{"id":2822,"date":"2013-03-22T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T10:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/?p=2822"},"modified":"2013-03-21T22:37:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T02:37:03","slug":"the-everyman-superhero-in-three-recent-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/2013\/03\/22\/the-everyman-superhero-in-three-recent-films\/","title":{"rendered":"The Everyman Superhero in Three Recent Films"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Greg Smith<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Agile Writers we are guided by the principles of storytelling that were exposed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The hero starts out in his ordinary world where \u201csomething happens\u201d that pushes him into some other \u201cspecial world\u201d where he meets friends and enemies.\u00a0 He accomplishes some goal and in so doing he fulfills his missing inner quality.<\/p>\n

The classic super hero story is often just such a journey.\u00a0 The hero has some character flaw that is exposed early in the story.\u00a0 The hero attains a power that throws him into a special world of being \u201csuper.\u201d\u00a0 He spends the next part of the story learning how to master the power.\u00a0 By the end of the first 30 minutes of the film, our hero has mastered his powers and he has an enemy to overcome.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we\u2019ve also learned that the hero has a severe inner pain that must be salved.\u00a0 And we\u2019re off.<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019d like to look at three very similar films.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

In Kick-Ass<\/em><\/strong> (2010) we meet young Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who has all the problems of the typical teenager.\u00a0 He wants to meet girls, he gets his lunch money stolen by older boys, and he feels powerless in a world of adults.\u00a0 Dave becomes so tired of being a victim and of watching \"\"<\/a>others play the victim that he dons a green scuba outfit and becomes Kick-Ass the crime fighter.\u00a0 He confronts the local hoodlums who quickly stab him and throw him under a bus.\u00a0 Dave undergoes multiple surgeries to reinforce his bones with steel and as a result of his accident he has a reduced sensation to pain.\u00a0 He befriends other local self-made heroes and takes on the crime syndicate.<\/p>\n

In Super<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 (2010) we\u2019re introduced to Frank Darbo (Rain Wilson) who is a thirty-something short order cook.\u00a0 He\u2019s done little with his life \u2013 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.\u00a0 His recovering addict wife of seven years leaves him for Jacques (Kevin Bacon) who supplies her with drugs.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Frank decides that he is going to recover his wife by becoming the Crimson Bolt.\u00a0 He befriends a young girl who clerks at the local comic-book store and together they take on the local drug syndicate.<\/p>\n

From Australia comes Griff the Invisible<\/em><\/strong> (2010), the story of an ordinary office worker who believes that he has harnessed the power of invisibility. \u00a0Griff (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.
\nWhat these characters have in common is a sense of powerlessness.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Unlike the super heroes of comics and film, they aren\u2019t hiding their identities to protect those they love, but to protect themselves from detection.\u00a0 Once hidden, they are able to distance themselves from the limitations they feel when they are their ordinary selves.<\/p>\n

And that is the message of these films. We each have the capacity to go beyond who and what we are right now.\u00a0 The things that often hold us down are the preconceptions that we have about ourselves, and the prejudging that others impose upon us.\u00a0 When these heroes don the mask and cape, they isolate and separate themselves from these limitations.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Kick-Ass<\/em><\/strong>, Super<\/em><\/strong>, and Griff <\/em><\/strong>all follow super hero patterns that you\u2019ll recognize.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 What is different about these films from other super hero films is that in the end, each hero returns to his origin:\u00a0 ordinary, healed, and newly super.
\n– – – – – – – – –
\nThis essay is reprinted from Matthew Killorin’s excellent Capes on Film blog<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Greg Smith<\/a> founded Agile Writers<\/a> in 2011 with the mission to discover a method for helping beginning writers complete a first-draft novel in 6 months.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The hero starts … Continue reading The Everyman Superhero in Three Recent Films<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5444],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-and-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phawtM-Jw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}