Back in the Classical episode of this civilization, the heroes that we looked up to were all pretty idealized. To say that they were pumped up, polished, and over the top would be—as Jake calls it—“a dryness.” Ha.
Like Achilles, the most ‘handsome’ and fleetest of the heroes assembled at Troy. Or Beowulf from Geats, a Germanic tribe from Southern Sweden. He adeptly kills a dragon before his own death.
During the past few years however, heroes have been depicted as ordinary human beings. You got Holden Caulfield, the lanky teenage protagonist who exhibits the very qualities that he abhors seeing on people—flamboyance, phoniness, etc.
Want a dose of pop heroes deconstructed, peeled to expose their rickety interiors? Look at Clark Kent’s adventures in the super series Smallville, where audiences witness him deal with adolescence while he’s exploring superhearing, x-ray vision, his extraterrestrial origin.
And now, there are post-modern heroes, less than ordinary citizens who demonstrate the symptoms of mega diseases that have plagued mankind. A robber, a schizo, a mental patient, a maniac, Borat. Weird thing is, a lot of people are buying this stripped bare vibe.
Wonder what’s in store for our heroes in the upcoming years.
