The Importance Of Traditional Heroes In American Culture

A strong male with every characteristic of a traditional hero has been for years pushed by all types of media. The laundry list of what it takes to be a hero includes high expectancies common people find unattainable. Not everyone is a White male with a great physique and Christian morals. Due to the high standard, over the years there has been a shift in what the media depicts as a hero and what common people choose to look up to. The problem not only lies in film and television but also comes from local news outlets. Today every act, small or big is looked as heroic making it possible for any average Joe to be a candidate. Right or wrong, acts that unfortunately claim someone’s life are plastered in every news story with a catchy headline

The specific characteristics common in fictional and real life heroes revolve on, as what Ray mentions in his article the thematic paradigm “…the best characteristics of adulthood”(p 379). Official heroes have a higher ethical code, wisdom, and as portrayed in popular comic book characters such as Captain America they are white Christian males. It’s an odd thing that America fictional heroes have to be Christian or display some sort of Christian morals in order to be seen as a hero. As Richard Corliss adds in his article, The Gospel according to Spiderman (599), ministers find religious dimensions in comic book superheroes because the heroes wisdom and integrity tells people that God has created us all in his own image. As more and more traditional heroes have embodied God-like heroes and created an unreachable pedestal that only a select few can reach the line between traditional heroes and others such as anti-heroes has

This odd phenomenon is constantly exploited by news outlets who finalize a report or article about a tragic incident by stating that the person’s actions were heroic because they gave up their life doing a selfless act. It may seem great that others lived due to another’s actions but the fact that only those who die are seen as heroes seems to be a twisted mindset. For example the case of the Sandy Hook, who along five other teachers tragically died protecting their students during a school shooting. While twenty-eight lives where lost that day, the news coverage following the massacre focused in on only Sandy Hook. Many news outlets and people from the community called her a hero, praising her actions that saved her students lives. To honor her actions school officials even changed the name of the school to Sandy Hook Elementary School in an attempt to praise her for her heroic sacrifice that will never be forgotten (LA TIMES). There’s no denying that her actions follow what any traditional hero would do, being brave and selfless, the fact that a person has to die for a label is an unreachable standard on its own. Not everyone that dies is automatically a hero and casually has a school named after them or even an article praising their actions. This ideal that media has set is far-fetched and ridiculous. It applies to those who risk