I'm sure a lot of you have probably seen Takeru Kobayashi, the hot dog eating champ from Japan. I was first introduced to him a few years ago on Thanksgiving during the annual "Glutton Bowl" on ESPN. I have to admit, the first time I saw him eat I was completely repulsed but I've seen so much footage of him now that I've gotten used to it. Last fall I watched a documentary that had been made on Kobayashi and I was really impressed. This guy actually trains for these competitions, like any athlete would.And there is aactually a lot that goes into training for eating competitions, in terms of building of your stamina and metabolism and all of that stuff. Now I watch these things and I still think it's disgusting but it's like an art form...one that is so grotesque and horrible to watch that you can't help watching. I wonder what it is about human nature that attracts us to the grotesque like that?
16 comments:
I know for my part, half of the fun consists of seeing how long I can look at it before I am forced to look away. Maybe we all just have a morbid sense of curiousity.
i think that the grotesque often illustrates mankind's ability to reach that which is generally unobtainable. for instance, i know i couldn't eat half that many hotdogs! yet, this man does it on a regular basis! that which is grotesque is naturally couple with that which is extraordinary.
These are things we usually don't get to see on a daily basis. I think if we saw someone doing this randomly in a restaurant, we'd all be watching out of the corner of our eye. TV, Movies, and the Internet let us use full outright shameless attention while watching.
I'm fascinated with the transformation involved. These sort of things take a normal, survival oriented task (eating) and push it past all normal contexts. No longer is this about survival, or enjoying food, or even really gluttony; these people are forcing their bodies to the brink of their physical endurance. In this way they seem like unintentional performance artists.
i dont get it.... how is grotesque he is just eating hotdogs
It's like we love to rebel against the idea of social etiquette, and in this case, that's accompanied by a sense of accomplishment. Some people might look on him as a freak, but all the people are still looking.
I really do not like these videos. I know you said that you have become sort of immune to the effects of these kind of things. I feel that it more the idea of what a person would not WANT to do as opposed to what then could NOT do. im sure it is mainly a guilty pleasure for most.
I think the grotesque (death, violence, gorging, sickness...) reminds people of the human condition... reminds us that we are alive and that we will die. I think david blaine's stunts have a similar appeal. We want to see him fall to his death, and we want to see Kobayashi explode, just like how we want to see race car drivers get in crashes. We like danger because there is a possibility for the grotesque, and we like the grotesque itself because it reminds us of our humanity.
I think its a real feat that he can put away some 1,590g carbs and not vomit. I think I keep watching because of the tension of when has he had enough. How long can this human eating machine go on? It's also something we don't see very often because everyday people do not have the capability of putting away that much food at one time and anything out of the ordinary that we can watch entertains us because it breaks the mold from our everyday mundane visuals.
I think people like to see what the human body is actually capable of, same with watching talented athletes. We cant do what they can do, but it's interesting to see our capabilities.
I think people are attracted to something unknowable about the "insides" of things. Take, for example, the inside of the body. The most visited art exhibit of all time is "Body World's," the exhibit of real life plasticized mummified human bodies cut into cross sections and artfully displayed by Gunther Von Hagens. The overwhelming fascination with the inside of our own bodies, with corpses, with death, seems to relate to our fascination with the grotesque. Eating contests amaze us on one level as a sort of endurance, how much can you take? And on another level I think they play on the idea of inner contents as well. I know it's base, but the simple transformation of tasty-lookking food into bodily waste is a transformation of material in the same way as we transform materials--clay, paint, stone--in artworks. Again, that fascination with anything transformed seems to get us. Up close, under a microscope, or exposed in, say, an exploded piece of roadkill, the goings on underneath the surface transformations constantly going beneath the surface will never cease to tap our wonder.
the grotesque is part of the wide spectrum of human experiences of which we must either do, do vicariously, or never understand. to feel like we have lived the fullest life possible, we seek out the disgusting along with the pleasurable. we do this because Our ability to experience good feelings and pleasure in depth requires an equal depth and understanding of sorrow and disgust.
I feel it’s really animalistic at first, and then it just goes on and on. I get an image of an x-ray side view of him and all the food just pile up.
http://www.barkbarkimhungry.com/eating_cartoon.gif
i never understand people who look away. could someone who doesn't like to look explain what that is like?
I see what you're getting at...
but it's really hard for me to think of eating as an art (Even eating a lot in a short amount of time.) I feel that the idea of art should be held sacred. In a way, it kind of is demeaning to artists everywhere having to share a title with someone who's art format is a necessity to exist.
It's still an amazing concept, and the video is awesome. Very entertaining to say the least.
i really don't think the word art should be sacred. i don't think calling something art should be a value judgment. does that make painting more important than building a house or saving a life because it is called art?
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