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The Carnival in Kingstree: A Bakhtinian Analysis of the Charlie Walker Obscenity Case

This article uses Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the “carnival” to reexamine the case of disc jockey Charlie Walker. In 1963, Walker became the first broadcaster to be convicted of obscenity under the United States Criminal Code. According to Bakhtin, the carnival is a recurring form of folk culture that features grotesque and bawdy imagery. Bakhtin's theory suggests that Charlie Walker's discourse was less a corruption of “official” language than it was a reflection of the rural culture in Williamsburg County, South Carolina. It also suggests the problematic nature of the “contemporary community” standard that was used to convict Walker.