Save Our Heroes!

I miss heroes. For decades now, liberals have waged a war against the idea of heroes. Indeed, they’ve systematically tried to destroy the meaning of the word by defining the most banal and often involuntary conduct as “heroic.” It’s gotten so bad that not killing yourself when you find out you have a disease is now trumpeted as heroic. Give me a break. And Hollywood isn’t helping by stripping heroes of all the things which make them heroic.

In the modern parlance, a hero is someone who undertakes selfless conduct at great personal risk. To be selfless, the conduct must be for the benefit of others, and more importantly, the hero needs to have a choice in the matter, i.e. they must be free to walk away without consequence. If the “hero” has no choice but to act, then they aren’t really heroic because they aren’t acting courageously or nobly, they are acting desperately or out of self-interest. That’s why it’s heroic to stop an armed killer from killing someone else, but it’s not heroic to defend yourself against an armed killer.

Interestingly, while the conduct must be voluntary, there is no requirement that the hero be happy about it. Some heroes, like Superman, happily seek out danger, while others only reluctantly rise to the occasion. Similarly, while there is no requirement that the hero act alone, the more the hero achieves by themselves, the greater the challenge they faced and the greater their heroism.

But Hollywood is changing this formula.

Modern heroes like Perseus in Clash of the Titans 2010, Hal Jordan in Green Lantern, and whatshisname in Tron Legacy are none of these things. For one thing, they have no choice but to act because their own lives are being threatened. Hence, none of them are undertaking selfless, voluntary conduct, and by definition they cannot be considered heroes. Heck, Perseus is even given a sub-motive of revenge. Further, each of these “hero” is supposedly a “reluctant hero.” But unlike reluctant heroes of the past, who were reluctant because of promises they made to loved ones or some other moral qualm, these guys are reluctant because they are slackers. They have no particular opposition to being the hero, they just don’t want to bother. Thus, rather than having a character who must overcome some deep personal conflict, these films use heroes who just need motivation to get off their butts.

Moreover, modern Hollywood has stripped these heroes of their independence. Perseus in 1981 had to solve each puzzle he faced on his own. He had advice from his friends, but they had no special knowledge or skills to help him. The same is true of every other hero in the past -- they all had help to one degree or another, but when it came time to overcome challenges, all the pressure and responsibility was on them.

But compare that to the modern “hero.” In Clash 2010, Perseus’s friends kill all the monsters or set them up for an easy kill-shot from Perseus. They also tell him what to do next -- at no point does he ever work anything out for himself. Basically, he’s a prop for the others to solve the film. In Green Lantern, Hal gets saved time and again by everyone around him. He does finally destroy the bad guy, but again, he does exactly what his Jedi-trainer told him to do earlier in the film. He’s essentially an idiot-proof superhero. Whatshisname from Tron is the worst of the three. He gets led by other characters from location to location until they bring him to where the film ends. Then whatshisname’s dad and Tron stop the bad guy while whatshisname fires a gun which never hits anything. He is essentially a passenger in the hero car.

And these films aren’t unique. In Percey Jackson & the Lightening Thieves, Percey walks around as everyone around him solves all the problems -- lots of deus ex machina. Harry Potter pretty much just hangs out as everyone else does the work. Voldemort even essentially accidentally kills himself to solve the story. Matt Damon is declared a hero by God himself in Adjustment Bureau even though Damon’s actions are entirely involuntary and all he does to “solve” the film is run for his life using tricks the angels told him to use. Alice in Alice in Wonderland is true plug and play as she gets moved from scene to scene and then, in her big fight at the end against the Jabberwocky, we are told that she is merely a tool for the sword she wields. . . anyone could have taken her place. And so on.

Genuine heroes aren’t dead on film, but there is a new breed of slacker-heroes who do little more than move from scene to scene as the smarter, stronger and more motivated people around them set up the final battle and then let the “hero” take the credit. This is pathetic. It’s no wonder these films stink.