In an effort to avoid finishing my take-home final essay, I am blogging for you, lucky people.
We went and saw The Avengers this last weekend. It was, of course, most awesome. Joss Whedon does a masterful job of balancing each character with empathy, all while packing it full of action and comedy. But that’s beside my point — my point being it had a hero for everyone.
There’s the anti-hero types, the altruistic type, the ‘born-to-it’ type, the accidental type, the duty-bound type. But what really makes them heroes are what they all have in common: not their love of adventure and excitement, not good looks, not brains or brawn, though all those things help. It is their proclivity to put the needs of others ahead of themselves, to the point of sacrificing themselves for the good of others. This is an understated gift that is essential, in my mind, for a good hero. And we need good heroes. Our world, our society, needs people who give themselves up for the good of others. We don’t see it often — certainly not in world leaders, or most public figures. I have seen it, though. In occasional airline pilots, or mothers, or joes on the street. Some people do it in dramatic risk-their-life-in-a-flash fashion, others through personally draining, daily life choices. It’s never easy. It’s rarely that public. But these people are heroes and we need them. We need them to keep the world moving, we need them to give us hope. The good thing is, EVERYONE can be a hero. It’s a choice we all can make.
SPOILER ALERT for Avengers: I keep asking myself ‘who was the main hero in the Avengers?’ Joss Whedon did such a great job of balancing the supers that you couldn’t name just one — but there was one, Phil Colson, who sacrificed himself for the greater good. He was the hero of that movie.