Since the beginning of the discipline of Folklore in the mid Nineteenth Century, many new ways have evolved to spread and reinforce folk belief and other kinds of folklore, A new term, Popular Culture, has also evolved to describe these new forms. The difference between folklore and popular culture is sometimes very difficult to determine, but one such difference seems to be that folklore forms exist in unstandardized multiple variation, while forms of popular culture exhibit multiple variation that is standardized. This course will deal with a number of issues of folk belief and world view reinforced, debated, propagated, and spread by film and video, and it will explore whether folklore is really altered by standardization. Many ideas from the past are indeed spread by the cinema, television, and VCR players in modern America. The course will also explore ways of critically viewing and examining folklore on tape and film.
Documentaries are perhaps the most common medium by which folk belief is communicated on film.
But dramas are also employed by the true believer. It is interesting that neither the documentary nor the drama in this respect ask its viewer to suspend disbelief. If the Truth is out there, perhaps you can find it in this class.