Deconstructing the vegetable-pirate nexus

Aaargh-tichokes, Piradishes, and Cuke-aneers: Deconstructing the vegetable-pirate nexus
Erin Lockwood, American University
From: The Journal of Critical Leguminous International Inquiry, 1, (2009): 1-2.

Introduction
Political discourse and official policy have shown an increased openness to discussions of fruits and vegetables previously considered outside the boundaries of civilized consumption practices, often rhetorically delegitimized through the heteronormative interpellation of such legumes as "crooked," or, colloquially, "wonky." Taking advantage of this recent discursive trend towards the re-introduction of vegetable-based rhetoric into the political sphere and drawing exclusively upon the methodologies of scholars whose names begin with "J" -- specifically J. Weldes, J. Derrida, J. Bially-Mattern, J. Butler, J. Baudrillard, J. Habermas and, perhaps unconventionally, J. Child -- this article analyzes the nexus between the identities of two intersubjectively constituted and otherized social actors -- pirates and vegetables and, more significantly, suggests that the deployment of rhetorical linkages between pirates and vegetables is no different from a patriarchal hegemonic deployment of traditional, weapons-based forms of "power" and "control."

Literature Review
A Google Scholar search of pirate + vegetable reveals that there is no current scholarship on this subject. A troubling find, and one indicative of the extent to which the association of pirate with vegetable has become one characterized by the Gramscian conceptualization of "commonsense."

Methodology
This study is occasionally a small n (n = 2) case study of cultural representations of pirates and vegetables and draws upon the theories and methods of the scholars whose names start with "J" cited above, some of whom say that methodology is inherently Western and rational and that deconstruction is non-method, and some of whom think this is pretty silly. In a performative acknowledgment of the aporetic interpretations of "method" and the liminal identity of both pirates and vegetable in the contemporary collective consciousness my meta-(non)method is therefore to oscillate very quickly between method and non-method while eating my not organic-certified carrot sticks in a politically aware manner.

Findings
Case 1:
One of the seminal basic disourses of the pirate-veggie nexus is found in a deceptively simple 20th century cinematic work of neo-Christian theology ostensibly aimed at children (though like so many other instantiations of so-called popular culture, this work is, to my mind, indicative of much more deeply buried -- indeed, repressed -- processes of repression and dehumynizaton) . This minimalist musical performance rhetorically links these societally marginalized identities with Weber's conceptualization of the capitalist-enabling Protestant work ethic -- or rather, in the Hegelian tradition, with its antithesis. But my interpretation -- indeed, any interpretation -- can only take us so far. Here is the piece in contention:


Case 2
The second basic discourse examined in this study engages in a similarly cartoon-like visual depiction of vegetable pirates -- a form of representational distancing between the perceived "reality" of the politically problematic nature of vegetable consumption and violent non-state actors and the harmless simulacra of the cultural deployment of these identities:

If you have fond memories of playing Pac-Man in your youth, your kids now have an opportunity to discover the fun of controlling a large-mouthed character who likes to eat. With Namco Bandai's The Munchables for the Nintendo Wii, kids come to the rescue of a world being attacked by alien veggies and fruits.All this eating is done in the context of a story about the peaceful but voracious Munchables society whose food is provided to them in great abundance by a set of Legendary Orbs. Space pirates shaped like fruits and vegetables and led by Don Onion have attacked the Munchables' world and stolen their Orbs. These bad guys are now arriving in hordes to put down their vegetarian roots. Luckily, they taste good to your Munchable character who has been recruited by the Great Elder to save the Munchables' world.

But whereas the previous discourse playfully acknowledges the religious origins of modern capitalist oppression by poetically and rhetorically linking the antithesis of the Weberian ethic to vegetable simulacra in a Christian-infused hyperreality, the second case deploys similar representations in a normatively hegemonic wielding of inherently Western nutritional values. By exploiting the commonsense associations of pirates with vegetables, this text implicitly but transparently associates the forbidden fruit (if you will) of these otherized identities with its aggressive imperialist vegetable-consumption agenda while normalizing violence by reifying the character of postmodern warfare in a seductively deceptive simulation of death and destruction:

Like Pac-Man,The Munchables creates addictive game play — it's fun to eat everything in sight. For parents concerned about violence, this is an E-rated game. But it does contain mild violence because you do eat cute anthropomorphized fruits and vegetables. There is no blood or agony — the interloping pirates just disappear into your character's maw as you become the hero for restoring order in your world.

Conclusions
I need to spend less time in the library.

Did you just walk out of The Pirates of Penzance?

Last night, my keen sense of duty overcame any general lack of enthusiasm for musical theater that I may occasionally express, and I went (with catlike tread) to see the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players perform The Pirates of Penzance at Wolf Trap. It was quite fun to see it performed live with great gusto, good humor, strong voices, and a few updated jokes for the DC crowd. According to my thoroughly unscientific survey of the crowd on the lawn, there was at least one large group of people in full pirate dress and several spectators sporting pirate hats and skull-and-crossbones head scarves, which, in addition to to full house, indicates pirates are as popular as they were in 1879.

David Cordingly, author of Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, notes that the operetta is a deliberate parody of Victorian-era melodramas featuring pirates as villains who terrorize the sea and discusses Penzance's influential role in shaping contemporary images of pirates:

The story is sheer nonsense and revolves around the mistake made by Ruth, "a pirate maid of all work," when she apprentices Frederick [sic], the hero, to a pirate instead of a pilot. The pirates themselves are as genial and ineffective as the policemen who are sent to catch them, but a complicated plot ends happily with Frederick marrying the Major-General's pretty daughter, Mabel, and the pirates revealed as patriotic noblemen who will no more go a-pirating. In spite of its lighthearted approach to the subject, The Pirates of Penzance has had a considerable influence on the way many people view pirates today. For more than a hundred years it has been performed by amateur and professional companies around the world, and its cast of hearty and good-natured fellows have contributed to the illusion that pirates were really misunderstood ruffians who never meant to harm anyone. (25)

Whether because of its piratical theme or the influential (and G-rated) wit of Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance has clearly endured better than the melodramas it set out to parody; The West Wing, for example, would not have had much luck working The Red Rover, or The Mutiny of the Dolphin (which was immensely popular in 1829, though described by one critic as "arrant trash") into its scripting, though it had no such trouble with Gilbert and Sullivan's works in "And it's surely to their credit."


And, given its longevity and silliness, it is perhaps unsurprising that The Pirates of Penzance has itself become the object of parody (and subject to the same confusion with H.M.S. Pinafore -- "they're all about duty") by none other than the Animaniacs in "H.M.S. Yakko."