{"id":3032,"date":"2013-07-11T06:25:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T10:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2015-01-23T21:52:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-24T02:52:55","slug":"heroes-in-the-movies-five-myths-that-need-busting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/2013\/07\/11\/heroes-in-the-movies-five-myths-that-need-busting\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroes in the Movies: Five Myths That Need Busting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Scott T. Allison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For the past several months, I\u2019ve been reviewing movies with my good friend Greg Smith<\/a> at our Reel Heroes website<\/a>.\u00a0 Our reviews focus not only on the quality of a movie but also on the quality of the hero<\/a> and the hero story within the movie.\u00a0 It\u2019s been great fun, and I\u2019ve gotten a lot out of it, particularly a love for those cookie-dough bites<\/a> that our local theater sells.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reviewed about 35 movies and I\u2019m noticing some interesting trends.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019ve been going to movies my whole life and have always enjoyed good movies and good hero stories.\u00a0 But writing these reviews has sensitized me to story details and character analysis.\u00a0 Whereas I used to sit in the theater, mindlessly munching on popcorn, now I\u2019m sitting there with my cookie-dough bites actually thinking about the various characters, the functions they serve, and whether their actions are consistent with current theory and research on heroes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So are movie heroes good heroes?<\/p>\n

The conclusions I\u2019m reaching are not terribly encouraging.\u00a0 Granted, it\u2019s the summer blockbuster season and Greg assures me that the movie studios are saving their best films for the fall and winter seasons.\u00a0 Still, as we watch each movie, I\u2019m asking \"\"<\/a>myself, \u201cWell, that was fun, but didn\u2019t we just see this same movie last week?\u201d\u00a0 It’s true that the names of the characters are different, and the costumes they\u2019re wearing are different.\u00a0 But these summer movies are becoming almost interchangeable.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt that the makers of Hollywood films are smart people.\u00a0 The problem isn\u2019t with their intelligence, or with the effort put into film-making.\u00a0 In fact, the effort is astounding.\u00a0 There is no shortage of breathtaking scenes and scenery in today\u2019s movies.\u00a0 The CGI effects are simply jaw-dropping.\u00a0 And at the end, during the film credits, hundreds and hundreds of people\u2019s names scroll down.\u00a0 Each film is an amazing collective effort.<\/p>\n

The problem, I suspect, is that filmmakers\u2019 goals are somewhat askew. \u00a0Instead of aiming to produce great movies with great hero stories, they aim to make movies that make money. Armed with tried-and-true formulae and professional script doctors<\/a>, movie studios will only invest vast sums of money into films that aim low and then invariably hit that mark.<\/p>\n

Movie-makers appear to worship at the altar of five myths about heroes:<\/p>\n

1) The bigger the muscles, the better the hero<\/span>.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m just envious, especially in light of my cookie-dough bite obsession, but Hugh Jackman<\/a> is now \u201cHuge\u201d Jackman.\u00a0 Dwayne Johnson<\/a> isn\u2019t a rock, he\u2019s a continent.\u00a0 Apparently, heroism doesn\u2019t involve selflessness and self-sacrifice.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>It\u2019s more about being able to lift enormous amounts of weight in the gym.\u00a0 Look how superheroes have evolved into muscle-bound freaks<\/a>.\u00a0 Christopher Reeve’s Superman<\/a> is downright anorexic compared to Henry Cavill’s rendition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) The more times a hero fights the villain, the better the hero<\/span>.\u00a0 The great comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell<\/a>, identified a pattern in the structure of the classic hero story from his observation of thousands of ancient hero myths.\u00a0 Yes, in a good hero story there is a fateful encounter with a villain.\u00a0 No, these encounters do not need to continue ad infinitum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

3) Heroes\u2019 bones are unbreakable<\/span>.\u00a0 In almost every movie, we see heroes surviving several hundred-foot falls, impossibly violent collisions, and fiery bomb blasts.\u00a0 Movie heroes get clobbered by steel beams, leap off speeding trains, and are punched senseless by bad guys.\u00a0 Yet they suffer nary a scratch.<\/p>\n

4) The longer the story, the better the hero<\/span>.\u00a0 Hollywood filmmakers are epic-philes who fail to realize that after two hours, most audiences are done.\u00a0 Finished.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need two and a half or three hour-long marathons.\u00a0 My cookie-dough bites just don\u2019t last that long.<\/p>\n

5) Heroes are only male<\/span>.\u00a0 Over 90% of the movies we\u2019ve reviewed feature a male hero. The Heat<\/a><\/em>, The Call<\/em><\/a>, and Epic<\/a><\/em> were exceptions to the rule.\u00a0 Apparently, when the emphasis is on muscles and fighting, women don\u2019t fit the bill.\u00a0 How sad that the movies industry has virtually blacklisted women from heroic roles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

– – – – –<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Greg and I watched a delightful movie called Mud<\/em><\/a> that runs only two hours and garnered a meager $20 million at the box office \u2013- chump change compared to the hundreds of millions earned by Iron Man 3<\/a>, Man of Steel<\/a>, \"\"<\/a>Star Trek Into Darkness<\/a>, <\/em>and Fast & Furious 6<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

None of the characters in Mud<\/em> has huge muscles.\u00a0There aren\u2019t endless fight scenes or constant explosions or dramatic falls from great distances.\u00a0 Instead, we meet a young boy who tries to help a mysterious stranger, and who falls in love with a young girl.\u00a0 Both of these relationships cause him pain and he is forced to grow emotionally.<\/p>\n

This is hardly exciting stuff if you worship at the altar of the five myths above.\u00a0 But as of mid-July, Mud<\/em> is the best movie of the year.\u00a0 The hero of the story does the right thing and discovers his missing inner qualities that help him rise above adversity.<\/p>\n

In the movies, we need more Muds and fewer duds.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott T. Allison For the past several months, I\u2019ve been reviewing movies with my good friend Greg Smith at our Reel Heroes website.\u00a0 Our reviews focus not only on the quality of a movie but also on the quality of the hero and the hero story within the movie.\u00a0 It\u2019s been great fun, and … Continue reading Heroes in the Movies: Five Myths That Need Busting<\/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":[27467,27466],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-and-analysis","tag-movie-heroes","tag-myths-about-heroes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phawtM-MU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","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=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}