{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026607538802660754, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0029563932002956393, 'mean_word_length': 5.017777777777778, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Repulsive Other in Tim Crouch’s I, Malvolio (2010)

Abstract Donald Trump famously used Hillary Clinton’s ‘toilet business’ or Marco Rubio’s ‘sweating like a pig’ as talking points in his campaign for the U. S. presidency. He thereby managed to use disgust’s intrinsic link to fear as a catalyst to negatively influence people’s opinion of his opponents. It was a tactic he also successfully used to rally his supporters against groups of people like ‘lying’ journalists or ‘rapist’ Mexicans. The mechanism of dehumanising the Other via association with disgust can be regarded as a dangerous tool of political rhetoric. In times like ours, where political discourse is commonly drenched in emotional hyperbole, it is paramount that we come to understand our emotions and learn how easily they may be hijacked for political purposes; this is especially true for such a seemingly ‘intuitive’ emotion as disgust. In his play I, Malvolio dramatist Tim Crouch gives voice to a Shakespearean character who has become a victim of discrimination via disgust. Crouch turns the perspectives around and allows the audience to see the story from the deplored’s point of view. This paper uses Crouch’s play for an exemplary analysis of the underlying structures of repulsion, and its relation to fear, and investigates the aesthetic possibilities of redemption.