ABSTRACT
Here is a plotline of a movie you will never see: a privileged protagonist is given many advantages, is briefly challenged but easily overcomes the opposition, and goes on to great success and adoration. Instead, most films, literature, fairy tales, religious tales, and myths are the retelling of the underdog archetype. These stories venerate the undersized and outmatched, poor, disadvantaged, written off, left for dead, improbable, and never given a chance. Think Harry Potter, Rocky Balboa, Cinderella, Frodo Baggins, Rudy, the Bad News Bears, the Karate Kid, Katniss Everdeen, Seabiscuit, the Little Tramp, David and Goliath, the Tortoise and the Hare, the Little Engine that Could. Americans love an underdog tale, whether fictional or real. The classic American “rags to
riches” tale made popular in the post-Civil War novels of Horatio Alger, Jr. came to exemplify the American Dream. Similarly, American history glorifies heroic underdogs as well. The Mexican Army’s siege of the Alamo has come to symbolize (for Americans) the Texans’ heroic struggle against impossible odds. The creation story of the U.S. is itself a story of an underdog group of revolutionaries resisting and defeating a more powerful British imperial oppressor. Championing underdogs is not a uniquely American proclivity, however. Most cultures
around the world have well-known and revered underdog stories. A few illustrative examples: Most Filipino children learn the folk tale of The Monkey and the Turtle, in which the slow turtle outwits the quick, nimble monkey who tries to take advantage of him. In Korea, the folktale of Kongji and Patzzi, is essentially a retelling of the Western Cinderella fairy tale, down to the cruel stepmother and ugly step-sisters. In Russian folklore, Ivan the Fool appears as a popular character who, though despite being poor, younger than his brothers, and simple-minded, ends up with good fortune. Nor are these isolated examples. In his seminal exploration of comparative mythology from around the world, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell (1949) noted that most all cultural myths retell the archetypal hero’s journey (what he called the “monomyth”), in which the hero must overcome an extreme challenge against powerful odds. While not all hero myths are underdog stories (Thor, the Iliad and the Odyssey), and not all underdogs are heroic, the ubiquity of these examples makes clear that the underdog as hero touches something deep and universal in the human psyche. In this chapter, we review theory and research that attempts to unlock the appeal of the under-
dog. As we will show, while there is plenty of evidence for the powerful draw of underdogs, there is as of yet no consensus about the cause of this appeal. We will also speculate on the conceptual similarities and differences between rooting for underdogs and judging people as heroes.
