Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 33

September 27, 2024: MrBeast and 21st Century Folk Heroes

[On September26th, 1774, Johnny Appleseed was born. So for the 250thbirthday of the man, the myth, the legend, this week I’ve AmericanStudieda handful of folk figures, leading up to this post on the status of the conceptin the 21st century!]

On acontemporary folk hero who reveals both the enduring power and the darker sidesof the concept.

If you’rethe age of my sons (18 and 17), you probably don’t need to read a briefbiography of James“MrBeast” Donaldson (1998- ). But if you’re in your 40s like this AmericanStudier,you probably do need a few contexts for this young man who is already one of themost famous people in the world. Donaldson began his career on YouTube in theearly 2010s doing things many other YouTubers do (live commentary while playingvideo games, conversations with other YouTubers, and the like), but graduallyevolved into a creator of more unique,elaborate stunts and games that were generally designed to award large sumsof money to lucky strangers. That has continued to exemplify the MrBeast brandever since, with ever-more-elaborate (and frequently dangerous) stuntsand games; although as he has developed a more significant infrastructure aswell as considerablepersonal wealth he has likewise expanded to more systemic activistendeavors such as the Team Trees and Team Seas fundraisers and projects (both ofwhich he co-founded).

Thoselatter two projects are both impressive and important, and of course the TeamTrees one aligns MrBeast closely with the historical folk hero who was thereason for this week’s series. But I would argue that if we were to call MrBeasta 21st century folk hero, it would be due to thetrend which more than anything else made him so famous in the first place:his ability and willingness to make random strangers suddenly and fabulouslywealthy. One of the defining features of our era is the fact that wealth andfame can come in entirely sudden and random ways (I’m drafting this post in amoment featuring one of the most extreme cases in point yet, HawkTuah Girl), and both MrBeast’s own success and that which he promisesothers fully fit that category. Yet precisely because he does promise wealth toothers, he has become more than just a representative of his era—he is, to my mindwithout question, a folk hero for this moment, one to whom audiences can look notonly for inspiration but also for (ostensibly) a path toward their own success.

Hoping tomake it rich through the largesse of a YouTuber is, of course, an even more extremeversion of other unlikely “ragsto riches” narratives before it like lottery winners (and perhaps even moreunlikely, or at the very least even more random since lottery winners did takethe proactive step of buying a ticket). But the fact that MrBeast’s folk heroicsare unlikely to reach the vast majority of folks isn’t necessarily a striking thing,as of course the same can be said about any folk hero (even Appleseed planted treeson only a tiny fraction of the American landscape). What is striking, and Iwould argue destructive, is that he often asks his potential beneficiaries—and indeed,as I mentioned above, has done so more regularly as he's gotten bigger—to risktheir health and safety, if not their very lives, in order to pursue thesefolk heroic goals. At a certain point those kind of risky realities would make MrBeast’schallenges the equivalent of The Hunger Games (or historical gladiatorialcontests), and that’s a very different kind of story than that of a folk hero—andperhaps all too relevant of one to our dystopian current moment.  

SeptemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Folk figures or histories you’d highlight?

September 26, 2024: Folk Figures: Johnny Appleseed

[On September26th, 1774, Johnny Appleseed was born. So for the 250thbirthday of the man, the myth, the legend, this week I’ll AmericanStudy ahandful of folk figures, leading up to Friday’s post on the status of theconcept in the 21st century!]

On two contrastingcontexts for the iconic folk figure.

Just over11 years ago, I shared awonderful Guest Post from William Kerrigan, one of our foremost authoritieson Johnny Appleseed. (I also had the chance to return the favor and Guest Post on Kerrigan’s AmericanOrchard blog.) In lieu of my own first paragraph, I’d ask you to check out thatgreat post and then come on back for some more AppleseedStudying.

Welcomeback! There’s something really beautiful and inspiring about the legend ofAppleseed planting trees as he moved through his Revolutionary-era Americanworld, and iconic science fiction author RayBradbury must have felt the same, as he dedicated a chapter of his novel TheMartian Chronicles (1950) to a character and story entirely inspired byAppleseed. In that chapter, “TheGreen Morning,” Bradbury creates the character Benjamin Driscoll, who makesit his mission to plant trees on the barren landscapes of Mars (and achievesresults far beyond his expectations). In a book largely defined by at bestironic and at worst (and the majority of the time) horrifyingstories, “The Green Morning” doubly stands out as a depiction of how an individualcan influence his world for the better, and thus clearly reflects Bradbury’sperception of Appleseed having done the same.

Many ofthose horrifying Martian Chronicles stories connect to a very different potentialcontext for Appleseed, however: historiesof colonization and their negative effects on both places and indigenouscommunities. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Appleseed was in any directway a colonizer, much less a participant in the era’s very much ongoinggenocides of Native American communities. But at the very least, our imagesof Appleseed depend on portraying the American landscape as open and availablefor his intervention, which in its own way is an extension of the “virginland” argument which fueled so much of the conquest, colonization, andgenocide histories that unfolded in the Americas after European arrival. Andgiven, again, how much those processes were continuing to unfold in the late 18thand early 19th centuries—indeed, how much they were really onlybeginning for many Native American communities across the continent—it’simportant to make sure not to reify that inaccurate part of the Appleseedstory, even as we rightly celebrate other layers to this iconic folk figure.

Specialpost tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Folk figures or histories you’d highlight?

September 25, 2024: Folk Figures: Molly Pitcher

[On September26th, 1774, Johnny Appleseed was born. So for the 250thbirthday of the man, the myth, the legend, this week I’ll AmericanStudy ahandful of folk figures, leading up to Friday’s post on the status of theconcept in the 21st century!]

On the iconicwar hero who might or might not have existed, and why she matters in any case.

I can think offew more AmericanStudies ways to analyze popular memory and prominence thanthrough theeleven rest stops on the New Jersey turnpike—and by that measure, MollyPitcher and ClaraBarton are the two most famous women in New Jersey history and culture (ifthat last phrase isn’t an oxymoron—I kid, Jerseyites, I kid). Pitcher’s is alsothe only one of the eleven rest stop referents that wasn’t an actual name, andthat might not even link to an individual figure—some historians believe thatthe name does refer to one woman, Mary Ludwig Hays,who followed her husband and the Continental Army to the Battleof Monmouth and found herself not only serving water to the soldiers buteven takingover her wounded husband’s artillery job; but others have linked the nameto a number of other Revolutionary-era women who performed one or another ofthose roles (camp followers, water carriers, and so on), includingMargaret Corbin.

So Molly Pitcheris as much a folkloric as a historical figure, one not unlike Paul Bunyan, JohnHenry, or, perhaps more accurately, this week’s starting point JohnnyAppleseed. Because like Appleseed’s inspiration John Chapman (about whomsee that hyperlinked, wonderful Guest Post by William Kerrigan), women likeHays and Corbin most definitely existed; the details of their lives andexperiences are as partial and uncertain as most any 18th centuryhistories, even those of theRevolution’s most prominent leaders, but there’s plenty of information outthere, such as at the various stories linked in my first paragraph’s closingsentences, and the Molly Pitcher legend provides an excellent starting pointfor researching and learning about these historical figures. Even absent suchresearch, any collective memory of “Molly Pitcher” itself adds women to ournarratives of these Revolutionary war battles and histories, producing a morefull and accurate picture of those histories as a result.

I’d take thatargument one step further, however. I’ve written on multiple occasions,including in this poston Judith Sargent Murray and this oneon John and Abigail Adams, about the striking cultural, social, andpolitical voices and roles of Revolutionary-eraAmerican women (including not only Murray and Adams but also PhillisWheatley, AnnisBoudinot Stockton, and others). Indeed, it’s fair to say that such womenhelp us to see the era’s possibilities for gender and society as likewiserevolutionary, and as foreshadowing and influencing the19th century women’s movement. That some of these women,including Adams and Stockton, achieved such success in relationship to theirhusbands’ lives and work—just as, that is, Hays and Corbin did in relationshipto their husband’s wartime efforts—reflects some of the era’s limitations andobstacles; limitations and obstacles that all these women, like Molly Pitcher,pushed well beyond.

Next folkfigure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Folk figures or histories you’d highlight?

September 24, 2024: Folk Figures: John Henry

[On September26th, 1774, Johnny Appleseed was born. So for the 250thbirthday of the man, the myth, the legend, this week I’ll AmericanStudy ahandful of folk figures, leading up to Friday’s post on the status of theconcept in the 21st century!]

Two yearsago this week, I focused aSaturday Evening Post Considering History column on histories and storiesof Black railroad workers, including the iconic folk hero John Henry. So inlieu of a post for today, I’ll ask you to check out that column, which alsoincludes the surprisingly racist history of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”among other things!

Next folkfigure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Folk figures or histories you’d highlight?

September 23, 2024: Folk Figures: Pecos Bill and Joaquin Murrieta

[On September26th, 1774, Johnny Appleseed was born. So for the 250thbirthday of the man, the myth, the legend, this week I’ll AmericanStudy ahandful of folk figures, leading up to Friday’s post on the status of theconcept in the 21st century!]

On two folk heroes, and the competing frontier historiesthey reveal.

Even as a kid, encountering his stories in a compilation oftall tales, I could tell that Pecos Bill was abit of a PaulBunyan knockoff—an outlandish origin story (Bill fell out of his family’swagon as a baby and was raised by a pack of wolves as one of their own),similarly larger-than-life animal companions (his otherwise un-rideable horseWidow-Maker, the rattlesnake Shake that he used as a lasso), an equally mythiclove interest (Slue-Foot Sue, who rode a giant catfish down the Rio Grande). SoI wasn’t surprised to learn that Bill was a late addition to the “big man”school of tall tales, likely createdin 1916 by Edward O’Reilly and shoehorned back into the mythos of Westwardexpansion, the frontier, and the Wild West, one more addition to the roster oflawless heroes who had by the early 20th century come to define thatAmerican mythos so fully.

That Bill didn’t come into existence until a few decadesafter theclosing of the frontier doesn’t lessen his symbolic status, however—ifanything, it highlights just how much themythos of the American West was and remains just that, a consciouslycreated setof myths that have served to delineate after the fact a messy, dynamic,often dark, always complex region and history. Moreover, that mythos was asmulti-cultural as the West itself, as illustrated by Mexican American folk heroJoaquinMurrieta, “the Robin Hood of El Dorado”: Murrieta, a California 49er fromnorthern Mexico, first came to national prominence in a popular dime novel, John Rollin Ridge’sThe Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta(1854); the tales of his charming banditry have been a part of the region’sfolk history ever since, including a cameo as Zorro’s older brother in the Antonio Banderas film The Mask of Zorro (1998).

Yet however muchMurrieta’s story has been fictionalized and mythologized, it did originate with anactual historical figure—and that distinction can help us see past themyths to some of the frontier’s messier, darker, and more defining realities.For one thing, Murrieta apparently began his outlaw career after he and hisfamily were violently dispossessed of a land claim, events which connect to thesocial and legal aftermath of theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. For another, his gang’s victims included notonly Anglo settlers but also Chinese laborers, revealing California’s genuinelyand often painfully multiculturalcommunity as of the mid-19th century. A fuller engagement withthese histories would in part force Americans to confront the centuries of conflictand violence that have so frequently comprisedthe world of the frontier—but it would also allow us to push beyond talltales of larger-than-life individuals and to recognize just how collective andcommunal are both the myths and realities of the Southwest, and of America.

Next folkfigure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Folk figures or histories you’d highlight?

September 20, 2024: Summer Reads: Yellowface

[I didn’tget to share my usual BeachReads series earlier this summer, so I wanted to make up for it byhighlighting a handful of the many amazing novels I read as I worked to returnto pleasure reading over the last few months. I’d love to hear what you’ve beenreading, from any genre, for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]

Each ofthe books I’ve highlighted so far this week is in one way or another what I wouldcall “serious”—that doesn’t mean that they’re not also damn funny (both McBride’sand Yu’s in particular) or page-turning (Walter’s and Ward’s in particular),but that they deal with profoundly serious historical and cultural themes andare without question Literary Fiction (note the capital letters). Whereas Yellowface(2023), the newest release from the acclaimed fantasy novelist and East AsianStudies scholar R.F. Kuang, is more of whatI’d call “pulp fiction”—a work of biting satire that ultimately becomes apage-turning thriller, and with a delightfully unreliable first-person narratorwhom we can’t help but love even if we also hate her quite a bit. If all ofthat makes it seem like Kuang’s novel is serious fun, then I’ve done my job andmade the case for this along with all of the week’s pleasure reads.

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: What have you been reading?

September 19, 2024: Summer Reads: Let Us Descend

[I didn’tget to share my usual BeachReads series earlier this summer, so I wanted to make up for it byhighlighting a handful of the many amazing novels I read as I worked to returnto pleasure reading over the last few months. I’d love to hear what you’ve beenreading, from any genre, for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]

I wrote aboutJesmynWard’s phenomenal new novel a couple weeks ago, as I’ll be teaching it inmy English Studies Capstone course this semester. As I noted there, I’ve long beena fan of Ward’s, but I’d argue that with this novel she’s done somethingparticularly impressive—created a genuinely unique and unfamiliar historical novelabout slavery. By “unfamiliar” I don’t mean that she’s not engaged withAmerican histories with which we all need to grapple, nor that her book isn’tin conversation with prior works such as Morrison’sBeloved and Whitehead’sThe Underground Railroad (among many others). But nonetheless, despitemy own relatively thorough knowledge of both those national and literaryhistories, at virtually every moment of reading this bracing and beautiful bookI felt as if I was encountering something new. This is quite simply a bookevery one of us needs to read.

Lastsummer read tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whathave you been reading?

September 18, 2024: Summer Reads: The Cold Millions

[I didn’tget to share my usual BeachReads series earlier this summer, so I wanted to make up for it byhighlighting a handful of the many amazing novels I read as I worked to returnto pleasure reading over the last few months. I’d love to hear what you’ve beenreading, from any genre, for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]

With thefirst two books about which I’ve written in this series, I had a strong senseof them before I began, even if both did (as I hope I’ve made clear) exceed my expectations.Whereas with Jess Walter’s TheCold Millions (2020), a book recommended to me by my Mom (the main wayI learn about new fiction, if I’m being honest), I knew literally nothing aboutit before I finally dove in this summer. So when I say that this was probablymy favorite read of the summer, and definitely one of the most successfully executedhistorical novels I’ve ever read, you’ll understand just how much I’m saying.One of the best measures of a great historical novel is that I’m boththoroughly informed and utterly moved by the end, and I was crying when I readWalter’s epilogue so, y’know, mission very much accomplished. Now I gotta read everythingelse he’s written!

Nextsummer read tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whathave you been reading?

September 17, 2024: Summer Reads: Interior Chinatown

[I didn’tget to share my usual BeachReads series earlier this summer, so I wanted to make up for it byhighlighting a handful of the many amazing novels I read as I worked to returnto pleasure reading over the last few months. I’d love to hear what you’ve beenreading, from any genre, for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]

I didn’tmention the 2020 TV adaptationof The Good Lord Bird in yesterday’s post, but of course I look forwardto checking out Ethan Hawke as John Brown and Daveed Diggs as FrederickDouglass at some point soon (and have heard good things about the limitedseries overall). Not yet available but on the horizon is a TV adaptation ofanother novel I read this summer: Charles Yu’s InteriorChinatown (2020). I suppose I’ll check that one out as well but I can’tlie, the amazingly experimental structure and style of Yu’s novel seems veryunlikely to be successfully adapted to a visual medium (which is ironic, as thenovel is centrally and thoughtfully interested in visual media like TV andfilm, but it’s nonetheless the case). At the very least, I would implore everyoneto read Yu’s novel, as it is quite simply one of the most innovative andcaptivating literary works I’ve read in a long, long time.

Nextsummer read tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whathave you been reading?

September 16, 2024: Summer Reads: The Good Lord Bird

[I didn’tget to share my usual BeachReads series earlier this summer, so I wanted to make up for it byhighlighting a handful of the many amazing novels I read as I worked to returnto pleasure reading over the last few months. I’d love to hear what you’ve beenreading, from any genre, for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]

I knowJames McBride’s masterpiece of a revisionist historical novel TheGood Lord Bird (2013) is far from a new release (and indeed that his newest release hasbeen even more acclaimed still, and I promise to check that out one sooner thana decade down the road). What I can say, I had really slacked on my pleasurereading for far too long (and hadn’t had a chance to teach McBride’s book, sodidn’t have that reason to check it out). But McBride’s hilarious, pointed, andultimately profoundly moving depiction of John Brown through the eyes offictional escape enslaved person Henry “Onion” Shackleford was more than worththe wait, and might well have even edged out RussellBanks’ Cloudsplitter (1998), itself one of my very favorite novels,as the best book about Brown I’ve ever read. No matter what, this is quitesimply a unique and amazing book, and of all the great ones I read this summerwas the one that most fully reminded me of the unabashed and to my mindunequaled pleasures of pleasure reading (and, not unrelatedly, convinced me toget off of Twitter, but that’s a story for another time).

Nextsummer read tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whathave you been reading?