Fakelore
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Revision as of 18:33, 20 November 2014
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Fakelore is manufactured folklore, a literary tale presented as folklore rather than as the invention of its author; folklore that is inauthentic or not genuinely traditional. The key difference between fakelore and genuine folklore is that fakelore will be represented as being somehow traditional when it has in fact been newly coined, usually by an identifiable author.
Fakelore is often intentionally quaint or old-timey, and not infrequently has some kind of moralistic or commercial agenda, while genuine folklore responds to live concerns among the people who circulate it, and is often "repetitive, clumsy, meaningless and obscene".[1]
Fakelore is also related to folklorism, which originally related to the use of folklore by commercial interests such as the tourism and movie industries. It refers generally to the use of folklore themes outside the context of the folk process, including the academic study of folklore itself.
Examples
- Tall tales featuring the semi-legendary cowboy Pecos Bill[wp], who rode his horse Widow-Maker with a rattlesnake whip and once lassoed a tornado, actually first appeared in the Century Magazine starting in 1917. The character was in fact invented by Edward O'Reilly. He also appears to have influenced the rock song Who Do You Love by Bo Diddley.
- There is some evidence that the character of Paul Bunyan[wp] may have been originally an authentic folk figure. But his fame largely rests on promotional materials from the Red River Lumber Company starting in around 1916. These advertisements are the source of many of the stories.
- The famous folk song Follow the Drinking Gourd[wp] is thought to (rather transparently) code instructions for fleeing African-American slaves to travel the Underground Railroad. It was first published in 1928, though it was allegedly collected in the 1910s. It is not attested in any form before the American Civil War.[2]
- The widespread belief in pagan survivals has influenced folklore revivalism and altered the context and plot of surviving folklore. Neopagans in their early days were fond of inventing stories about how they had been initiated into ancient pagan traditions by conveniently dead relations; this body of lore is known generally among pagans as "Grandmother stories".[3]
- The Disney effect: for most people, the canonical representations of folktales such as Snow White[wp], Cinderella[wp], and Sleeping Beauty[wp] are the ones presented in the Disney films, which often alter and bowdlerize the source materials.
- Greenpeace's flag ship Rainbow Warrior was named after a bogus Native American prophecy that allegedly foretold the rise of the environmental movement. The actual origin of the alleged prophecy is 1962 book titled Warriors of the Rainbow by William Willoya and Vinson Brown. The book was in fact an evangelical Christian tract that aimed at the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity.[4] It follows the long tradition of attributing noble or sentimental words to Native Americans, such as the famous Chief Joseph[wp] speech ("I will fight no more forever"), actually attributed to the Chief by a White lawyer covering the surrender. A similar, flowery speech on ecological themes is attributed to Chief Seattle[wp]; it came from a television show from 1971, and was written by screenwriter Ted Perry.[5]
- There is also a long tradition of Whites posing as Native Americans, often to deliver some kind of woo-laden message that would sound better in the mouth of a noble savage. Iron Eyes Cody[wp], the famous crying Indian from the 'Keep America Beautiful' campaigns, was actually an Italian American actor born Espera DeCorti. In the 1970s, the tales of Carlos Castaneda concerning the drug-induced hallucinations of the shaman "Don Juan" later proved to be a hoax. "Hyemeyohsts Storm", author of Seven Arrows, another fake-Native text popular among hippies, was also a hoaxer. Somewhat more sinister was the Indian impostor Asa Earl Carter[wp], a Ku Klux Klansman who, as "Forrest Carter", wrote The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Education of Little Tree. Unsubstantiated claims of Native American ancestry have been made by a number of public figures, including Johnny Cash, Ward Churchill, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.[6]
- Bobby Mackey's Music World is a nightclub in northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati, that has a hole in its basement floor. Without much historical warrant, it bills itself as one of the most haunted buildings in the world, and that hole is supposed to be a gateway to Hell.
- The character of the Slender Man was created on June 10, 2009 by Victor Surge on the Something Awful forums. He is a bugbear of the "Bloody Mary"[wp] or "Mary Worth" type, a story that previously inspiored horror films like Candyman, and has become a figure invoked in children's "ostentation" (i.e. supernatural dare) play. Several acts of violence have been committed by children in his name.[7] [8]
Notes
- ↑ Dorson, Richard M. (1963). "Current Folklore Theories". Current Anthropology 4 (1): 101.
- ↑ Kelley, James. "Song, Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the African American Spiritual 'Follow the Drinking Gourd'". The Journal of Popular Culture 41.2 (April 2008): 262-80.
- ↑ See generally Adler, Margot (1979). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-3237-9.
- ↑ Tarleton, John. Interview with Michael Niman
- ↑ Chief Seattle did allegedly make an elaborate speech that was recorded in 1891, but that too is believed to have been a literary invention by a White amanuensis.
- ↑ Chavers, Dean (Jsn. 17, 2013) Around the Campfire: Fake Indians. Native American Times
- ↑ Romano, Aja. (2012) The definitive guide to creepypasta—the Internet’s scariest urban legends. The Daily Dot.
- ↑ Gabler, Ellen (June 2, 2014). "Charges detail Waukesha pre-teens' attempt to kill classmate". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.