There's always been a sense of bathos attached to the man, whether it's kind of doing parkour in a very half-assed way, or whether it's promoting himself.
The effect is deflationary bathos, which nails what Aeschylus sees as the folksy and sentimental way in which Euripides plays on the emotions of his audience (lines 1052–88).
The substitution of one character for another under the guillotine was a stock plot twist in French Revolution melodramas; only Carton's ringing words save the moment from bathos.
At which point, in a typical moment of bathos, Aristotle concludes his discussion of tragic and epic poetry with the words " Let this count as sufficient discussion" (1462a19).