When I was a kid I had heroes. I'm pretty sure every kid had heroes. Some kids idolized firefighters or police men or astronauts or what have you. Not me though, my heroes came in comic books that I got at the 7-11 for seventy-five cents. I remember on countless occasions looking under the carpets and couches, digging between the cushions looking for enough quarters to go and buy an issue, just one issue. I remember the excitement, the barely-contained excitement as the guy behind the counter slipped my prize into the brown paper bag and handed it to me. -of course i didn't want a receipt, I'm six.- I carried it home, walking fast, but not running, didn't want to trip and fall and maybe rip the comic- and then rushing into the bedroom and finding a good spot on the floor to inspect my new treasure.
This was the moment, as I slid it out of the brown paper bag, laid it on the floor and began. First I would stare at the cover, sometimes it was Captain America, sometimes it was Spider Man, sometimes Superman, each one engaged in a struggle of life and death, good and evil, victory or loss. I experienced this with them, through them. I opened those books, and Inside I found good and evil, justice, right, wrong, sorrow, loss, and hope. As a Young kid, a young geeky kid, who wore his brothers clothes because we didn't have much, and wore really thick glasses, and apparently read comics, I got picked on. I get stomped on a pretty regular basis as a kid. And when I rushed back from the 7-eleven, into my room, laid a new comic on the floor and opened it up I was going into a world where my heroes existed, and my bullies didn't.
I read these stories over and over and over again, pouring over every panel, soaking in the words, the pictures, colors. In these stories, any hardship could be overcome, you could always come out on top no matter how bad the odds. In these books, even the worst people could be redeemed, and the good people were never corrupted. What better place for heroes to come from than comic books?
We get older, and as we do so, we require more, or maybe less of our heroes. Perhaps, more or less is a poor way to think about it, I suppose it is best to say that as we get older, we require different things from our heroes. As I left elementary school and moved into the middle grades the heroes became different. No longer did the kids around me idolize the generic archetypes of 'firefighters' 'police officers' and 'super heroes.' Real people began to take the place of the heroes of earlier childhood.
The people though, weren't too real.
They were sports stars mostly, larger than life athletes like Micheal Jordan, Scottie pippin, troy aikman and jerry rice. The batman and superman shirts were replaced unceremoniously with football and basketball jerseys. My heroes changed as as well, but instead of turning to television i turned again to books. I found heroes in the pages of works by tolkien, brooks an others. There was a new morality in these heroes and the words they inhabited were complex and brilliant. Often you get made fun of as a kid for not liking the things that other people like, but while im sure that jerry rice could win a lot of football games, my heroes could wield the power of the gods and change the fate of worlds. They were just more interesting. real or not.
As we progress into the teen and adult years, heroes tend to disappear. Replaced by a stronger confidence in our own identity, greater definition of self. I suppose when we get old enough, we no longer need place other people, or character on a pedestal and rely on them to what is 'good' or enviable or worth praise. Maybe having a hero just becomes less important.
While having reached the age of no heroes long ago, there is something I really do miss about my youth, my heroes. What I miss is the core concept of heroes themselves, That they will always do good, that no matter how bad, and how dark, and how dire the world gets, heroes will always save it, it's what they do, its all they do.
I was watching cnn last night, they were talking about Mitt Romney, and the phrase 'post-truth era of politics' kept coming up. That stuck out to me; 'post truth'. The fact that they were talking about Mitt Romney's near innumerable lies wasn't the issue that bugged me, it was that rather than be outraged that a former united states governor, and current presidential candidate was was blatantly lying to the American people nearly every time he opens his mouth, the media has pre-pakaged it into a sound bite. 'post-truth era of politics' Rather than DEMAND our politicians be truthful with the electorate, we make up a phrase that is easily digestible by the public. Rather than say Mitt Romney is a liar, we say 'we live in an era of post-truth politics'. That, to me, is bullshit.
The people we elect, and the people we nominate, are lifted up by us onto our shoulders so that they can lead us. We make them beacons to guide us through an increasingly dark world. We make them our heroes. We make them people to be looked up to, people to be followed, and in exchange for this it is there duty to not lead us astray, to not lie to us, to always be there for us no matter how dark the night gets. Mitt Romney has proven himself unworthy of this, he does not act in the best interest of the American people, he is not there for us, and we should not be there for him.
The media has similarly failed us. Journalists have a responsibility to the american people to be guardians of the truth, heroes in their own way, and rather than live up to this responsibility and expose the lies they have merely pre packaged them into sugar-coated bits. It is true that as we get older we no longer look for heroes in our lives, but I dont think that means we don't need them. I no longer need Superman in my life, I'm not six, but what I do need is a president that will tell the truth, a media that won't tolerate lies, elected officials that will be there for the people no matter how bad the world gets. I need a congress that will not stop fighting for me no matter what because I;m the underdog.
If our candidates can't be our heroes, if they can't do these things, then maybe we should find some who can. Similarly, if our media is subservient to corruption and refuses to expose blatant dishonesty because its bad entertainment then maybe we should all stop watching. Society depends on honest politicians and vigilant media, and since we have neither of those at the moment, we need to be our own heroes and hold people accountable.
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