By Taylor Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: July 4, 2012
Growing up everyone had their favourite hero: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. Even though they have unrealistic super powers and weird tights, chances were at some point you probably looked out over the horizon and hoped to see your hero flying off into the distance, soaring off to somewhere you’d never been and better than the place they were leaving.
Lately Hollywood has brought back some of our favourite superheroes, creating a huge summer smash up of big name movies like The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises. Directors are taking classic comic book heroes and giving them modern weaponry, social drama and even modernizing those silly tights. The fights are bigger and the trauma closer to real life. But why does Hollywood feel we need superheroes right now and why so many all at once?
Since the release of Superman in 1938, countless comic strips, movies and novels have been released with the same kind of character: the wealthy loner who by day holds a simple job with little recognition, but by night is a nationwide icon, idolized by children and despised by every villainous villain out there. These characters are masked and hidden heroes who swoop in and save the day at the last second when all hope is lost.
But do we need a hero right now? Can Hollywood be reflecting what society needs in their films? Or are we all just simply interested in the old-school comic book heroes we grew up with?
Well currently we not only have the end of the world to deal with in December 2012, but we’re dealing with the economy crashing repeatedly, consistent rain and freak storms, riots overseas and the rising price of gas! It’s enough to make anyone want a hero to swoop in and save our sanity. We need someone we can trust and who we know has our best interests in mind, ready to self-sacrifice for the good of mankind. Is it possible that we are projecting our need for a hero onto our taste for movies?
Unfortunately our favorite heroes cannot fly in from over the horizon, swoop down and blast away enemies with laser beams or superhuman strength. The real life villains don’t have mutated snake scales, icy cold freeze guns or hypnotic mind control abilities. Real life isn’t a comic book or an action movie.
However we still have heroes – certainly firefighters, police officers and doctors can be called heroes. But the rest of us who aren’t saving people on a regular basis are taught from a young age to do the morally right thing, even if that means putting ourselves in harm’s way. In reality we tend to forget self-sacrifice for fear that something bad will happen.
I’m not saying take the law into your own hands like Batman or fly around tangling up bad guys like Spiderman, but rather dialing 911 when you see someone in distress, helping that elderly person carry their groceries to their car or calling the SPCA about that stray dog you found wandering in your backyard. Superheroes are not just comic book characters found on bookshelves or in movie scripts, they are real people with the guts to do the right thing when it counts.
