In which a character has their legs (or arms) restrained and has foodstuffs, preferably
rotten fruit or veggies,
cream pies, wet sponges or something else in that line of thought thrown at them by members of the public. Alternatively, stocks can also be used for
Tickle Torture.
It is important to differentiate between stocks (which restrain the legs) and the more commonly used pillory (for the arms and head). Ultimately, however, the principal (it's commonly him in a
High School setting) still gets the same humiliation — all for a good cause.
A point seldom touched on in fiction is that being pilloried could be seriously dangerous. People were allowed to throw things at your head, and you could neither dodge nor block them. If you were lucky they would only throw fruit and vegetables (although
you try getting hit in the face with a turnip and see how harmless that would be). If you were unlucky, they'd throw rocks. Or materials obtained from stable floors. And if you were really,
really unlucky,
it would be as bad as if you'd dropped the soap in a prison shower.
Rarely occurs with females (except when
other stuff is done to them instead), for
some reason.
Often used in
Come to Gawk.
Examples:
Film
- A Knight's Tale has this happen to the main character while his friends try to defend him.
- Earlier in the film, there's a flashback to him as a young boy, watching the knights parade into the tournament grounds with his father. There's a man locked in the stocks right next to them, who advises young William that it would be easier for a man to change the stars themselves than for a peasant to grow up to be a knight.
- Andersonville and it's not funny in that movie.
Literature
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, there is a fieldtrip to a Salem Witch Trial themed village. At the end of the episode the Alpha Bitch Libby ends up in the stock, but does not get things thrown at her.
- Black Adder The Third: Edmund invites Prince George to star in his new play, "Thick Jack Clot Sits in the Stocks and Gets Pelted with Rancid Tomatoes''. George naturally agrees enthusiastically.
- Merlin- a bit of a Running Gag for the titular character- happens in the first episode when he picks a fight with Arthur, three times in one episode. The Children In Need scene naturally features it.
- In an entirely serious example from the George III-era Very Loosely Based on a True Story Costume Drama Garrow's Law (coming soon to a US TV station near you...), William Garrow
exposes Forrester, a professional "thief-taker" - basically a man who is paid to fit people up - as a perjurer. The judge sentences him to two hours in the stocks - a pillory in this case. He gets the rotten fruit treatment, then we see the grandmother of the boy he murdered as part of one such scheme pay the man who turned on him. The man then throws a rock...
- A similar thing happened to Mother Needham, the notorious bawd, in Channel Four's drama-documentary of Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress.
- Kind of Truth in Television. Unpopular people put in the stocks faced a real risk of being beaten to death by angry mobs. Some people even wore armor when in the stocks in order to avoid this.
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
