Hero worship exists in almost every culture in various ways. Corresponding to the hero worship, heroism represents the pursuit of particular cultural value, and to a certain extent, it affects the development of the society. Largely reflected in the film and television, heroism is one of the most important themes in Western and Asian media markets. Admittedly, different culture has a different definition of heroism and different taste on the traits of heroes and each culture has its different ways of depicting the heroes. More specifically, Americans prefer heroes with bravery, righteousness, and sometimes superpower, which is most evident in the film “Iron Man”. On the other hand, Chinese prefer heroes with strong willpower, devotion and …show more content…
As a hero movie, Iron Man represents traditional American value, which is to help people out when they are in need. Tony Stark, in the movie, takes on more responsibility to save people and innocents who are in dangers. For example, when the villain in the movie attacks Air Force One and kidnaps the President while blowing a hole in the cabin, thirteen people are sucked out into the air. When Tony Stark, in the armor suit of iron man, is told that he can only carry out four of these innocents, he illustrates his responsibility and persistence as a national hero. By telling Heather, the first woman he saves, to calm down and stretch out her arms to grab other people in the air, Tony Stark gradually builds up teamwork and is able to get a hold of all thirteen people by having them grab onto each other like a human chain. Tony Stark’s initiative may not be saving the world, but he becomes a hero after saving as many people as possible along the way. However, on the other hand, Qiu in the movie “Qiushaoyun” is not that fortunate. When the incendiary bomb drops right next to him, Qiu is facing a dilemma, whether to risk to extinguish the fire on him by rolling into the stream nearby or not to expose his comrades by being burned to death without moving. Indeed, he chooses the latter and sacrifices his life for the army. However, the grief on his family for losing Qiu should never …show more content…
Tony Stark, in the movie Iron Man, is a perfect model of the American dream. Not only renowned as superhero, Tony Stark is also famous for his incredible intelligence as he graduated from MIT at the age of seventeen and for his successful carrier as he runs a huge weapon company and owns over ten billion wealth. Everyone wants to be such financially successful with genuine intelligence while possessing a deep sense of ethics like Tony Stark. Superhero like Iron Man pioneers the achievement of ideal individualism and the American dream and encourages everyone to pursue and work hard to achieve their values. On the other hand, Qiu, raised by traditional cultural values, is resolute on serving the collectivism as priority. He has been taught and asked to serve everything in necessary as long as it is beneficial for the group and for the country. Before the struggle for Hill 391, Qiu and his unit are trained to be silent and covert for more than twenty hours crawling on the ground with twigs as natural camouflage. No matter what conditions and accidents happen, no one in the unit is allowed to move and betray the position. When Qiu becomes trapped in the ensuing brush fire, in order not to betray the position of his comrades, he chooses to endure the agonizing pain. In the film, Qiu stuck his fingers deep into the soil as the fire keeps
Maria had no authority over her restless family. The source of the conflict between Antonio and Maria originates from her oldest sons taking to going where they please and not caring about their parent’s wishes. The burden of pleasing their parents passes from the eldest sons to the youngest one. With the sole duty of pleasing his parents, Tony internally rebels against their wishes instead seeking to set to rest his churning mind by seeking his own beliefs. His brothers console themselves about abandoning their family by saying that “Tony will be her priest” (Anaya 36) and not knowing that the “dreams of their father and mother [haunt] them” (Anaya 36) also haunted Antonio. Having the responsibilities of his brothers and his family shape the way he grows and thinks. He isn’t just thinking about himself he also has the problems of redeeming his family on his head. Through the story and through Ultima Tony realizes that he is not bound by obligations and can instead shape his own
In “Creating the Myth,” Linda Seger outlines the essential aspects that make up the hero myth, and why movies that follow this outline are generally successful. In her analysis, she begins with the idea that every hero myth revolves around a hero who is called upon to accomplish a feat that nobody else in the story is able to do. The hero’s journey begins with an unlikely person being called upon to serve a purpose greater than themselves. Along their journey, the hero is influenced by several archetypical characters that either help the hero, or try to deter the hero from accomplishing their task. The hero’s journey ends when they have accomplished their task, and in doing so, become a greater person than what they were in the beginning. A film that found tremendous success by following this outline was “Kung Fu Panda.”
In the end, Tony plays the role of both hero and villain. His wife, Marcela, represents both the whore and the virgin Mexican-American. The both prove unfaithful: Tony to America and Marcela to Mexico. Herein lays the schizophrenic world in which good and bad coexist across the borders of two emerging world countries struggling for control of land and culture. There’s a price to be paid for such human greed and unrealistic expectations. Ultimately it proves to be a place where virtue doesn’t remain intact and villains abound, even among the good guys!
Instead of choosing not to grant his brothers rest because he cannot use God’s power, he decides to use the golden carp. It shows that little things are able to persuade Tony into leaning towards the golden carp and the river, and away from God. His belief in God is not as strong as it used to be, and that could influence what he will do in the
Response 2 Many times in western cultures heroes or superheroes are thought to have physical strength as well as supernatural powers in which one uses to fight against evil (Chinese Heroism). This differs from the characteristics of a hero in Chinese culture as many times hero’s are considered average in physical appearance and possess qualities of “morally, culturally or intellectually” (Chinese Heroism). These qualities are also used for helping the good of the family or for China (Chinese Heroism).
Tony learns that it is possible to gain this strength, which is vital in the process of
A brave hero often risks his/her lives to save someone else. In Zeitoun, Dave Eggers tells us a story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the hard working Syrian American owner of a contracting company in New Orleans. Zeitoun and his wife Kathy ran the company together. They have three children named Nademah, Safiyah, Aisha. Kathy has a child from her first marriage. Zeitoun is very closed with his family and he takes his family like nobody else. When hurricane Katrina landed in 2005, endless number of people were affected. Mayor Nagin ordered a first time ever mandatory evacuation. Kathy moved with the children to her sister’s house in Baton Rouge. Zeitoun refused to leave with his family because he didn’t want lose his properties, but at the same time, his customers trusted him and gave him their house keys to check on their houses, which caused his separation with his family. This illustrates that Zeitoun is a responsible, powerful, trustworthy, and unselfish person. During the hurricane, Zeitoun was using a canoe rescuing people. Due to the lack of rescue work, many people didn’t get enough supports at that time. Zeitoun had the courage to sacrifice his family, safety, and selfish needs for saving the people.
The group of Americans were very leery of Tony when he discussed the plan to get them out of Tehran. They wanted to know why they should trust him and how he can guarantee his plan would be successful. Source credibility has three elements of credibility: competence, trustworthiness, and goodwill. The group questioned Tony’s competence, when they asked him directly, “what are our chances”, in which he responded, “Chances are good”. (Affleck, 2012). This led to some tension as they questioned what the percentage of “good” was and brought up the capture of other Americans that attempted to escape. When they realized this was the first attempt of this type, trustworthiness was challenged and the fact that they are supposed to trust him with their lives. To try to ease the group; Tony explained what he does and his success rate. Tension increased amongst the six Americans and they tried to convince each other that this was their only option. The character “Joe” was the most skeptical and said it was suicide and that he did not trust Tony. Tony explained to Joe and his wife that he rescues people and promised he will get them out. This was an expression of goodwill, if the group was not convinced Tony cared about them, the plan would have never worked, as it took each one of them to stay in character in order for them to all get out alive. In a key pivoting scene Tony was asked, “Do you think your story is going to matter when there is a gun to our head?”, in which Tony responds, “I think my story is the only thing between you and a gun to your head.” (Affleck, 2012). All three components of Source Credibility were crucial in the movie; without the group having competence in Tony, along with trusting his plan and that his intentions were for their benefit, the plan would have
Tony saw through the prejudice though, he loved one of the PR's and when the Jets found out, they were ashamed. Tony's love for Maria was so real, he didn't care what happened. He died.Prejudice plagues this world now and forever, as long as there is a difference in people there will discrimination and prejudice.
When asking people about what characteristics they think of when they think of a hero the most common answers would be doing good deeds and not allowing evil to flourish. This is what we have been made to believe. One of the first images that come to mind when the word hero is mentioned is a superhero. An image of Batman or Superman is likely, one who is good natured and conquers evil as it appears. Just doing good deeds or not committing evil sins is not enough. First you would have to distinguish the difference between an evil and a good action. The line between good and evil is so thin that specific attributes and certain actions are constantly being exchanged back and forth. We cannot decide as a society what is good and what is evil. A modern day example would be when the United States made the decision to bomb Japan during World War II. For Americans celebration ensued as it was thought to be a decisive moment of victory. Those who were involved in t...
The difference between a superhero, as we know from movies and comics, and a traditional hero is rather unclear for many people.. In modern times, a superhero is often a being with supernatural abilities. For example, the movies depict them as individuals with super strength, night vision, the ability to climb walls, and so on. The majority of audiences have been spoiled with these unrealistic depictions and are unable to recall the real or “traditional” hero. In the texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Book of Job, and Bhagavad Gita, heroes are not “as seen on television”, but something more. The heroes in these stories carry great strengths such as wisdom, patience, and pride. To illustrate these characteristics, the protagonists themselves
In their graphic novel Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons establish their story during the Cold War period, when a group of superheroes tackle the task to save humanity from a potential World War III caused by tensions among governmental powers. Managed by the intelligence of Adrian Veidt, the worst was avoided after the attack of alien forces causes the death of millions of New Yorkers that leads to a temporary world peace. The representations of the Watchmen superheroes of Moore and Gibbons, particularly Rorschach, display the concept of heroism being a part of the real world, among the regular public of our society.
... based upon historic events, the protagonists portrayed here perpetuate the idea that man has always chosen for his super-heroes the qualities which he desires for himself: power, near-perfection, pride and loyalty. We celebrate theism as heroic qualities in the twentieth century. Will there ever be different qualities, qualities that might preserve a civilization longer than the civilizations that created these two brutal epics?
After his parents dying, Batman, or Bruce Wayne, have promised himself to get rid of the evil in the city. He spent most of his childhood training his intellectual and physical abilities in order to defeat the villains. As a result, Batman is considered one of the most intelligent superheroes around. According to Caleb Hu, “[Bruce Wayne] is cited to have an IQ of 192 and is considered to be a polymath” (Quora). Due to the fact that he have started traveling when he was just a teenager, he have learned about many subjects, such as “physics, math, chemistry, engineering, etc.” (Quora). Because of the loss of his parents, he have become driven to continue and push his limits in order to learn more about the elements of the criminal mind. On the other hand, Iron Man has a different type of intelligence. Before Tony Stark’s parents died, he have been sent to MIT at the age of 15 to study the numerous scientific fields, such as physics, engineering, and computer science. After his parents have died, he have acquired the family business, which was the Stark’s Industries. His intelligence have outperformed most of the superheroes. In addition to his intelligence, “ Stark was once called the world’s most adept multi-tasker by Reed Richards, due to his ability to compartmentalize his mind into three separate yet independently operating sections” (CBR.com).
Nowadays, we can see so many hero type people in our society. Different culture and different countries will appear different types of hero. Hero gave us confident and we can trust them. I have chosen two heroes to compare and contrast based on cultural aspect and what they act. The two heroes are The Batman and Iron Man.