Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

Sometimes we make the mistake of believing that the only heroes out there are the people we watch on television, read about in news reports, or see in the movies.  The truth is that each one of us has the ability to become a hero to someone.  Opportunities for heroism are everywhere!  We hesitate to bring you yet another top-ten list.  There are so many of these lists that someone last year compiled a top 10 list of top 10 lists.

But because people have frequently asked us what it takes to be a hero, we feel the time is ripe to offer some suggestions.  We don’t claim that these are the only things one can do to become a hero.  But they’re a good start.   Keep in mind that this list reflects our own personal view of heroism as exemplary actions directed toward improving the lives of others.  If your idea of a hero is someone who scores many touchdowns or who sings great songs, then this list is certainly not for you.

Here then is our list of 10 ways that you can become a hero.

1.  Study the Greats – Almost all of us have personal heroes and legends who have inspired us.  Read their biographies and strive to discern the qualities that made them great.  Look for common patterns.  The Nelson Mandelas, Mahatma Gandhis, and Martin Luther Kings of the world had a vision of a better world and were willing to make life-altering sacrifices to achieve that vision.  They were smart, strong, courageous, resilient, and selfless.  They didn’t let setbacks deter them and showed great leadership.  Cultivating these traits and life habits can send you on your own heroic journey.

2.  Be the Change You Want to See in the World – This line, a paraphrased version of a quote from Gandhi, is saturated with truth and wisdom.  People can easily spot a hypocrite – the person who cries for energy conservation but drives a Hummer; the person who tells us to give to the poor yet gives little himself; or the person who advocates world peace yet spouts hatred on Facebook or Twitter.  True heroes live the words they speak.

3.  Listen for the Call – The famed comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell, noticed that all heroes in world literature are “called” on a heroic journey.  C. J. Hayden refers to a calling as a “strong intuition, sudden realization, divine transmission, or just a subtle wondering.”  Many heroes report having a calling to act on behalf of animal rights, to teach in Africa, to run for President, or to quit their high-paying jobs to serve others at low pay.   Your own calling may be less dramatic but no less important to those you help in life.

4.  Promote the Good rather than Oppose the Bad — The most successful, heroic people focus on the positive.  They know that negative energy, even when directed against dark forces in the world, is ineffective for promoting positive change.  Mother Teresa is famous for saying, “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”

5.  Look for Opportunities – Psychologist Phil Zimbardo believes that all of us are potential heroes waiting for the right moment to fulfill that potential.  Most heroes are everyday people, not the superheroes we see in movies.  Zimbardo has begun an ambitious Heroic Imagination Project dedicated to helping all of us become heroes. “By promoting the heroic imagination, especially in our kids through our educational system, we want kids to think, ‘I’m a hero in waiting, and I’m waiting for the right situation to come along when I can act heroically.’”

6.  Use the Power of Small Gestures – A good friend of ours, Paul, tells us that he once hugged a male friend in a grocery store simply because the man looked a bit worn and unhappy.  Later, that man thanked Paul profusely for that hug.  “He said it completely changed his outlook, and maybe even his life,” said Paul.  “He said I was his hero.  It was such a little thing I almost didn’t do it.  I’m so glad I did.”  Simple gestures of kindness can mean the world to someone who is fighting a tough personal battle.

7.  Perform Random Acts of Kindness – In 2000 the movie Pay it Forward resurrected an idea first proposed by the ancient Greek playwright Menander:  If someone has done you a good deed, you can repay the act by performing good deeds to others rather than to the original benefactor.  Others call it anonymous giving.  You can start a wave of human kindness by helping a student with tuition, raking someone’s leaves, buying someone groceries, paying the highway toll for someone behind you, cooking a meal for a neighbor, etc.

8.  Volunteer Your Time – These last three suggestions focus on serving others.  Your service can take the form of your time.  Spending some loving, caring time with others can be far more meaningful than spending money on them.  Visit a nursing home.  Volunteer to help adults learn how to read.  Spend time with children.  Make someone feel loved today, especially those who are on the fringes of society.

9.  Volunteer Your Talent – Everyone has a talent they can share to enrich the lives of others.  We have a friend who volunteers to play the piano at a retirement home.  Another friend with great empathy and listening skills volunteers to help teenagers who are growing up in troubled homes.  Another friend with good business instincts holds fundraisers and bake-sales for charities.  Make an inventory of your talents and use them to improve the lives of others.

10.  Volunteer Your Treasure – Many of us engage in some form of tithing – the practice of donating a portion of one’s income to help others in need.  Don’t feel like you need to contribute vast amounts to make a difference.  The aggregation of small amounts from many people can add up and make a significant impact.  Make sure the charities you donate to are worthwhile and well-run.  Charity Navigator can help you make an informed choice.

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You don’t need to wear a cape or possess a superpower to make the world a better place.  To perform heroic acts, all you need is the willingness to make some major sacrifice, or even many small ones that add up over time.  Serving others builds relationships, spreads love, and creates a ripple effect.  The remarkable truth about helping others is that it invariably helps us as much, or more, than the people we are helping.  It builds our self-esteem.  That should not be the primary reason for wanting to improve other people’s lives.  But it’s a wonderful side-effect.

By Scott T. Allison

My good friend Greg Smith and I have two things in common:  We love heroes and we love movies.  Greg is an expert in fictional writing and character development in storytelling.  I’ve been studying heroes for more than a decade and have published two books on the subject.  And so by establishing ReelHeroes.net, Greg and I couldn’t think of a better way to combine our interests and our expertise.

What is the mission of ReelHeroes.net?  Our goal is to critique the heroic characters in recent and classic movies.  Typically, movie reviewers focus on the quality of the movie.  We do that, too.  But we’ve found in our research that people need heroes.  Hero stories are psychologically important to us.  These tales educate, they inspire, and they entertain.  And the typical hero journey follows a classic pattern and a series of stages that are characteristic of all hero stories throughout the ages.

When movie-makers acknowledge these patterns, we usually get a satisfying movie-going experience. But when they ignore these ancient, time-honored paradigms, the story usually falls flat.  So at ReelHeroes.net, we’ll not only be able to tell you if a movie was good or bad, but we can also pinpoint where the hero-storytelling was good or not so good.

We base much of our hero analysis on the work of Joseph Campbell, a comparative mythologist who detected the following pattern in all hero stories:

(1) The hero starts out in a safe, familiar world.

(2) The hero is summoned, either willingly or unwillingly, into a new, dangerous, unfamiliar world.

(3) The hero is charged with some goal or mission.

(4) The hero encounters other people who fill important social roles — mentors, lovers, villains, sidekicks, & father figures are common.

(5) The hero then overcomes some missing internal quality to attain the goal.

(6) The hero is transformed significantly and returns to the familiar world.

(7) And then the hero delivers the meaning of the journey.

Greg has used this pattern extensively in Agile Writers to help his students compose effective and entertaining novels.  In the past few years, he’s helped people compose over a dozen first drafts and several self-published books.  They’ve all relied on these tried-and-true stages of the hero journey.  Two members of the Agile Workshop have been nominated for the coveted James River Writer Best Unpublished Novel Contest.

At ReelHeroes.net, we will sometimes refer to other hero models in our reviews.  Paul Moxnes has a model based on family structure, arguing that heroes emerge within a family hierarchy (e.g., Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, Servants, etc).  In our own research on heroes, we’ve found that heroes tend to possess The Great Eight characteristics.  Heroes are smart, strong, selfless, caring, resilient, charismatic, reliable, and inspiring.

It’s our goal to review mainstream movies that people who appreciate a hero analysis will want to see. We may even occasionally review old classic movies with an especially strong hero story. We’ll avoid genres such as horror or slapstick comedy (although we confess to being avid Three Stooges fans). We love to review bad films as much as good films because it gives us a chance to see where the artist deviated from the acknowledged structures (and wonder how in the world did this film get made!).

So join us as we explore the hero journey in action on the big screen.  We use the word “action” deliberately, as the work of any good hero involves acts of good deeds.  As Robert Downey, Jr., once observed, “Hero is not a noun, it’s a verb.”

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By Greg Smith

At Agile Writers we are guided by the principles of storytelling that were exposed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces.   In it, a hero (the central character) has a missing inner quality and must go on a journey to discover that quality and satisfy it.  The hero starts out in his ordinary world where “something happens” that pushes him into some other “special world” where he meets friends and enemies.  He accomplishes some goal and in so doing he fulfills his missing inner quality.

The classic super hero story is often just such a journey.  The hero has some character flaw that is exposed early in the story.  The hero attains a power that throws him into a special world of being “super.”  He spends the next part of the story learning how to master the power.  By the end of the first 30 minutes of the film, our hero has mastered his powers and he has an enemy to overcome.  Meanwhile, we’ve also learned that the hero has a severe inner pain that must be salved.  And we’re off.

Today I’d like to look at three very similar films.  These films depict ordinary people who take up the cause of the super hero and attempt to right the wrongs of society from behind the mask.

In Kick-Ass (2010) we meet young Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who has all the problems of the typical teenager.  He wants to meet girls, he gets his lunch money stolen by older boys, and he feels powerless in a world of adults.  Dave becomes so tired of being a victim and of watching others play the victim that he dons a green scuba outfit and becomes Kick-Ass the crime fighter.  He confronts the local hoodlums who quickly stab him and throw him under a bus.  Dave undergoes multiple surgeries to reinforce his bones with steel and as a result of his accident he has a reduced sensation to pain.  He befriends other local self-made heroes and takes on the crime syndicate.

In Super  (2010) we’re introduced to Frank Darbo (Rain Wilson) who is a thirty-something short order cook.  He’s done little with his life – so little in fact that the two main events of his life are getting married to his lovely wife (Liv Tyler) and pointing out a thief at a fruit stand.  His recovering addict wife of seven years leaves him for Jacques (Kevin Bacon) who supplies her with drugs.  Frank becomes inspired by watching late night Christian broadcasts depicting a super hero who leads children away from the devil and into a life of righteous living.  Frank decides that he is going to recover his wife by becoming the Crimson Bolt.  He befriends a young girl who clerks at the local comic-book store and together they take on the local drug syndicate.

From Australia comes Griff the Invisible (2010), the story of an ordinary office worker who believes that he has harnessed the power of invisibility.  Griff (Ryan Kwanten) dons a black scuba suit and lurks around at night looking for evil-doers. Along the way he meets a pretty girl who recognizes Griff for his ability to maintain a child-like innocence and sense of wonder.
What these characters have in common is a sense of powerlessness.  They feel so powerless, in fact, that the only way they can overcome it is if they cocoon themselves in garb and mask and change their identities.

Unlike the super heroes of comics and film, they aren’t hiding their identities to protect those they love, but to protect themselves from detection.  Once hidden, they are able to distance themselves from the limitations they feel when they are their ordinary selves.

And that is the message of these films. We each have the capacity to go beyond who and what we are right now.  The things that often hold us down are the preconceptions that we have about ourselves, and the prejudging that others impose upon us.  When these heroes don the mask and cape, they isolate and separate themselves from these limitations.  They are telling us that when we ignore the ties that society uses to bind us, and we unleash ourselves from our self-imposed limitations, we each become super.

Kick-Ass, Super, and Griff all follow super hero patterns that you’ll recognize.  There is an origin story, the definition of the villain, a pretty girl to acquire, a deep disappointment followed by a gathering storm and finally a climactic battle to set things right.  What is different about these films from other super hero films is that in the end, each hero returns to his origin:  ordinary, healed, and newly super.
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This essay is reprinted from Matthew Killorin’s excellent Capes on Film blog.  Greg Smith founded Agile Writers in 2011 with the mission to discover a method for helping beginning writers complete a first-draft novel in 6 months.  The Agile Writer Method is based upon the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, and psychology. His seminars on the Agile Writer Method have delighted hundreds of writers, scholars, and university students.  In 2012 Agile Writers completed 12 first draft novels, 5 published novels, and two members of the Workshop have been nominated for the coveted James River Writer Best Unpublished Novel Contest.

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

The world recently observed the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic disaster in which 1,514 people died after the ship struck an iceberg.  Much has been said about the “women and children first” rule that determined who would be the lucky ones to board the limited number of lifeboats.  Editorial cartoons of the day honored the heroic men who sacrificed their lives to allow others to live.  While gender roles have certainly changed since 1912, studies show that there is still considerable pressure on males to protect women from danger and to place their own well-being behind that of women.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister at Florida State University thinks he knows why men seem so self-sacrificing.  In nearly all human societies “men are expendable,” he proclaims.  And with expendability comes the kind of heroism shown by the men of the Titanic who drowned so that others would live.

Understanding Baumeister’s argument requires an examination of his larger thesis, namely, that evolution has endowed men and women with different motivations and priorities.  In his recent book, Is There Anything Good About Men, Baumeister first examines our patriarchal society — the inescapable fact that men have long dominated the political and economic spheres of our culture.  Men are more likely than women to be presidents, prime ministers, and members of Congress and Parliament.  Men are also more likely to be CEOs of major corporations and wielders of power on Wall Street.  We also see more men discovering cures for diseases, exploring space, and creating great works of art.

Feminists have argued that this gender gap in power, success, and wealth is due to men’s deliberate attempt to oppress women.  Baumeister does not disagree with this assertion.  He does, however, challenge us to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause.

Baumeister’s first observation is that while there are no doubt more men than women at the top of society, there are also more men at the bottom.  Men are far more likely than women to commit crimes and to serve time in prison.  Men are also more likely to suffer from severe mental disabilities; they are more likely to die in wars; they are more likely to be homeless; and they are more likely to have the worst and most dangerous jobs in society.

In short, Baumeister argues that men go to extremes more than women.  “In an important sense,” he writes, “men really are better AND worse than women.”

Why is this the case?  Baumeister points to biology and evolution.  Recent research using DNA analysis reveals that today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.  Throughout all of human history, it is estimated that perhaps about 80% of women but only 40% of men have been able to reproduce.  “It would be shocking,” writes Baumeister, “if these vastly different reproductive odds for men and women failed to produce some personality differences.”

Because men have faced a more daunting challenge in reproducing, they may have evolved to be more risk-taking than women.  Nature may have designed men to take chances, try new things, be creative, and explore bold possibilities.  Becoming a hero who succeeded in these risky endeavors may have given men a better chance to attract a woman with whom to reproduce.

Baumeister believes that because women are able only to bear a few children in their lifetime, their priority is to “play it safe” and invest time in developing close intimate relationships.  Women have done best by minimizing risks.

The key to understanding why women have evolved to avoid physical risk lies in understanding what drives population growth.  Baumeister argues that population growth depends much more upon there being plenty of women than upon there being plenty of men.  “To maximize reproduction,” says Baumeister, “a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but only a few penises can do the job.”  If a society loses half its men, the next generation can still be full-sized.  But if it loses half its women, the size of the next generation will be significantly smaller.  As a result, most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way while using men to do the risky work.

In short, men were designed by nature to take chances, risk their lives, and strive — mostly unsuccessfully — for greatness.

According to Baumeister, the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in a patriarchal conspiracy.  Rather, it came from naturally evolving forces that drove expendable men to seek out wealth, knowledge, and power at great risk to themselves and with the goal of improving their reproductive chances.

This brings us back to the Titanic and the men who heroically died so that women and children would live.  While nature may have designed men for this type of bold heroic sacrifice, this same brazenness sends many men spiraling downward toward a life of crime and other villainous activities.  Men are thus hard-wired for both greatness and wretchedness.  It’s a provocative idea, and it’s not without its detractors.  But it is also an idea well-worth thinking about.

References

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2011). Heroes: What They Do & Why We Need Them.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Baumeister, R. (2010). Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men. New York: Oxford University Press.

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

“The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill

A few weeks ago we posted a blog entry that posed the question of whether we expect too much from our heroes.  With so many heroes falling from grace in the past few years, we suggested the possibility that we hold them to too high a standard.  We also offered some reasons why we might expect more virtuous behavior from heroes than we do from the average non-hero.

Our good friend Greg Smith, who is the founder of Agile Writers, read our blog post and contributed a thoughtful comment that really got our attention.  Greg raised the possibility that we enter into an implicit exchange relationship with our heroes.  The exchange relationship carries with it an unspoken agreement that we make with heroes, and it goes something like this:  We agree to give heroes our adulation and support, but in return they must maintain an idealized image of human greatness.

Greg describes the bargain in the following way:  “You [the hero] reflect what we want to see in ourselves.  But if you reflect the reality of us as people and a society, then you’re just one of us after all.  And therefore, you’re no more special than we are and you have to come down from your pedestal and stand in the muck with the rest of us.”

If a hero misbehaves, we consider it a breech of contract and we withdraw our admiration and support.  We may also show considerable anger about the contract violation — witness the outrage directed toward Tiger Woods that still lingers to this day.  A broken agreement can turn a hero into a villain rather quickly and easily. Prominent examples, besides Tiger, include David Petraeus, LeBron James, Lance Armstrong, and Joe Paterno.

The idea that we enter into implicit agreements with the successful and powerful is not a new one.  In 2005, psychologist David Messick published an article in which he proposed that an implicit contract exists between leaders and followers.  The contract states that we’ll let leaders lead us if they provide us with a vision, a sense of pride in the group, and group security and protection.  In return, we’ll give leaders our loyalty, effort, and support.

We may have a similar implied agreement with celebrities and the rich.  The terms of the unspoken agreement may be that we’ll let famous celebrities have their fame and wealth, and we may even become their fans, but only as long as they earn their affluence honestly, pay a higher percentage of taxes, behave well, and don’t abuse their privileged status.

What’s most interesting about these implicit agreements is that highly successful people are either not aware of them, or they find it extremely difficult to honor them.  Those of us among the lowly masses seem to be much more sensitized to these informal contracts with heroes.  Maybe this is because we’d much rather be a hero than a hero would want to be us.  If we’re going to put them up on an enviable pedestal, the least they can do is follow basic rules of common decency.

Sometimes, after they’ve fallen, former heroes know they violated the contract.  Tiger Woods admitted as much.  “I knew my actions were wrong but I convinced myself that normal rules did not apply,” he said.  “I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by – I thought I could get away with everything I wanted to.  I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.  I felt I was entitled.”

Tiger’s confession is consistent with the results of several psychological studies showing that the more power and success that people enjoy, the more they believe they don’t need to play by the same rules as the rest of us.  And yet it is when someone becomes a hero that we most expect them to play by those rules.  For this reason, maintaining one’s heroic status may be just as challenging as becoming a hero in the first place.  Ironically, one of the most common ways to become a villain is to become a hero first.

All because of the deal we strike with our heroes.

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