Piltdown Guy
NOVA occasionally airs a show about the Piltdown Hoax, which took place in the early part of the 20th Century. As far as I can tell the importance of the Piltdown skull was that "he" proved that the oldest living humanoid was BRITISH!
Good grief, how silly is that.
Here is the interesting part and the part that has to do with Popular Culture: the scientific establishment (in this case, the British Natural History Museum) almost immediately supposed it was a hoax. The hoax was perpetuated, however, until 1953 for various reasons, wishful thinking being one of them. At one point, an "artifact" was discovered near Piltdown and most observors recognized it as an obvious snigger at the whole Piltdown extravaganza. It was a hunting implement in the shape of a . . . . cricket bat. It would be like finding a hunting implement in North America in the shape of a football--a dead give away, a kind of "come on, guys, this is silly" signal.
After going into the cricket bat find, the narrator said something fascinating, "But Woodward [the man who wanted the Piltdown Man to be real] wasn't the kind of man to understand a joke."
I'm paraphrasing, but I thought it was a valid point. Woodward, Keeper of Geology, wanted the Piltdown Man to be the real thing. He wasn't a fool. He probably wasn't even overly credulous. He was seeing only want he wanted to see, and, more importantly, he couldn't see how it might be funny.
I think this applies to Popular Culture. Reading my Urban Legends book, I've run across the postulation that these legends ("The Hook") are cautionary tales. Okay, yeah, I'll go along with that, but after awhile, I want to roll my eyes. "Can't you see that these are funny?" I want to shout. "Can't you see that the teenagers who told these stories were taking the most implausible scenarios and running with them? Can't you see that the jolly Germans who told stories about Cinderella's sisters cutting off parts of their feet would have rolled around laughing if you told them the 'Cat in the Microwave' legend?" So people are sick--still, it doesn't all have to be about Freud.
Good grief, how silly is that.
Here is the interesting part and the part that has to do with Popular Culture: the scientific establishment (in this case, the British Natural History Museum) almost immediately supposed it was a hoax. The hoax was perpetuated, however, until 1953 for various reasons, wishful thinking being one of them. At one point, an "artifact" was discovered near Piltdown and most observors recognized it as an obvious snigger at the whole Piltdown extravaganza. It was a hunting implement in the shape of a . . . . cricket bat. It would be like finding a hunting implement in North America in the shape of a football--a dead give away, a kind of "come on, guys, this is silly" signal.
After going into the cricket bat find, the narrator said something fascinating, "But Woodward [the man who wanted the Piltdown Man to be real] wasn't the kind of man to understand a joke."
I'm paraphrasing, but I thought it was a valid point. Woodward, Keeper of Geology, wanted the Piltdown Man to be the real thing. He wasn't a fool. He probably wasn't even overly credulous. He was seeing only want he wanted to see, and, more importantly, he couldn't see how it might be funny.
I think this applies to Popular Culture. Reading my Urban Legends book, I've run across the postulation that these legends ("The Hook") are cautionary tales. Okay, yeah, I'll go along with that, but after awhile, I want to roll my eyes. "Can't you see that these are funny?" I want to shout. "Can't you see that the teenagers who told these stories were taking the most implausible scenarios and running with them? Can't you see that the jolly Germans who told stories about Cinderella's sisters cutting off parts of their feet would have rolled around laughing if you told them the 'Cat in the Microwave' legend?" So people are sick--still, it doesn't all have to be about Freud.
posted by Kate Woodbury at 21:13
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