A Bland New Hero

Everybody needs a hero! Unfortunately, heroes are getting harder to find these days, not only because it takes a lot of sacrifice to become one, but also due to a massive campaign to change the concept of a hero.

Why change the notions of a hero and heroism? Every one naturally experiences a deep inspiration in and attraction to the embodiment of a hero or heroine who goes through what is called a ‘hero’s journey’.

This journey describes a ‘simple boy or girl’ awakening to a call. His adventure begins when he leaves behind a comfortable life and seeks the guidance of a wise sage. This sage helps to unveil the hero’s past and the mission he has to confront. He trains in order to face internal and external obstacles, and finally, battles the main enemy and saves the day or the world. This is how a hero is made!

This is the basic hero template which makes stories like King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson very appealing and full of ideals for both young and old to imitate. So why strip stories and movies of this important classical hero framework?

The answer lies in an agenda to propagate an ideology instead of telling a story. For example, one will easily detect strong feminist ideologies and hues of LGBTQ in many forms of entertainment. Thus, the movies we watch, the books and comics we read, some video games we play and music we enjoy are emptied of original and engaging storylines and plots.

I personally find it unfair that the creators and composers of such entertainment media would be feeding a captive audience with an ideology instead of a cool story. A recent example would be the latest Star Wars (now called Star Warped for its failure to reach fan expectation) installment.

The movie, as Bishop Robert Baron observed, totally dismantles the concept of the hero’s journey. Instead, it presents a ‘packaged hero’ who requires no teacher, no learning curve and saves the day all on his own. A similar but subtler example is the case of Katniss, the heroine of Hunger Games.

Not only does it ruin a good series, but also attempts to hard-sell a feminist tenet that women are now better than men when it comes to fighting and saving the day. Bishop Baron complains, that the original Star Wars, never attempted to pit Luke and Leia with each other. They were both heroes on a journey and had complimentary roles to save the day.

When such ideologically pumped pseudo-stories end, the audience is left hanging, empty and exhausted. An ideology, a philosophical construct that focuses on one reality and excludes the rest, is a weak framework for any story. Since only a person and not a concept can become a hero, then a story is genuinely told when it revolves around a person, who journeys to become a hero.

But with feminism and LGBTQs out on a mission to neuter all of history and society of heroes, I’m afraid we are going to be left with a bland new set of tasteless heroes, neither sweet nor sour, neither hot nor cold. Heroes that do not stand for anything or anyone.