"Pigasus"

"Pigasus"

New Left

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968, as a part of the broader protest against the Democratic Party and the War in Vietnam, the Youth International Party, or Yippies, satirically nominated a pig - "Pigasus" - for U.S. president. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dennis Dalrymple and other Yippie pranksters argued, with tongues firmly planted in cheeks, that Pigasus could "really bring home the pork" and "if we can't have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast." The 1968 stunt typified the Yippies' absurdist, theatrical approach to protest, as well as their mix of New Left politics and counterculturalism.

The image and rhetoric of the "pig" was popular among a range of New Left radicals during the late-1960s and into the 1970s to signify illegitimate, repressive and militaristic state authority, particularly police forces and government officials. The Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society, Yippies and other counterculturists are most well-known for their use of the "pig" caricature, though the image and rhetoric of the "pig" was widely employed across the New Left and counterculture during this period.

Here, the image of the pig serves as a humorous theatrical tool to critique the contemporary state of U.S. politics.

Youth International Party

Roz Payne

Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

1968

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