Undergrad Wednesdays – Fart Jokes: “The Summoner’s Tale” and the Timelessness of Crass Humor

 [This post was written in the spring 2018 semester for Karrie Fuller's course on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It responds to the prompt posted here.]
The fart scene in Step Brothers.

In films today, one of the simplest yet effective means of eliciting laughter is a fart. The Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles features a scene with cowboys farting around a campfire after consuming beans. In “Step Brothers,” one character unleashes a long, loud fart during a job interview. Another example of fart humor in modern cinema is the dinner scene in “The Nutty Professor,” starring Eddie Murphy. Murphy plays several members of the Klump family who humorously pass gas at their dinner table. However, long before the advent of cinema, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, one of the collection’s more humorous works is told by the Summoner, who also uses a fart for comedic effect. By examining Chaucer’s use of a fart and the “Summoner’s Tale’s” discussion of how to divide a fart into twelve parts, we can begin to understand why fart jokes continue to make us laugh when used in cinema today.

In The Summoner’s Tale, a friar goes to the house of an ailing man, Thomas, to ask for a donation. He explains to Thomas that he will become better if he donates more, to which Thomas replies that he already donates plenty to the other friars who come to visit. The friar then attempts to manipulate Thomas, as friars and clergy were wont to do in Chaucer’s time, by giving him a sermon about the dangers of anger, before asking him again for a donation. Thomas replies that he can have a donation if he agrees to divide it equally amongst the other friars at the convent. When the friar agrees, Thomas has him reach around to his rear end, then unleashes a monstrous fart into the friar’s hands. The friar then goes to the lord of the village and explains the ordeal. The lord’s squire offers a solution for dividing a fart evenly: place each friar around a wheel, each at the end of one of the twelve spokes. Then, allow a fart to be released at the center of the wheel. The smell will then travel evenly along each spoke and to the nose of each friar.

The Summoner’s Tale can help reveal what it is about farts that continues to make us laugh at them in today’s films. One important element of The Summoner’s Tale is the repulsiveness of the fart. Prior to the release of the fart, Chaucer uses some graphic details to drive home the disgusting nature of what is about to happen: “And doun his hand he launcheth to the clifte, / In hope for to fynde there a yifte. / And whan this sike man felte this frere / Aboute his tuwel grope there and heere, / Amydde his hand he leet the frere a fart” (III, 2145-2149). The imagery of the friar reaching around Thomas’s anus alerts the reader that something of a foul nature is approaching in the narrative. The word “grope” also carries crass connotation, which, when associated with a friar, could produce a comedic effect. Another important detail is that the friar is hoping to find a gift as he reaches around. The fart is an insult in this situation, and it is humorous because of its rudeness. The friar expects money or something of value, and instead receives an obnoxious, odorous gas.

Similarly, farts in movies receive laughter partially because of their disgusting nature. The inappropriateness of a loud and odorous gas during something as important in our society as a job interview is enough to strike audiences as ridiculous. In the film “Step Brothers,” John C. Reilly’s character releases a noisy, prolonged fart in the middle of a job interview (McKay, Step Brothers). In modern society, a reasonable human would not expect such an obnoxious fart to come during such an important moment, just as the friar would not expect a fart when he believes he is about to receive a gift.

Chaucer goes beyond the use of a single fart for humor in The Summoner’s Tale. After the friar angrily takes his leave of Thomas, a squire explains a way in which a fart could be divided equally and shared amongst the friars of the convent, as Thomas intended. The squire explains that the spokes of a wheel can divide a fart so that each friar along the side of the wheel receives the same amount of gas: “By preeve which that is demonstratif / That equally the soun of it wol wende / And eke the stynk unto the spokes ende” (III, 2272-2274). This elaborate plan for the distribution of something as base as a fart most likely struck Chaucer’s audience as humorous. The idea of such a well-planned, complex method for mathematically distributing something being applied to a fart is so ridiculous that it is funny. Similarly, elaborate musings about flatulence entertain us in movies today. In the film “I Love You, Man,” Jason Segel’s character is very perceptive of when someone else is passing gas. His extreme observational skills relating to a man passing gas make for a humorous moment in the film (Hamburg, I Love You, Man).

Michael Doherty
University of Notre Dame

Works Cited

Brooks, Mel, director. Blazing Saddles. 1974.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400.The Summoner’s Tale IIIfrom The Canterbury Tales.Ontario: Boenig& Taylor, 2012. Print.

Chitwood, Adam. “Exclusive: Will Ferrell Talks STEP BROTHERS 2 and Political Comedy SOUTHERN RIVALS with Zach Galifianakis.” Collider, 3 May 2011, collider.com/willferrell-interview-step-brothers-2-southern-rivals/.

Hamburg, John, director. I Love You, Man. 2009.

McKay, Adam, director. Step Brothers. 2008.

Shadyac, Tom, director. The Nutty Professor. 1996

“The Canterbury Tales: The Legacy Today (The Summoner’s Tale).” The (Pop) Culture   Medievalist, 9 Nov. 2017, neomedievalism.info/2017/11/10/the-canterbury-tales-the     legacy-today-the-summoners-tale/.

Undergrad Wednesdays – Chaucer, Disney, and The Good vs. Evil Narrative

[This post was written in the spring 2018 semester for Karrie Fuller's course on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It responds to the prompt posted here.]
Portrait of Chaucer: Wikimedia Commons
Portrait of Disney: Wikimedia Commons

The art of storytelling is a complex one, but most tales can be distilled into a simple theme: good versus evil. While this approach to narrative might not seem immediately problematic, it becomes much more obviously troubling when a group of systemically oppressed people is repeatedly cast in the role of the villain. The Jewish people in particular have suffered a lot at the hands of this discriminatory casting, as is achingly apparent in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Prioresses’s Tale.” The poem, laden with an exaggerated anti-Semitism, has been difficult to reconcile for many critics. Some of Chaucer’s most devoted supporters excuse his prejudice as satire or as merely an unavoidable reflection of his historical and social context. I would argue, however, that these readings do not do enough to address the very real consequences of such anti-Semitism, spending too much time debating its origins rather than its effects. As Natalie Weber shows in her post “’The Prioress’ Tale:’ The Problem of Medieval Texts and the Alt-Right Movement,” Chaucer is speaking to people whose voices are still poisoning modern society. But his anti-Semitism may not even be the most famous in the world of media and entertainment.  Another way we can consider “The Prioress’s Tale” and its impact on Western culture is by examining the problematic nature of Chaucer’s work alongside that of another figure who looms perhaps as large and faces similar accusations: Walt Disney. While many have debated whether or not Disney was sexist, racist and anti-Semitic, the lack of cultural sensitivity and the presence of moral oversimplification in his work have made indelible marks on popular culture, regardless of the personal feelings Disney had towards these groups of people.

In her tale, the Prioress tells the story of a young boy who is murdered by inhabitants of a Jewish ghetto for singing the Alma redemptoris as he passes through their town. The depiction of Jewish people in this story is wholly unfavorable, to say the least, their cruelty a directive from Satan himself. The young boy, by contrast is the embodiment of religious devotion and childlike innocence.  He exhibits a degree of obedience and desire to please God seldom found in seven-year-olds, no matter how pure of heart they may be. The Prioress introduces him primarily through his steadfast faith: “And eek also whereas he saugh thy’mage/Of Cristes mooder, he hadde in usage,/As hym was taught to knele adoun and seye/His Ave Marie as he goth by the weye” (Chaucer 505-508). This child devotes his whole being to the worship of Christ’s mother, kneeling whenever the occasion for it arises. Throughout the poem, the Prioress emphasizes how the child behaves as he was taught, never once suggesting that he would deviate, intentionally or otherwise, from behavior sanctioned by his mother, his teachers, or by God. He is constantly characterized as “innocent” and “litel,” making it impossible for anyone to find fault with a creature so pure. Another section following his cruel murder compares his perfection to emeralds and rubies: “This gemme of chastite, this emeraude/And eek of martirdom the ruby bright” (Chaucer 609-610). By conflating the child and his “chastite” and “martirdom” to perfect jewels, the speaker defines him and his conduct as ideal, as items that are synonymous with value.

The speaker’s representation of the Jews is as condemning as the child’s is laudatory. The Prioress’s immediate connection of them to Satan could not make their evil nature any more clear. She says, “Oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas,/That hath in Jues herte his waspes nest” (Chaucher 558-559). As if it were not enough to accuse the Jewish people of being under the influence of Satan, the speaker had to characterize that influence as a wasp’s nest, implying not just danger, but a sort of festering corruption. They are not even distinguished by any one character, but simply exist as one uniform body of “cursed Jues.” Through the Prioress, Chaucer develops a narrative of good versus evil devoid of any character complexity on either side. Whether or not one believes that the story is evidence that Chaucer himself was anti-Semitic, he still engages with this harmful collapsing and villainizing of the Jewish community, and as Emmy Zitter argues in her essay “Anti-Semitism in Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale,” “a satirist can be only as effective as his audience’s attitudes will allow” (278). Try as scholars might to search for reasons to read the tale as ironic, much of Chaucer’s audience would have seen such a representation of Jews as affirming of their own negative perceptions, and that fact is what makes the text dangerous, regardless of Chaucer’s intent.

Another man whose anti-Semitism has been a subject of intense debate is Walt Disney. The evidence is not totally consistent, as some cite his frequent employment of Jewish people as proof that he was not, while others claim that despite that fact Disney was deeply resentful of Jews’ success in Hollywood (Medoff). Turning to Disney’s alleged treatment of his employees is not incredibly helpful when evaluating the validity of these claims, but the stereotypes and ideals that came through in his work are much more revealing. In “Re-Reading Disney: Not Quite Snow White,” Claudine Michel describes an incident in which Disney almost let an offensive ethnic stereotype into his film:

The first version of The Three Little Pigs(1933), for example included a scene in which the Big, Bad Wolf disguised himself as a Hebrew peddler, complete with bear, long robe and thick spectacles. After leaders of the Jewish community in the US met Walt Disney to express their concern that such caricatures should not be lent legitimacy in the eyes of children at a time when anti-Semitism was rising around the world, he reluctantly changed the wolf’s disguise to that of an ordinary brush salesman. (12)

While most of the Disney films that persist in the modern consciousness stop short of egregious anti-Semitism, problematic representations of certain ethnic groups are still perpetuated by the company. In an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Rachel Shalita from the Education Department at Hamidrasha Art Academy discusses the ways in which more modern Disney films promote anti-Semitism. The article’s author, Dana Shweffi, writes, “Shalita claims Aladdin depicts Arabs in a way that is reminiscent of old anti-Semitic cartoons and caricatures. ‘The movie opens with an Arab character that looks like a caricature of a Jew with a long nose and all of the Arab characters speak English with an Arabic accent except for Aladdin and Princess Jasmine who speak with an English accent’” (Shweffi). Even though it was made in 1992, Aladdin seems to actively embrace ethnic stereotypes. Through these characterizations, the Walt Disney Company does no favors for the Arabic or Jewish people, but this simplicity of representation manifests elsewhere as well. This lack of nuance also bleeds into all Disney films’ approach to morality, a problem that is more subtle, but still has insidious effects.

In films as old as The Three Little Pigs or as new as Aladdin, Disney’s staunch conservatism continues to make its way into much of his work. As with Chaucer and his “Prioress’s Tale,” “…much of the major animated work to come out of the Disney studio, the subtleties of traditional stories are boiled down into stark moral tales of Good v Evil, the forces of light against the forces of darkness” (Michel 10). These kinds of narratives may not be as obviously as harmful as those that deal in ethnic stereotypes to make their points; they are more subtly sinister in their role in dictating the moral values of an entire culture. Debating whether or not Disney or his work was intentionally anti-Semitic is in some ways a less productive discussion than one that examines “…Disney’s work as a potentially significant factor in shaping the notions of racial and cultural hierarchy in the West and the Third World alike” (Michel 13).  The simplicity of the good versus evil narrative is necessarily morally reductive and quite often places a person or group of people, sometimes Jewish people, in the position of wrongdoer. To have children consume media of this kind during such a formative period encourages them to develop a moral framework that is not unlike the one Chaucer puts forth in the “Prioress’s Tale.” Sure, the story is more compelling for its extremeness of character, but these tales also instruct one to understand humanity and morality as a dichotomy, so that when ambiguous ethical questions do arise, impressionable audiences are less equipped to deal with them.

Amanda Pilarski
University of Notre Dame

Works Cited

Medoff, Rafael. “Streep Ignites Debate: Was Walt Disney Anti-Semitic?” The American Israelite, 2014.

Michel, Claudine. “Re-Reading Disney: Not quite Snow White.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 17, no. 1, 1996, pp. 5-14, doi:10.1080/0159630960170101.

Zitter, Emmy. “Anti-Semitism in Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review, vol. 25, no. 4, 1991, pp. 277-84.

Shweffi, Dana. “Do Disney Movies Promote Anti-Semitism and Racism?” Haaretz, Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd, 16 Aug. 2009, www.haaretz.com/1.5092056.

Undergrad Wednesdays – Two Shrews: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” as an Inversion of The Taming of the Shrew

[This post was written in the spring 2018 semester for Karrie Fuller's course on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It responds to the prompt posted here.]

The Wife of Bath, a proto-feminist who argues for feminine power and agency, appears to undermine the patriarchy at every turn, yet the way that this ideology plays out in her tale is incomplete and problematic. In Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales, a Knight is sent on a quest to find out what women truly desire above all else. On his long journey, after questioning each woman he meets, he discovers the answer: “Wommen desiren have sovereynetee / As wel over hir husband as hir love / And for to be in maistrie hym above” (Chaucer 165). The Knight is applauded for his thoughtful answer, and every woman in the court agrees with him. Thus, the Knight’s life is spared.

But it is often forgotten why the Knight was sent on this life-or-death mission in the first place. He is given this impossible task as a punishment for a crime, and if he fails to come up with the correct answer, he will pay with his life. This crime occurs as follows:

And happed that allone as he was born,
He saugh a mayde walkynge hym biforn,
Of which mayde anon, maugree hir heed,
By verray force birafte hire maydenhed. (Chaucer 163)

He rapes a woman, and yet Queen Guinevere and the ladies of the court beg King Arthur to spare the Knight’s life. Why do the women want to spare a man who poses such a threat? Perhaps they would rather pursue rehabilitation than revenge and meaningless violence, but the success of this rehabilitation remains ambiguous.

The Knight asks every woman what they desire the most, and an extremely ugly old hag claims that she has the answer. In return for the correct answer, the disgusted Knight promises to marry her. On his wedding night, the old lady asks the Knight to make a choice: should she remain old and ugly in appearance, but be a faithful wife to him, or should she be young and beautiful, but unfaithful? He responds: “As yow liketh, it suffiseth me” (Chaucer 168). Although the Knight allows his wife to choose, granting her bodily sovereignty, his response does not necessarily spring from his newfound respect for women and knowledge of what they desire.

The Knight meets the “Loothly and oold” lady. 

The Knight was so distressed by his wife’s “so loothly and so oold” appearance at the time of their engagement that there is little question that if the choice were between his wife being constantly beautiful or constantly ugly, he would not hesitate to decide for her (Chaucer 166). It is possible that he does not give her sovereignty out of respect, but out of despair. Thus, a rapist is rewarded with a beautiful and obedient wife without having paid for his wrongdoing or learning from it, and a tale that seems set out to propound a female-first agenda undermines itself by expounding male entitlement, which raises interesting questions about whether or not this tale was intended to be proto-feminist at all. Many feminists today might blindly applaud this tale for promoting a feminist vision of the world without realizing the male entitlement and endorsement of rape culture latent throughout the story. Megan Valley elaborates on this theme of how the Wife of Bath is pseudo-feminist rather than proto-feminist in her post entitled: “How the Wife of Bath Gone Girl’d Us.”

Unlike “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew appears to be intended as a kind of wife-beating romp which undermines any idea of female sovereignty. Many feminists today would reject this play as blatantly unfeminist, which is understandable if one considers the clip of the “Punch” scene below, which is from Sam Taylor’s film adaptation of the play, as a summary of the play as a whole:

If this is how we are to read The Taming of the Shrew, surely this play offers nothing to modern audiences, who often view it “barbarous, offensive, and misogynistic” (Costa). And yet, it continues to draw audiences, who must be either “secret sadists,” or else the production must offer a deeper reading of gender relations than readily appears (Costa).

Katherine’s final speech usually punctuates the arguments of those who would see Taming as the ultimate how-to guide for misogyny. Katherine, once headstrong and bold, now appears meek and docile, blathering on and on with lines such as:

But now I see our [women’s] lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare…
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:

In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease. (Shakespeare ln 189-195)

Katherine literally and figuratively places herself below her husband, almost as his servant. Though it may seem that Petruchio has tamed this shrew completely, in many ways, the taming can be subverted.

If we examine the word “shrew” in this context, the Oxford English Dictionary would define it as “a person, esp.(now only) a woman given to railing or scolding or other perverse or malignant behaviour; frequently a scolding or turbulent wife” (OED). At the conclusion of the play, Katherine lectures and scolds the two other wives in a speech over 40 lines long. In this light, it seems like she remains “a woman given to railing or scolding” rather than being tamed (OED). Additionally, the final speech can be given ironically or sarcastically, with the power dynamics shifting, as occurs in Mary Pickford’s portrayal of Katherine, whose famous wink indicates that her flowery speech is mere lip-service (Wink at 1:18):

Thus, the play can actively work against its appearance of misogyny, and even when it is portrayed as misogynistic, this appearance is so very repugnant that it undermines its own rhetoric. (For no audience can bear to watch Katherine be utterly battered and abused for 2 hours!) A middle ground is also possible, in which Petruchio does not stomp all over Katherine, but both of them undergo a pedagogical journey which ends somewhere in the middle: not with Katherine worshiping at her husband’s foot, but with them taking hands as equals, partners in the next chapter of their life (Speech begins at 23:40; Meeting in the middle begins at 27:00):

In the pedagogical journey in The Taming of the Shrew, either Petruchio or Katherine could be the shrew, because both are undergoing an education, which ultimately brings them closer together. The Wife of Bath’s Tale also includes a pedagogical journey, that of the Knight, who is supposed to learn to respect women. Though the education of Petruchio and Katherine unveils surprising lessons for them, subverting the misogynistic expectation laid out by the surface-level structure of the play, the Knight’s education reveals that the feminist lessons he was supposed to learn never take root. Thus, the Knight is never tamed, and the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” refuses to conform entirely to the proto-feminist message of sovereignty which it appears to promote. Both stories subvert the expectations that feminist readers bring to them, refusing to conform entirely to a misogynistic or proto-feminist message.

Mary Elsa Henrichs
University of Notre Dame

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by Robert Boenig and Andrew Taylor, 2nd ed., Broadview Press, 2012.

Costa, Maddy. “The Taming of the Shrew: ‘This Is Not a Woman Being Crushed’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Jan. 2012, www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jan/17/taming-of-the-shrew-rsc.

“Kiss Me, Petruchio, Part 2.” Youtube, uploaded by Ken Thorton, 30 December 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI9ogFdHWQQ.

Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew, from Folger Digital Texts. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, 2 April, 2018.

“Punch & Judy Shrew.” Youtube, uploaded by GoodmanDull, 2 September 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7vIQB60GjQ.

“The Taming of the Shrew Film Clip.” Youtube, uploaded by CSTONEUK, 25 September 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz9MfjuBB70.