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Writing
From the Real World:
A Hero Ain’t Nothing
But a Sandwich.
-Victor D. Infante
To
paraphrase NoCal writer R. Eirik Ott, there
is one conversation that every American
boy in junior high school has: “who’s cooler,
Han Solo or Indiana Jones?” There are variations
of course. Who’s cooler, “Batman or Superman?”
or, “Who’d win in a fight, Batman or Spiderman?”.
And
while any right thinking person knows the
answers are A, B and B, it does lead one
to consider what makes a hero. Is it just
a person who helps other people, who protects
those weaker than them. Maybe. Is it, as
our President would have us think, someone
who fights evil, whatever the Hell that
means? Maybe that, too. But y’see, we live
in morally gray times, where sometimes you
strip away the veneer of the so-called evil
ones and find they’re fundamentally no different
than anyone else. The President talks about
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and accuses
critics of U.S. policies in the region of
dwelling on nuances. Truth is, it’s all
nuance. That’s what life is, and in fiction,
it’s what makes a story or a hero compelling.
It’s
“nuance” that transforms a character from
a mere protagonist into a full-fledged hero.
In a recent Internet discussion, for instance,
one person pointed out that what was interesting
about novelist John LeCarre’s “heroes” are
that “many of them are essentially bad guys
on our side.”
But--LeCarre
and Joseph Campbell aside--there are dozens
of heroic archetypes out there: the straightforward,
altruistic boy scouts like Superman and
Luke Skywalker; the otherwise normal folks
who hold to the mantra, “With great power
comes great responsibility,” such as Spiderman
and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the heroes
by circumstance, such as Han Solo and BtVS’s
Spike, who seem destined to fight the good
fight almost despite themselves; the soldiers
against the dark driven by great personal
tragedy, a la Batman.
The
lists go on, but really, it’s horribly easy
to make a hero too bland--as Superman’s
been in many incarnations. Too perfect,
too uninteresting. It’s the flaws that allow
us to associate with them. Much of this
has been discussed before, often. One area
that does seem to get a short shrift, however,
is the issue of violence. For a variety
of reasons, the overwhelming majority of
cinematic heroes are exceedingly violent.
I don’t really have a beef with that--I
write some violent material myself (and
believe that some brands of Hollywood violence
are actually cathartic, rather than encouraging
of bad behavior.) What always strikes me
as odd is that the people I see as heroes
in real life are inevitable non-violent:
Jesus, Gandhi, MLK. I guess Batman turning
the other cheek against Mr. Freeze makes
for lousy viewing.
Or
does it? In the season finale for BtVS this
season, Xander managed to save the world
in a non-violent manner, by bringing the
out of control witch Willow back to reality
with love. “I’ve got powers of my own, you
know. This carpenter’s gonna drywall you
into the next Century.” Snerk. Xander’s
a Christ figure!
I
liked it. For once, I got to see a hero
win the day with values I actually hold
in the real world, not with ones I play
out in the world of make-believe.
There
probably isn’t an easy answer here, but
if there’s a point, perhaps it’s this: if
your hero needs to resort to behavior that
you yourself wouldn't’t to save the day,
why are they still a hero? The answer to
that should be complex, and in that complexity
lies the nuances you need to make your hero
real.
(Victor
D. Infante is a regular contributor to OC
Weekly and the Worcester InCity Times, and
the author of the recent screenplay, Nihilist
Chic. You can visit him on the web of http://www.quantumredhead.com/victor.)
(c) Victor D. Infante,
2002
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