Arrr!!! Performing Piracy
11
It is a chance to be someone else and to do something different. 01’
Chumbucket stated, “We get as much out of it as anyone else who walks into a
party with a cutlass strapped to their side and a scarf tied around their forehead
and saying ‘Arrr!’ It’s fun to do.” (Baur, Interview). The novelty creates its own
social and psychological rewards as we behave in ways that challenge the
constricted social scripting to which everyday life subjects us.
Another reason pirates are a subject of comic play and playfulness is just
because of the serious role they have taken in history. Pirates were dangerous,
powerful, and frightening. People were fascinated, as well as afraid, of what
piracy represented. Cap’n Slappy expanded on this idea stating:
I think pirates as scary as they are as an archetype, they . ..
become an object of foolery and . . . maybe whimsy is a better
word. I don’t think there’s any boy especially who’s grown up
in this country who didn’t at some point wish he could be a
pirat R