{"id":40177,"date":"2025-08-19T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40177"},"modified":"2025-08-21T03:57:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T03:57:38","slug":"what-an-old-folktale-can-teach-us-about-the-annoying-persistence-of-political-comedians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-an-old-folktale-can-teach-us-about-the-annoying-persistence-of-political-comedians\/","title":{"rendered":"What an old folktale can teach us about the \u2018annoying persistence\u2019 of political comedians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Perin G\u00fcrel<\/a>, University of Notre Dame<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fear of reprisals from the Trump administration has made many people cautious about expressing their opinions. Fired federal workers<\/a> are asking not to be quoted by their name, for fear of losing housing. Business leaders<\/a> are concerned about harm to their companies. Universities<\/a> are changing their curricula, and scholars<\/a> are self censoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one group has refused to back down is the hosts of America\u2019s late night comedy shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon Stewart and the rest of The Daily Show team, for example, have been scathing in their coverage<\/a> of the Epstein case. John Oliver continues to amass colorful analogies<\/a> for describing the president and his actions. After the \u201cLate Show\u201d was canceled, ostensibly due to financial reasons, host Stephen Colbert was defiant: \u201cThey made one mistake \u2013 they left me alive!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may think of being loud, persistent, and edgy as the modern comedians\u2019 job. However, unrelenting, critical humor has a long history in folklore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a scholar who examines the intersections between culture and politics<\/a> and I teach a class on \u201cHumor and Power.\u201d A timeless folktale, known as \u201cThe Bird Indifferent to Pain,\u201d can help us understand why comedy fans enjoy the annoying persistence of the jester, and explain why this trope has endured across cultures for centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invincible rooster<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Bird Indifferent to Pain\u201d belongs to a genre known as \u201cformula tales.\u201d Such tales consist of repeated patterns or chains of events, often with rhymes weaving through them. \u201cThe Gingerbread Man<\/a>\u201d captures this style perfectly with its infectious, teasing rhyme \u2013 \u201cRun, run, run as fast as you can\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Bird Indifferent to Pain\u201d also stars a persistent and irritating creature. In most versions, a bird \u2013 often a rooster \u2013 angers a master or king for singing too loudly or saying the wrong things. The king comes up with elaborate punishments, but the bird always seems indifferent to them, responding to each move with an increasingly defiant and sometimes vulgar rhyme. At the end, the king cooks and eats the rooster, but the bird flies unharmed out of his body, rhyming and singing ever more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because folklore is shared casually across cultures and languages, it\u2019s hard to tell when and where this tale first originated. However, folklorists have identified versions<\/a> all over the world, from Tajikistan in Central Asia to India and Sri Lanka in South Asia, as well as Sudan in northeast Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armenia\u2019s famous poet Hovhannes Tumanyan collected one version of this tale, which he titled \u201cAnhaght Aklore\u201d or \u201cThe Invincible Rooster.\u201d In this version, a rooster finds a gold coin<\/a>, and boasts about it from the rooftop: \u201cCock-a-doodle-doo, I\u2019ve found gold!\u201d When the king\u2019s servants take the gold, the rooster continues crowing defiantly: \u201cCock-a-doodle-doo \u2026 the king lives on my account!\u201d Frustrated, the king orders his servants to return the money. But the rooster still won\u2019t shut up: \u201cThe king got scared of me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the king orders him slaughtered for dinner. \u201cThe king has invited me to his palace!\u201d the rooster boasts. While he\u2019s cooked, he claims the king is treating him to \u201ca hot bath.\u201d Served as the main course, he crows, \u201cI\u2019m dining with the king!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tale reaches its climax when the rooster, now in the king\u2019s belly, complains about the darkness. The king, driven to fury by the persistent voice, orders his servants to cut open his own stomach. The rooster escapes and flies to the rooftops, crowing triumphantly once more: \u201cCock-a-doodle-doo!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tumanyan doesn\u2019t tell us what happens to the king after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My great-grandmother told us a Turkish version of this tale, featuring a rooster defying his \u201cbey,\u201d or master, in the 1980s. Her rooster crowed in rhyming couplets and used some naughty words to describe the master\u2019s digestive system. Plus, in her version, the master\u2019s behind \u2013 and not his stomach \u2013 tore open during the bird\u2019s escape. We were obsessed with this story and begged her to tell it over and over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of persistent irritation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What makes this tale, and its many variations, so compelling across languages and centuries? Why do so many cultures enjoy the rooster\u2019s humorous defiance and literal indifference to punishment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our case, as children, we were drawn in by the rhythm of repetition and rhyme. The rooster\u2019s colorful language held a delightful sense of transgression. Children also often identify with animals<\/a> because of a shared vulnerability to adults\u2019 power. Therefore, it is significant that the bird, the weaker of the two parties, survives the ordeal, whereas the master\u2019s fate is uncertain. But the rooster doesn\u2019t merely survive \u2013 he thrives and keeps on squawking. This is a story of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, when I told Tumanyan\u2019s version to my 6-year-old son, he said he loved the rooster\u2019s optimism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern American popular culture contains many jocular characters that resemble this folkloric bird, who is delightfully impervious to pain, from cartoon characters such as the Road Runner \u2013 an actual bird \u2013 to the foulmouthed, self-regenerating antihero Deadpool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s political comedians, I argue, are using the rooster\u2019s tactics as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Release or resistance?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Debates about political humor often circle back to its purpose. Scholars debate whether anti-authoritarian humor is just a coping mechanism, or whether can it spark change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychologist Sigmund Freud believed humor\u2019s main function was \u201crelease<\/a>\u201d: jokes offered a way to reveal our unacceptable urges in a socially acceptable way. A mean joke, for example, allowed its teller to express aggression without risking serious repercussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer argued that humor in corporate capitalist media was a mere safety valve<\/a>, siphoning off protest and releasing righteous outrage as laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthropologist James Scott<\/a>, however, gives jokesters more political credit. In his 1992 book \u201cDomination and the Arts of Resistance<\/a>,\u201d Scott agreed that authorities allow some dissident humor as a safety valve. But he also identified a powerful \u201cimaginative function\u201d in humorous resistance. Humor, he claimed, can help people envision alternatives to the status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott pointed out that release and resistance need not be mutually exclusive. Instead of reducing the chance of actual rebellion, comedy could serve as practice for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities do perceive some danger in comedians\u2019 output. In countries with fewer free speech protections, comedians may face more serious repercussions<\/a> than a stern tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of Colbert, President Donald Trump\u2019s gleeful response<\/a> to the show\u2019s cancellation, and his suggestion that others will be \u201cnext up,\u201d shows just how seriously some political figures take comedic critique. At the very least, they are irritated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the story of the \u201cBird Indifferent to Pain\u201d reminds us that sometimes the best a jokester can do is to keep irritating the bowels of the system, singing all the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perin G\u00fcrel<\/a>, Associate professor of American Studies, University of Notre Dame<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perin G\u00fcrel, University of Notre Dame Fear of reprisals from the Trump administration has made many people cautious about expressing their opinions. Fired federal workers are asking not to be quoted by their name, for fear of losing housing. Business leaders are concerned about harm to their companies. Universities are changing their curricula, and scholars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15534,5,826,292,7,46,10,25,296,36,4,278,15533,38,41],"tags":[14051,3128,6251,7014,15856,15854,885,891,886,860,458,6610,1418,536,16775],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40179,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40177\/revisions\/40179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}