Pieing

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Pieing is the act of throwing a pie at someone. In recent years, the term has also acquired a political dimension and has come to mean throwing a pie at an authority figure, politician, or celebrity as a means of protesting the target's political beliefs or a perceived flaw — arrogance, hubris — in the target's character. (A variation of pieing, when the target is hit with a cake instead of a pie, is called "caking.")

The political act of pieing has its origins in the "pie in the face" gag from slapstick comedy (first popularized by movie director Mack Sennett around the year 1914 in his Keystone Kops silent movies). Throwing pies as a comedy staple came into its own in the Laurel & Hardy classic short film, "Battle of the Century" (1927) which, according to legend, required four thousand pies. Pie-throwing became a convention of early slapstick movies made by the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and others.

The probable originator of the pieing as a political act was Aron Kay, a Yippie, who first pied singer and anti-gay-rights activist Anita Bryant in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1977. Kay subsequently pied, among many others, William F. Buckley, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, William Shatner, and Andy Warhol. Kay retired in 1992 after pieing right-wing activist Randall Terry. Recently, the Belgian anarchist and surrealist Noel Godin has gained a following for pieing figures whom he believes take themselves too seriously, most notably filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard during the Cannes Film Festival. His favorite target is Bernard-Henri Lévy. Godin's popularity has inspired many copy catters. (Godin stated that the men he most desired to pie were Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Pope John Paul II.)

The anonymous Biotic Baking Brigade has pied, among others, conservative pundits Ann Coulter and David Horowitz; Green Party politician Ralph Nader; and Fred Phelps, the eccentric leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. The Canadian group the Entartistes, founded by Rhinoceros Party founder François Gourd, has also pied many, including then–Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chretien.

"The pie gives power back to the people because so many feel powerless in the face of big politicians and industrialists," explained Pope-Tart (a pseudonym), a member of the Entartistes. [link] Newsweek columnist Gertz Kuntzman wrote that pieing "deserves to be one of the most celebrated traditions in our so-called culture." [link]

Sometimes pieing targets suffer the prank with good humor. Godard was very pleased at being pied; he intervened with the Cannes authorities on behalf of Godin to prevent him from being arrested. By contrast, Bernard-Henri Lévy has on multiple occasions attacked Godin and his followers, and Ann Coulter pressed charges in 2005 when she was pied at the University of Arizona.[link] Activist David Horowitz said of his pieing, "These attacks are sinister. The person who throws a pie is saying, ‘I hate you. I don't want you to speak.' I never saw it coming. And it took away my dignity. When you're lecturing, you're supposed to have an authority. But a pie turns it into a food fight." [link]

External links

[MessyWorks]
[Aron Kay's photographic catalog of his and others' pieing exploits] — search for "The Legend of Pieman"
[The Biotic Baking Brigade Web site]
[An article on Noel Godin]
[How to Pie, an article from the SF Weekly]
[Pied Politicians and Corporate CEOs] at [Undercurrents]
[Pie-Faced: Why throwing a pie at someone who deserves it is one of the most celebrated traditions in our so-called culture], by Gersh Kuntzman. Newsweek, April 25 2005.
[The Art of Pieing, by Tooker Gomberg]
[Les Entartistes], Web page of a Montréal-based pieing organization
[The Pied Sniper: Noel Godin's Flavorful Terrorism], by D. Trull
[Al Pieda]
[The Medium is the Meringue], an article from Mother Jones, March/April 1999

Pieing

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See also