Heroes, Villains and Fools, as Agents of Social Control

Bibliographic Data

ID4945903
AuthorsOrrin E Klapp (corresponding author)
Year1954
Volume19
Issue1
Pages56
Publication date1954-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2088173
OpenAlexW2332812914
LanguageEN
Citations received55

SOCIAL types comprise a relatively unappreciated field of popular culture. Though certain ones have been intensively studied from special points of view and the role of stereotypes has been long recognized, there has been little effort to catalog, classify, or even adequately consider the vast number of highly significant types to be found in common speech, jokes, comics, popular fiction, folklore and the like. These conceptions, appearing wherever the popular mind finds expression, are truly collective in nature rather than the property of individual authors, coins of thought as Sumner phrased it, serving to express group judgments, facilitate consensus, and define roles. This article is concerned with three especially significant generic figures, the hero, villain and fool, and aims to state a theory of their normative nature, role as

Control (management · Social control · Social science · Sociology · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Humor Studies and Applications