Carnival in Time of War

 

The traditional name for this Sunday was Quinquagesima (approximately the 50th day before Easter). It is also commonly called Carnival Sunday, referencing the carnival (carnevale, "Goodbye to meat," in Italian), widely celebrated, especially in Catholic countries in these final days before Lent, the penitential season which begins in another three days on Ash Wednesday. Now that the Lenten fast has become virtually vestigial, so perhaps is the pre-Lent Carnival (despite its famously successful secular survival in sites like Rio and New Orleans).

By convenient coincidence, however, tonight will also be the occasion for the 97th Academy Awards, an ostentatious display of wealth and obnoxious snobbery, combined with amazingly extreme political obtuseness, but which is also yet another significant event of widespread communal festivity. Obviously, the Oscars are not the Super Bowl, which has become one of the primary remaining unifying national events in which most of the country participates together. Far fewer people watch the Oscars, apparently fewer every year. Some 20 million do watch it, however, and so it is still one of those occasions when many gather together to watch and celebrate, which we will be doing in my house tonight. The Academy Awards show may leave a lot to be desired, but movies are still an important shared component of our common culture, and "Oscar Night" remains a grand occasion for friends and families to gather, just to be together.

Unlike some film devotees, I have not seen all the nominated movies. In fact, I have seen only three of them - Conclave, A Complete Unknown, and The Brutalist. All three of them probably deserve a prize, and I would be happy if any of them won Best Picture. But, of course, not having seen the other nominated films, my personal preferences for the few that I have seen inevitably say very little about what will actually happen.

With so much that is going wrong (and getting worse) in the world right now at home and abroad, it seems a bit off-key to talk about partying right now. The world is still reeling in shock and dismay from the recent, grim display of the shameful behavior, unworthy of their offices, on the part of the U.S. President and Vice President toward the heroic Ukrainian warrior President, Volodymyr Zelensky. This Carnival Sunday, this Oscar Night, cannot but be overshadowed by a sense of shame and by worry about what is happening to undermine what remains of the post-war American commitment to our common civilization.

But, for better or for worse, life goes on: As it was in the days of Noah ... they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all (Luke 17:26-27). 

Photo: Italian Carnevale Mask.