Revolutionary Moderation

Mmmm... pie



I have never seen a worse display of pieing than we did yesterday morning at the McDougall Centre. Let's talk about the difference between a skillful pie-related comedic protest (entarter, as the inventor calls it), and an attack.



- Not really pie - whip cream

The Premier was hit with a pie that seems to have been picked up at the Husky or Costco or somesuch earlier that day. It was an actual cream pie - banana, if appearances can be believed. A good solid banana cream pie filling is delicious, to be sure, but it is far too dense to be pure hilarity. The point is to make the target look silly, not to injure. Which brings us to point two:



- Don't drown your target

The fellow who hit Mr. Klein with the pie appeared to mash it hard against his face. A pie delivered in anger defeats the purpose of the pieing: laughing derision.



- Select an appropriate target

Ralph Klein is no stranger to ridicule, and he seems to deal with it in stride. Whatever criticisms I have of the premier (and they are many and varied), humourlessness is not one of them. And his vulnerability to this particular attack is part of what makes him an inappriopriate target for entarter. He's mixing with the common folks, servin' up some common food, having a relaxed good time in some loose clothing. Cream pie against this backdrop isn't particularly funny. On the other hand, catch someone arrogant, in a well-tailored suit, presenting an award for "best caviar" or some such. Huh. Now cream pie = big guffaws. Or did about ten years ago, when Noel Godin founded the modern political practice.



Some reactions around the province toward yesterday's pie-related assualt have been pretty angry. But it just makes me sad. Sad, mostly, that the point of entarter has been lost on the very individuals who attempt to perpetuate it. The pie has lost any cachet it had as a tool of revolution.