Dancing through the Revolution”, Brabazon claims that dance music provides alternatives to dichotomous ways of thinking (20).
    Characteristics of Bakhtin’s idea of carnival are prevalent in the film Over the Edge as well as in rave culture. In Kaplan’s film, the children utilize mischief, violence and vulgar language in an attempt to establish new forms of communication and redefine order in New Granada. Similarly, carnival has the ability to generate equality by suspending the hierarchical power structures which constrain humanity (Shields 101). Participation unifies all those who attend carnival. This aspect is inherent within rave culture. In both the carnival and the rave, people are able to socialize and feel connected with one another based on the knowledge of the experience they share rather than the knowledge of their respective identities. Rave culture, Bakhtin’s concept of carnival, and the film Over the Edge all represent the ability of rebellion to
reconstruct culture and society by actively disobeying established conventions and instituting new customs which oppose tradition.

Works Cited
Brabazon, Tara. "Dancing through the Revolution." Youth Studies Australia 21.1 (2002): 19-24. Print. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 June 2010
Hunt, Geoffrey, Molly Moloney, and Kristin Evans. Youth, Drugs, and Nightlife. New York, NY: Routledge, 2010. Print. <HV 5824 Y68 H86>
Johnson, Reed. "Electric Daisy Carnival Draws 185000 for Electronic Music and Good Vibes." Los Angeles Times. 28 June 2010. Web. 28 June 2010. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-electric-daisy-20100628,0,7765545.story>.
Knoll, Corina. "More than 100 Taken to Hospitals during Electric Daisy Carnival." Los Angeles Times. 28 June 2010. Web. 28 June 2010. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-electric-daisy-carnival-20100628,0,2328291.story>.
Over the edge. Dir. Jonathan Kaplan. Orion Pictures, 1979.
Shields, Carolyn M. "Living in a Carnivalesque World." Bakhtin Primer. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 98-128. Print.