It comes down to torches and pitchforks. In classic monster movies, when the villagers determine where the monster is currently residing, they set forth in a group organized solely by righteous anger. They then proceed to have fun storming the castle.
As is determined somewhere in the angry mob charter, villagers are required to take up torches and pitchforks for the nightly rampage. Oh sure, some nonconformists prefer shotguns, axes or even rakes, but the classics persist. The best examples of a torch-and-pitchfork wielding crowd has to be the 1931 film Frankenstein, but the beloved trope has shown up in a variety of great pop culture, including The Phantom of the Opera
Now, I love me some angry mobs in entertainment; it’s fun to watch the fear-driven peasants juiced up on paranoia take to the streets for a little old fashion shouting and rioting – especially when they take to singing as in “The Mob Song” from the 1991 animated movie Beauty and the Beast
Yet I’m less than enthused to see the current angry mobs convening in New York City over the proposed Muslim community center a few blocks away from Ground Zero. For that matter, I’m not a fan of rampaging villagers who rise up over healthcare, immigration, gay rights, elections or any cause. While it is a good thing the torches and pitchforks have been replaced by poster boards and megaphones - which just barely prevents the likelihood of violence – these protesters are simply vociferous medieval peasants. They are the “mobile vulgus,” the Latin root for mob meaning “the fickle crowd.”
Anyone who knows me will vouch that I get a kick out of protests, debates and pretty much any opportunity I have to voice my opinion and be contrary. Simply because I derive enjoyment from debating, I have argued - with some success, I think – the case for the world being flat and the sky not being blue. As such, I readily exercise that whole free speech thingy, and endorse the protection of those with opinions about matters both important and moronic.
In reality, as in movies, angry mobs don’t work because they are always moronic - even if they are right. In all due deference to Springfield’s Principal Skinner who said, “There’s no justice like angry mob justice,” the villagers always screw things up further by freaking out and charging to the supposed monster’s lair.
Back to Freddy Krueger for a moment, the Elm Street
Angry mobs don’t think, they act. Like idiots.
At least in pop culture, the angry mob is occasionally talked down from their craziness using reason or human decency. In Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch utilizes her uncanny childlike logic to shame the Tom Robinson lynch mob into dispersing. Likewise, in Justin Cronin’s new book The Passage
It rarely works out so well in real life. Just ask the “union carpenter who works at Ground Zero” in the recent YouTube video posted by user “lefthandedart.” In a colorful attempt to disagree with the anti-Muslim protesters in New York City, “Kenny” is surrounded by the angry mob and nearly gets pounced. Neither cooler heads nor reason appeared to prevail.
The funny thing is angry mobs have always struck me as the very loud minority. I used to imagine that for every frothing villager with a torch and pitchfork hunting down Frankenstein’s misunderstood monster, there were a bunch of people in their barns pitching hay and going about their chores.
No matter how many sensible people avoid stooping to the level of the fickle crowd, the shouting few of the angry mob makes quite an impression on cable news. However, don’t confuse exposure with winning. Successfully storming the castle does not equal triumph.
Rev. Parris and his ilk from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
In the end, that’s the great irony about an angry mob with torches and pitchforks, or poster boards and T-shirts. They are easily controlled through paranoia and – as Aldous Huxley phrased it – “man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
Instead of having legitimate conversations about serious issues – like, oh I don’t know, jobs, the environment, education, etc. – we are being manipulated and prodded along to care about a distraction by others using their pitchforks to make hay off our fears. Once again, it comes down to torches and pitchforks.