Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Superman is more than blue tights

Sarah has been getting some flak about her choice of admirable traits she hoped she would have if she were faced with being held by terrorists.

"Jack Bauer is a fictional character. But what is the purpose of our modern day tales and legends if not moral instruction? Don't we invent heroes because we wish to emulate them in some way, because their exaggerated traits are our ideal? We don't watch 24 because we want Jack to wimp out and take the easy way to appease the enemy; we watch it because we want our inner heroes to strive to measure up to our fictional heroes...

I'm well aware that life isn't a movie and we don't always get a happy ending. But Fabrizio Quattrocchi had a fiancee and family too, and he still had the courage to defy the enemy. I'm saying I hope I'd do the same. You don't have to agree with me, but don't insult my intelligence by reducing my very serious and heartfelt post into pretending I don't understand the difference between TV death and real death."

I find it funny that so many complain that there are no role models in current society and that children have so few to look up to. When Sarah chooses two people with admirable behavior (one real and one fictional) she’s slammed and told that her opinion that these models of human nature are just some sort of delusion she's created with her head stuck in the sand.

Fictional or otherwise, behaviors as well as people can be looked upon as a source of encouragement and ones you would like to adopt for your own. Is there really something wrong with hoping that you would be as strong as Superman when standing up for the safety of your family? Or maybe as smart as another superhero in resolving something with your government?

If it makes you act better, or hell take action at all then there’s nothing really wrong with a comic book character or TV or whatever.

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