The Rhetoric of “The Body:” Jesse Ventura and Bakhtin’s Carnival. By

Janack, JamesBy:

Kevin Gossen, Tyson Peters, Brooke Bulman, Dylan Mayer

Who is Jesse “The Body” Ventura?

• Community College drop-out

• Former Navy SEAL

• Former motorcycle club member

• Formal professional wrestler

• Actor

• Talk-radio host

Ventura cont.

• Only official political experience came as the one-term mayor of Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis

• Ran for governorship in Minnesota in 1998 and was elected.

• Served 1999-2003

• Believed to have won because his “average American” attitude and his idea of going against “politics as usual”

What’s the act?

• We will be looking at the ways Jesse “The Body” Ventura used rhetoric to get elected in the 1998

• Using Bakhtin’s Theory of Carnival

Who is Mikhail Bakhtin

• Russian Philosopher

• Worked on Theory

What is Carnival?

Carnival

• Carnival focuses on the “messy and grotesque” functions of the body and celebrates them

Main Points of Rhetoric

• Ritual Spectacles

• Comic Verbal Contributions

• Billingsgate

Ritual Spectacles

• Carnival spectacle involves exaggeration and excess

• Specifically exaggerates the body both visually and with its functions

Images Associated with Ventura

• Used his nickname “the Body” from his wrestling days

• Exaggerated with his campaign ad Jesse the Mind

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSACk65D3pk

• Also exaggerated body in interviews

Bodily Activities

• Carnival celebrates things that are usually hidden from society

• Jesse Ventura was never shy about his past

Relation to Sex

• Sex is another common theme in carnival

• Jesse was also open about this portion of his past

• Inverts the roles of spectator and participant

• Uses Parody

• Theme emerged that showed Ventura as a common citizen, unlike the typical politicians.

• “I’m not a professional politician…” (“Gubernatorial Debate from Duluth,” 1998).

• In his book, I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed, Ventura talked about the Government in third person. Even after he had already been sworn in as governor.

Comic Verbal Compositions

• More subtle forms of inversion

• Ventura’s Inaugural Celebration

• Another form of Comic Composition is Parody

– Parody is the laughing aspect of something

• Imitating something usually exaggerating

– Ventura “The Mind”

• Wink’s at the end of ad, expressing that hedoes not take himself, or politics, too seriously

Billingsgate

• Leads to new forms of speech

• Can manifest itself in several ways:

– 1. Abuses

– 2. Popular Blazons

– 3. Profanity

– 4. Improprieties

• Ventura mainly uses profanity and improprieties

• Inappropriate language differs him from opposition

• Most politicians don’t use profanity and inappropriate language

• Liberates speech from the norms, hierarchies, and established etiquette

• Continues the emphasis on the body that characterizes the carnival sense of the world

Summary

• By using these 3 ways of rhetoric, Jesse “The Body” Ventura proved you can forget “politics as usual” and gain votes to win an election.

• By using the “I’m an everyday guy just like you” What comes of that?

• The outsider politician.