74 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
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From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
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Subject: Urban Legends in the Popular Media
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Here's a pretty good column on urban legends which some may find
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interesting. There's a bit on urban legends and JHB's forthcoming
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book. It's from a section of Keay Davidson's "Down to a Science"
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column in the Friday, November 20, 1992 _San Francisco Examiner_
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(which, in true net fashion, is entered without permission).
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Davidson is the Examiner's science writer.
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DOESN'T RING TRUE: Recently I heard a story about doctors in New
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York who are offering an unusual form of plastic surgery: earlobe
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repair. According to the story, thieves in the Big Apple have grown
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so bold that they snatch earrings from women's earlobes, tearing the
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skin. Being a skeptical sort, I immediately thought: "_That_ sounds
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like an urban legend."
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Urban legends are stories that we've all heard, stories that are so
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disgusting or eerie -- yet so believable -- that we rarely doubt
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their validity. They are almost always false or grossly distorted.
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Yet they endure for years, often decades, because they are mainly
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passed by word of mouth. Typically we hear them from friends whose
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accounts usually start like this: "A friend of a friend of mine told
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me this story ..."
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Famous urban legends (a term popularized by University of Utah
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folklore expert Jan Harold Brunvand) include "The Hook," about the
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teen-agers who drive to a lovers' lane and narrowly escape being
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attacked by a lunatic with a hook for a hand. Then there's the
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woman who dries her wet dog in a microwave (the dog explodes).
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Social scientists pay more attention to urban legends than they
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used to because of Brunvand's books, such as "The Vanishing
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Hitchhiker." Many urban legends reflect changing social mores
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about touchy issues such as crime and sexuality. Some may also
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mirror deep-seated popular views about a particular topic.
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Remember the story that New York sewers are infested with
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alligators? Or that a major restaurant chain uses ground-up
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worms in its burgers? Or that the ghost of a dead child appears
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briefly in the film "Three Men and a Baby"? While false, such
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legends may reflect deeper concerns about social issues --
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respectively, urban decay, corporate venality and child neglect.
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Which brings me back to the earlobe surgeons in New York City.
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In Brunvand's new book, "The Baby Train," due for publication
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this March, he describes an old legend about (as Wolkomir
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describes it) "attackers (who) hide beneath women's cars parked
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at shopping malls and slash their ankles when the women returning
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[sic] to the parking lot." Brunvand says there's no evidence
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such attacks ever happened. Yet the stories persist, fed,
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perhaps, by the same social anxieties feeding the "earring"
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stories: They mirror women's understandable anxiety about their
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safety in crime-ridden urban jungles.
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After this column runs, I'll probably get calls from several
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people who will insist the "earring" story is true. They'll
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tell me: "It happened to a friend of a friend of mine!" There's
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no power like the power of myth.
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-- Keay Davidson
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Not bad. In true net fashion, it regurgitates several legends
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that have been beaten to death, helped tie up some loose ends,
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mentioned Brunvand, and gave further info on his forthcoming book.
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Terry "I read it in the paper...so there!" Chan
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--
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Energy and Environment Division | Internet: TWChan@lbl.gov
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Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory |
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Berkeley, California USA 94720 | Carpe Per Diem
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