It's All Excess in Capitalism and the American Fair

 

It's been a good five years or so since I've graced the muddy, littered grounds of an American Fair. It's no surprise that such an event has long positioned itself as a great American Tradition because as soon as you walk through the gate you are fully immersed in the tantalizing scents of barbecue, smoked turkey legs, funnel cakes, and endless fried candy concoctions. The bright, sparkling, and colorful lights of the carnival rides mesmerize and send people of all ages into hypnotic trances as they slowly, and zombiely walk around the grounds trying to figure out which piece of entertainment to take in first. And it truly is all fun and games--until you look around and see what the Fair has become, or better yet--what it represents.

I don't have to write to you about the time of extreme excess that we live in--it should be obvious. But then again, the very things I find to be obvious, really aren't so. Never-the-less, the Fair, in all it's modern glittering goodness, has historically always functioned as a capitalist space where laborers and trade merchants showed up to show off their animals and goods. Today, the fair has transformed into a showcase of excess--and I suppose, to some degree, fairs have always been about excess, but if our medieval ancestors could see us now, I think they would choke on their turkey legs and pursue immediate birth control options in order to prevent the future we have become.

The Fair has, and always will be middle class entertainment--but, to me, it seems that it has become more of a playground for the Plebeian Proletariat being duped by capitalist Bourgeoisie.  I journeyed through two gates--one charging me $8 just to get into this fun fest, and another charging me $20 to participate in the rides. I'm a professional--I work two jobs, and live fairly comfortably, but $28 just to participate in a make-shift amusement park seemed a bit steep. Most important of all--I am single--a rare anomaly at the fair, I soon found out.

I entered a kind of sickening daze as I noticed screaming, sticky, slobbering obese children running amok through the grounds with plates piled high with sugary, greasy, fried desserts while their equally obese parents wobbled closely behind toting gigantic stuffed animals that probably cost them a days worth of wages to win--and need I mention the price it cost these non-birth control practicing parents to take their bratty litters of progeny to the fair for the day?

We are the generation of me, where ride neighbor, and even fellow carny are just exchangeable commodities. People rush around the fair consuming massive amounts of food, and throwing money away on the precept of winning gigantic prizes to impress their friends with and then return to their homes, bills unpaid, and locked into an inescapable poverty. It's a swirling mess of bright colors, muddy grounds, and a dream, an American Dream left dying in the past. But maybe the Fair is all some of us have got.