Daily Reading

Hollywood’s Hero Deficit — The American, A Magazine of Ideas
The article’s basic gist is that “true” heroes have disappeared from American cinema in the last few decades, or when they do exist, they are relegated to “a world far, far way”:e.g. Star Wars, Superman etc. It downplays what it calls “victim heroes,” which it says characterizes all of the heroes from films in recent years: e.g. Erin Brockovich, Michael Clayton… The author states that Hollywood fails to give us such “true” heroes, even though audience obviously want such heroes, although the author fails to provide a source for this matter of fact.
If you cannnot tell from tone here, I think this is a load of horseshit. So, tipped by the add for a Newt Gingrich book on the same page as the article, and remembering my college conservative news rag’s (The Duke Review) proclivity for printing photos of John Wayne, I decided to do a little research.

From wikipedia.com:

What’s it with conservatives and their longing for traditional, “true”, American, mostly white, heroes? What’s their problem with “victim heroes?” Why are the latter not as worthy as the former?
Perhaps it’s because whistle-blowing heroes and the like generally cause damage to corporations, board rooms, and thus the wealthy. They expose exploitation that is going on at someone’s expense, for someone more powerful’s gain. Conservative think tanks don’t like those kind of heroes and certainly would rather Hollywood stop telling their stories, so as to cut down on the possibility of future “victim heroes” coming forth and blowing similar whistles. No, these type of people are indeed not heroes. Not people confronting specific real problems with real consequences, and being courageous enough to fight back forces much more powerful in all senses. That doesn’t sound like a hero at all, does it? That’s the much more pejorative “victim hero”, as in “playing the part of the victim” or “crying wolf” and the like.
True heroes should fight indians, and evil foreign forces, and good and evil should be amorphous, but clearly defined. They should always be on our side, which after all is the good side, and God’s side, and we should feel awe-inspired by them, but we should feel absolutely no connection other than that. They should not be real: having foibles, issues, psychological pasts etc. They should be who we look up to, not to emulate, because we could never be that great, because the real battle to fight is the great one, not the small one’s that are brewing right under your nose.