I can see my mentors and collegiate journalism professors shaking their heads now.
This quote from 1962’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” comes in its denouement, so telling the story behind it is a necessary evil.
Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, spoiler alert.
The Reader’s Digest version is that Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) goes through his entire life reaping the benefits of being known as the titular assassin of the sadistic outlaw. The trouble is that Stoddard didn’t actually kill Valance -- that was his friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne).
In telling a reporter the story years later, upon hearing the truth, the writer burns his notes and utters the famous line.
Behind it is a truth that holds true about human nature. Despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, we often hold to and believe our interpretations instead.
There are all sorts of things we could hold under this heading: The Civil War was exclusively about slavery, Paul Revere’s midnight ride, Dane Cook is a comedian.
But there are greater pop culture fables than Dane Cook’s success, such as John Mayer and the story that “Your Body is a Wonderland” was written for Jennifer Love Hewitt.
In fact, Mayer had not even met Hewitt until after the record was on the shelves, but because the song became popular when the two were dating, it cemented that false tale.
But does that even matter?
If the “Liberty Valance” quote applies, no.
In fact, that quote suggests our interpretation of music, or other aspects of pop culture, is as important as what the artist intended.
A better example may be from the 1982 film “Blade Runner.” Despite the film’s director, Ridley Scott, saying he believes the main character was a replicant -- a genetically engineered robot -- many continue to insist he was human, going so far as to say Scott is wrong.
Scott helped make the piece and it’s his feature. How can he be wrong?
What about the abundance of quotes attributed to Mark Twain? Sure, he was known for his wit with a snappy rejoinder, but there are a variety of things he never actually said for which he gets credit, much in the same way back in the free, illegal heyday of Napster, when parody songs were attributed to “Weird Al” Yankovic that were not his whatsoever.
The examples are plentiful. “I can see Russia from my house” was said by Tina Fey in character as Sarah Palin, but never by the former vice presidential candidate herself.
Stephen Colbert plays Stephen Colbert, which is the most misleading credit ever written.
It’s a microcosm of something we do as human beings, even. Look at the famous dying words of Julius Caesar, reportedly, “Et tu, Brute?”
However, if the Roman leader was stabbed as many times as thought by Roman senators -- including Brutus, of course -- it seems unlikely Caesar would have been able to say much of anything.
But the idea that those were his dying words is so pervasive that it is a lie that has become the truth, a patented case of the “Liberty Valance” quote.
Surely, there’s little harm in staunchly believing that Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” was based on an actual event rather than the “California Gurls” pop singer having seen a photograph of Scarlett Johansson’s glossy lips and wondering what it might be like to plant one on her.
That seems harmless, but if we accept that and the “Liberty Valance” quote as rule, then you open the door for the absurdity of the “Barack Obama is a Muslim fascist socialist who hates white people and wasn’t even born in the country” variety.
When you allow one mistruth, you have to allow them all.
The point of journalism as I was taught it in school is to tell the truth. Now my mentors and professors give a relaxed sigh.
It is not OK to print the legend, regardless of whether it’s a better story.
Fiction often is a better story -- that’s why it’s fiction.
But it is important, in life and in pop culture, to point out that our fables, no matter how great they sound, are indeed fables.
When the legend becomes fact, don’t forget that it is, indeed, just a legend.
Just like Mark Twain, who, for all his wit and cleverness, was make believe, too.
He was really a Missouri boy named Samuel Clemens.