I want to say right off the bat that a ‘Blue Meanie’ is not
a mushroom. Someone who would name a mushroom ‘Blue Meanie’ is just another
example of somebody connected to a movement or culture who doesn’t have a clue,
or worse, as I hope to make a credible case for with this blog post.
‘Blue Meanies’ are characters from the animated feature
‘Yellow Submarine,’ featuring The Beatles and the art of Peter Max. The story
is about Pepperland, a colorful place where children have colorful balloons and
whirligigs.
The ‘Blue Meanies’ include the leader, a character with
crab-like cutter hands, a giant glove and a host of others. The ‘Blue Meanies’
spend their time cutting up the balloons and whirligigs and Glove
points/accuses people and also pounds them into the ground. The actions of the
‘Blue Meanies’ drive Pepperland into a state of apathy and grief.
This is pure fantasy, right?
Well, let’s take another look at how psychedelic and
surrealist art can function.
There is a ‘reality’ underlying everything we perceive. We
don’t see this underlying reality because it’s covered over with confusion,
misdirection and falsely attributed cause.
The underlying reality is very simple but the reality we
perceive is very complex because it involves the workings of the mind and this
must be complex because this is what we demand of it; complexity and
circuitousness.
‘Yellow Submarine’ contains and astonishing amount of
reality. There is probably more reality in it than in any other work in this
day and age.
Pepperland is Elysium or Oz or whatever you want to call it
but it’s an ideal existence. The balloons and whirligigs are the dreams of the
children of Pepperland or any place for that matter.
The ‘Blue Meanies’ are the suppressive actions and the
individuals setting those actions in motion that suppress the dreams of others
and so keep humans from reaching any kind of an ideal state.
At the end of the movie, John states that there are new and
Bluer Meanies on the horizon and there are, brother, there are.
No comments:
Post a Comment