Prove me wrong
Mar. 17th, 2006 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
American folklore focuses primarily on The Heroic Individual. We've got the lone guy out on the frontier making it safe for civilized society.
But we never really have A Heroic Group. We've got a lot of Hercules and Gilgamesh type stories, but we don't have an Argonautica or Kalevala. Every now and again we get a "Team-Up" episode where Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill get together or Davy Crockett and Mink Fink face off, but we don't really have a well-known story where a whole bunch of larger than life characters get together and go do stuff for awhile.
Can anyone think of some counter-examples?
[EDIT: I'm not counting comic books/TV/Movies/Mass Media. Not that those aren't necessarily valid, just not within the perview of my question. I'm thinking here of oral storytelling. If it's not something you can use freely without the threat of copywright infringement, then it probably isn't what I'm trying to get at.
SIDE NOTE: But considering comic books for a minute, the interesting thing about them is that they've really only got one story -- the origin story. Everyone knows how Superman, Batman, Spiderman, et. al. got their start. And they can usually describe their primary villian, but actual events beyond the creation of the hero become much more muddy. You might remember specific issues, but it almost never translates into a larger consciousness. The common man knows that Spider-man loves Mary Jane but only comic geeks know that before MJ, Spidey let a certain Gwen Stacy fall to her death.]
later
Tom
American folklore focuses primarily on The Heroic Individual. We've got the lone guy out on the frontier making it safe for civilized society.
But we never really have A Heroic Group. We've got a lot of Hercules and Gilgamesh type stories, but we don't have an Argonautica or Kalevala. Every now and again we get a "Team-Up" episode where Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill get together or Davy Crockett and Mink Fink face off, but we don't really have a well-known story where a whole bunch of larger than life characters get together and go do stuff for awhile.
Can anyone think of some counter-examples?
[EDIT: I'm not counting comic books/TV/Movies/Mass Media. Not that those aren't necessarily valid, just not within the perview of my question. I'm thinking here of oral storytelling. If it's not something you can use freely without the threat of copywright infringement, then it probably isn't what I'm trying to get at.
SIDE NOTE: But considering comic books for a minute, the interesting thing about them is that they've really only got one story -- the origin story. Everyone knows how Superman, Batman, Spiderman, et. al. got their start. And they can usually describe their primary villian, but actual events beyond the creation of the hero become much more muddy. You might remember specific issues, but it almost never translates into a larger consciousness. The common man knows that Spider-man loves Mary Jane but only comic geeks know that before MJ, Spidey let a certain Gwen Stacy fall to her death.]
later
Tom
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 03:33 pm (UTC)But you have a good point... the power of the individual is a vital aspect of Americana.
Star Trek is the good example, but it's modern. And it can be argued that it is based on the seafaring mythos of maritime and wartime, some of which are derivative of the Argos and the Odyssey. Moby Dick may actually be a better example.
Star Wars is directly derivative of the folklore of other cultures, but it can be argued that the themes it invokes are universal. But again, modern.
JLA I don't think fits the bill, as it is actually more of a team up/cross-over of established heroes (see your Pecos Bill/Paul Bunyan example.
The Magnificent Seven... isn't that based on The Seven Samurai?
If you eliminate modern examples, where there is more room from cross-cultural contamination, to me the only real example in Americana folklore where a group of larger than life characters perform heroic deeds, it would be the Founding Fathers.
Oh! Oh! What about the MORMONS?
OH! Oh!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 03:49 pm (UTC)Yeah, Mormons are really a group of people and not a "task group" per se. Actually, the inspiration for Dogs in the Vineyard came from a small group of Mormons who protected the fledging Utah colony (mainly by killing every non-Mormon who stumbled across them, but that's not an unusual pattern for Americans).
In the same vein, 49-ers, Dust-bowlers, migrant workers, etc. would all be a group, but there it gets a bit too diffuse. You can't point to any one 49-er, you just get generalized stories about them.
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 03:58 pm (UTC)"Dwelt a miner, 49er,
And his daughter, Clementine..."
Not really mythic group heroism, but, certainly a notable example.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 04:14 pm (UTC)"Jesus was a cross-hangin' man..."
Tom