Purposeful deceptions of the April fool

Western Folklore, Summer 2002 by McEntire, Nancy Cassell

(Aten 2001)

The ritual pranks that Ms. Aten and Professor El-Shamy conduct with each other, year after year, are good examples of symbolic inversion. As defined by Barbara Babcock, this is "any act of expressive behavior which inverts, contradicts, abrogates, or in some fashion presents an alternative to commonly held cultural codes, values, and norms" (Babcock 1978:13-35). Although symbolic inversion occurs within the course of jokes, parodies, and pranks year round, it is on April Fools' Day that it is keenly anticipated. Ruth Aten, a staff member, takes advantage of the license of the holiday to humiliate a member of the Indiana University faculty. This inversion gives her power, just as the fooling of the entire faculty did, years ago. For one day, she is freed from the restrictive academic hierarchy that defines so much of her working life. Dr. El-Shamy "gets her" by fooling her about a sale of Beanie Babies, but she "gets him" with a much more elaborate and sustained prank. Thus she is victorious, and he knows it. Her recent victory will therefore make her especially conscious of him as she anticipates the next April Fools' Day. Her description of the discomfort of the graduate student, Nina, who "had the guts" to go along with the prank, is a good indication of the same kinds of tensions that anyone of a "lower" position will feel when he or she is playing a prank on a person of a "higher" position. The greater the distance between the prankster and the fool, whether in age or professional position or perceived social status, the greater the victory for the prankster. Children who have been fooled by their parents on April Fools' Day look forward to playing pranks on their parents in the future. They delight in "getting them back," knowing that deliberate teasing of an authority figure could be punished under more "normal" circumstances. French school children get much more pleasure from taping a fish to a teacher's back than they do "catching" only a classmate (Jonet 2001). One of my former students, Jack Trump, took special delight in playing an April Fools' prank on a resident assistant (R.A.), a student who had authority over a floor of undergraduate students. The prank involved taking the R.A.'s couch and rug as "hostages" and photographing them outside of several Terre Haute restaurants and gas stations.

Issues of gender also inform the April Fools' Day prank. A girl can test the patience and fidelity of a boyfriend; a wife can test those same traits in her husband. Another Indiana State University student told me about constructing an elaborate lie about the unavailability of tickets for a rock concert, a concert that she knew her boyfriend wanted very much to attend. When she informed him, several times, that his tickets could not be obtained, she watched his behavior closely. Although he was frustrated, he stayed relatively calm throughout the conversation, and "passed the test" of equilibrium in the face of disappointing news. Had he exploded with anger, it might have cost him more than an April Fools' Day humiliation. His girlfriend was using the prank as a way of noting how her potential long-term partner would react to stressful or unpleasant situations (Watson 2001).