Gragoatá (Dec 2011)
“Welcome to the United States”: carnivalization and parody in Frank Zappa’s work
Abstract
20th-century North-American composer Frank Zappa became well known for his sharp satires to U.S. official institutions and conservative sectors of society. In music he was a great innovator by blending together jazz, popular and classical music over a background of elements from 20th- -century North-American popular culture. His parodies and satires revitalize these cultural and aesthetic forms by means of mass culture, which consequently is also renewed. His work can be inscribed in the framework of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of carnavalization: a means to subvert the official discourse through comic and popular elements. Several of these aspects can be found in the piece “Welcome to the United States”, composed from a U.S. customs form. Zappa submits the form/lyrics to a music full of noises and strange sounds, thus challenging the official authoritative discourse.
