Scofflaws can tap into our need for heroes

See you later, Steven Slater/Didn't need no escalator/Just slid right out that airplane door and ran.

-- From "The Ballad of Steven Slater," via a YouTube video by thestratbrat

The JetBlue flight attendant's feet seem to have barely touched the tarmac before Steven Slater was proclaimed a folk hero for the way he let everyone know that he was mad as hell and, well, you know the rest of the line.

Yet he was only the most recent of those dubbed folk heroes this year. Colton Harris-Moore, far better known as the Barefoot Bandit, became a folk hero for the way he eluded capture for two years before tripping up in the Bahamas in July. Dutch teenager Laura Dekker got the title for not knuckling under last year to the child welfare authorities who thought it was nuts for a 14-year-old to sail solo around the world. She's now preparing to cast off, with her father's blessing.

There are reports that even swindler Bernie Madoff has become a folk hero to many of his fellow prison inmates for being so coldly unrepentant. Told by one prisoner that he admired Madoff for bilking people of millions, Madoff reportedly corrected him: "No, billions."

Folk heroes, it seems, are not traditionally heroic, as in noble, and may even have had a brush with the law.

"Egad!" agreed folklorist J. Rhett Rushing, by way of saying, "Duh!"

"The idea of becoming a folk hero has been around as long as human beings have been speaking and telling stories about each other," Rushing said. "It's someone who exhibits characteristics that we applaud, or we wish we could do."

In the case of Slater, his 15 minutes are ticking along and will expire "as soon as some other idiot does something stupid, because we do realize all the time that this is just dumb or outlandish," Rushing said. "But for a moment, he gives us this release."

The time element of fame is worth noting, especially since YouTube has become more viral than the common cold. The exploits of folk heroes can reach millions within hours. Facebook campaigns are launched. Tweets are twittered. Then, unless the person does something to further burnish their status or notoriety, their name fades into the stuff of future "Jeopardy!" questions.

For folk heroes with staying power, we look to icons such as Davy Crockett, who died at the Alamo, and frontiersman Daniel Boone. During the age of building transcontinental railroads, steel-driver John Henry became a folk hero for racing a steam-powered hammer. He beat the machine, but died with his hammer in his hand (Lord, Lord).

Tragic endings help a folk hero live on, Rushing said. "To be honest, you almost have to die."

"We're bombarded with news and know all about something before anybody can compose a song," he said. As a folk hero, Slater was "a little person who represented the values of a group of people," but the 24-7 news cycle that brought him fame now is likely to work against him.

"Everyone is so media-savvy these days," Nusbaum said. "It starts with a sound bite, but then we find out more and learn complexities about the person that may be hard to relate to."

Folk heroes exist in all cultures. English Catholics laud Guy Fawkes, who planned the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I of England for his persecution. Argentinians revere Che Guevara, while the French -- and maybe everybody -- marvel at Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. In Iraq, the man who flung his shoes at President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad in 2008 inspired similar acts of protest worldwide.

Still, the term "hero" nags a bit, especially when, as in Slater's case, deploying the emergency chute could have injured someone on the ground. But Rushing said that's a semantic fight that's impossible to win.

"It's a cute term, like myth, which we also use completely incorrectly as meaning false, when it's really a sacred narrative," he said. "Folk hero has been misappropriated as a term. But you can't fight language."