Author Archives: Jordan Kessler

High School Pizza Rolls Fire: Folk Legend

Folk Story:

“My school had a little store, it was called the ‘milk n mart’. It was a snack stand, you could order real food there, but they also had snack foods and frozen foods. So one time apparently, before I attended the school, a boy purchased pizza rolls and warmed them up in the microwave but instead of reading the instructions, he just put them in the microwave for 10 minutes which started a fire and everyone had to evacuate. I’d say it’s folklore cause nobody I knew actually saw this, everyone just knew about it.”

Context:

This happened at a private, Jewish high school in LA.

Background:

The informant is 20 and went to this private Jewish high school in LA.

My Analysis:

I think high school is a notorious time and place for people to learn hard lessons in stupid ways. This story epitomizes the high school experience because this legendary student made one stupid mistake that could have been fatal for the entire school. In high school, most of your decisions feel that momentous – who you take to prom, whether or not your parents let you go to that party, etc. The fact that the student in the story was microwaving pizza rolls really hammers down that point because pizza rolls are maybe the saddest lunch to microwave. They are bad, but also quintessentially high school. For example, the totino’s pizza rolls commercials are marketed explicitly to teenage boys.

For example, “Totino’s Pepperoni Pizza Rolls TV Commercial, ‘Awesome Mustache’.” ISpot.tv, 17 Oct. 2014, www.ispot.tv/ad/7yVz/totinos-pepperoni-pizza-rolls-awesome-mustache.,  depicts a late middle school/early high school aged boy lusting after an adult man’s mustache. The commercial promises the boy a mustache, the symbol of manhood in the commercial, if he purchases totino’s pizza rolls. In the folk story my informant shared, the boy’s inability to microwave his pizza rolls could be extrapolated to mean he is unable to be a real man or real adult. He does not belong in the school because he is still a child. While I doubt the children that shared this story were cognizant of this subtext, everyone of this age group grew up with these commercials, so I believe it resided in their subconscious.

Senior Send Off in High School Theater Community: Ritual

Folk Tradition:

“This was a senior tradition in theater. After our last performance of our last show, the director would invite all the seniors back into the theater after everyone had left and we would look at the ghost light and he said, ‘Right now is just a time for you to be with all the characters you’ve played here, so this is a time to say goodbye to them. So, we would go on stage and remember through action. We would go through different entrances or funny moments in shows and there was no end time. We would stay until we said goodbye.”

Context:

This would take place after the seniors’ last performance with their high school theater program in their Los Angeles public school.

Background:

The informant is 21, from Calabasas, and an actor.

My Analysis:

This is a folk piece with a lot of levels. First and foremost, the concept of the ‘ghost light’ is a folk belief that a light must always be left on in every theater for the ghosts that haunt the space. Though not every theater has someone who died in it, most theater spaces are regarded as sacred by the community and the residence for supernatural beings/occurrences.  The idea of everyone gathering around to stare into the ghost light is a way of symbolically channeling the spirits. It is interesting that the theater teacher prompted the students to say goodbye to the characters they played because it aligns these fictional characters with the actual spirits regarded by theater communities everywhere (symbolized in the ghost light). It could also be interpreted as summoning previous versions of oneself (the self that did perform these characters). High school is a very transformative time for many people, so summoning and saying goodbye to iterations of yourself over those years could be a very cathartic task for students before they leave for college.

High School Theater Pre-Show Ritual

Folk Ritual:

“Before a show we would go outside of the theater – literally outside of the building. This was in high school. We would stand in a circle and do pass the squeeze. Stand in a circle and squeeze hands one at a time. Then, we would all run in the middle and say “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe as a chant, but it changed based on the show we were in. We would insert the show name in there somewhere. And then the boys and girls would split up, so I don’t really know what the boys did – I think it would get pretty rough. The girls would stand on a little raised curb and hold hands and sing a verse from “Bye Bye Birdie” really loud. Then we would all go back in the circle and you would say ‘got your back’ to people as you walked into the theater and tap them on the back.”

Context:

This was the pre-show ritual for a public high school’s theater program in Calabasas, CA. The informant said it was a “tradition there for as long as I ever knew, and this would have been between 2014 and 2016.”

Informant Background:

The informant is 21, from Calabasas, and an actor!

My Analysis:

The separation by gender in the high school theater ritual seems to be a trope. I believe this is related to the age of the performers and the ‘otherness’ placed upon the opposite sex by society in that age of physical development. The boys moshing is another trope I’ve seen in these contexts, perhaps the males feel a need to exert their stereotypical “manhood” by becoming violent before they perform a socialized as “femme” extra curricular activity, theater. The girls also perform their gender by standing on a higher platform, perhaps symbolizing being above violence, and singing while holding hands. This performance of peaceful sweetness paints the picture of stereotypical femininity.

Choosing to say “got your back” is a safe theatrical well wishing before a show as “good luck” is considered bad luck. “Break a Leg” or “Merde”, the French word for shit used to mean good luck, are violent and gross, making them potentially inappropriate for high school kids. Therefore, the invented “got your back” makes a sweet substitute. Finally, choosing to chant “The Raven”, while dark, also gives what they are about to do an air of sacredness due to its fame and fear it instills.