{"id":15298,"date":"2021-11-04T18:59:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T18:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=15298"},"modified":"2021-11-05T15:59:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T15:59:15","slug":"some-stories-arent-for-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=15298","title":{"rendered":"Some stories aren’t for everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/span>olklore is a subject that a few people might not find to have a large impact on society or hold such a great significance, but a folklorist may beg to differ.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Greg Kelley, a media instructor at the University of Guelph-Humber, recently released a book titled \u2018Unruly Audience: Folk Interventions in Popular Media\u2019, which examines the fine detail of storytelling, popular culture, and folklore.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelley said in an interview via Zoom there are plenty of life lessons embedded in folklore for people to learn,

\u201cIt can help understand and explain why humans behave the way they do. We can learn a lot about how humans deal with crises, how they express their affections and manage the entanglements in life.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> \u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n

Examples of this can be tales such as\u00a0<\/span>Little Red Riding Hood<\/i><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Pinocchio<\/i><\/span>, two stories that children can learn valuable and strong lessons from folklore.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When students at Guelph-Humber were asked about folklore and storytelling,\u00a0they expressed\u00a0mixed\u00a0feelings.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vanessa Caputo, a media student said she grew up\u00a0off of\u00a0folklore and enjoys it still today. \u201cWhen really looking at it in-depth, a lot of these folklore stories are associated with deeper messages. These tales like\u00a0<\/span>Beauty and the Beast<\/i><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Cinderella<\/i><\/span>\u00a0have actual lessons for us to learn from.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome people don\u2019t even know that they’ve been affected by folklore. A lot of popular movies nowadays aren’t original and are recreated from folklore.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelley says folklore goes \u2018hand-in-hand\u2019 with popular culture. They\u00a0share a natural connection because they both revolve around communication. \u201cAs folk culture becomes mediated, then it is entering the realm of the popular. It’s not a defined line between one and the other.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He says a prime example of this is the Cinderella story. It\u00a0has\u00a0been around for hundreds of years and different versions have been made with tweaks to certain details. The commonly known version by Walt Disney is not the original as some may assume, but\u00a0actually based\u00a0on Charles Perrault\u2019s version, a French writer.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelley says Disney\u00a0actually did\u00a0not come up with a majority of their stories originally, they came from folklore in fact. He adds they put their own stamp on long-told traditional tales. \u201cThey had every right to do whatever they wanted with\u00a0these stories, it’s not a holy manuscript that’s not to be added to or removed,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although individuals from the media field may be ardent about folklore, not all students at Guelph-Humber can agree. Alvera Pols, a justice studies student said she just doesn\u2019t get it. \u201cI love non-fiction but there is a time and place for it,\u201d she says, \u201cI couldn\u2019t revolve my day-to-day life learning about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelley said his book is geared towards academics as a scholarly work but can also serve a very broad audience, \u201cIt can be for anyone who is interested in humor studies, in legend or just generally in media studies.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelley completed his book\u00a0in the midst of\u00a0the COVID-19 pandemic which he did face some challenges. He notes he has written more compact, research pieces in academic journals. \u201cFor the longest time, I never thought I would write a book. I didn’t necessarily think I had the aptitude for the big, long, loopy argument of a book.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the help of his partner, who is also a folklorist, they were able to overcome any challenges they were faced with. Kelley said, \u201cShe is my best friend and best editor.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Folklore is a subject that a few people might not find to have a large impact on society or hold such a great significance, but a folklorist may beg to differ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":15300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[47,62],"tags":[687,602,689],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}