the forgotten critics of oral tradition

we humans love our stories. they have been a vital part of every human culture ever recorded. today we get our weekly allotment of stories predominantly through the television and movies and before that radio. going further back we got our fix through theater. and if you go all the way back there was the oral tradition, a folkloric amalgam of tales, legends, proverbs, jokes, and popular beliefs which we told one another. if the analogy of movies to oral tradition is solid then what else might our current experience with stories tell us about that of our ancestors?

i was mulling over this question and began to think about our predominant feelings concerning entertainment today, namely that it is in large part utter crap. sequels, straight to video fare, flop blockbusters, t.v. adaptations, re-makes, studio pap, cinemax porn, shit sit-coms, reality t.v., list shows, etc… this left me wondering, “were there sub-par entertainments in the oral tradition as well?” meaning were there stories which went over like a lead balloon?  were there flops? were there storytellers who were reviled? who got panned? were there critics? must have been right?

well, i’ve made an attempt to visualize just such a forgotten nook of our collective past and it may have looked something like this-









































or not. who knows?