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From the Kitchen Table

Hollywood and Hope

by Peg Luksik

The summer blockbusters have begun. And with few exceptions, the movie industry is serving America a summer of heroes.

Every brand of heroism will be included. Moviegoers will be invited to share in the larger-than-life heroics of Indiana Jones and Batman. They will be asked to accompany the heroic children back to Narnia. They will be tickled by comic heroism of an animated panda and a futuristic robot. They will share in the reluctant heroism of the Incredible Hulk and an unwilling assassin. They will be asked to watch fallen heroes such as Hancock reconnect to their greatness. And they will see everyday people rise to heroism in The Event.

Many have commented on the philosophy that the movie industry seems to advance – a philosophy which does not match that of the majority of their audience members. But the movie industry IS an industry. And this year, it's an industry with money problems.

So this year, that industry needs to attract an audience. They need to connect with the public with a product that entices them to spend the gas to get to the theater, and then spend the money to buy an ever-more-expensive ticket.

They didn't choose musicals or romantic comedies or horror or social commentary. They almost universally chose to present heroes. If one studio had done so, it would have been a statement of the personal preference of the company's owners or a recognition that a particular film idea was deemed worthy of the multi-million dollar production cost. But when every studio does so, it is more a statement about our culture than about the movie industry.

And our culture is starving for heroes.

There was a time when heroes could be found in the country's leadership. But today the term politician is more often an insult than a job description.

There was a time when heroes could be found in the country's sports figures. But today too many records have asterisks and too many athletes seem to care more about the size of their contracts than the example they set for their fans.

There was a time when heroes could be found in the religious communities. But today the scandals that have rocked every church have challenged the faithful and alienated the skeptic.

Enter the Hollywood hero. Larger than life, with super abilities, amazing technology, and every martial art skill ever invented. They face super-villains, who take them to the limit of their physical, mental and emotional skills. And they prevail.
It's the prevailing part that really matters. At the end of a Hollywood epic, the hero wins. Goodness can and does conquer evil.

There is lots of evil in the world today. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the feeling that the situation is hopeless. Then we watch our favorite cinematic hero face and overcome impossible odds. And even though we know that he is pretend, the uplifting feeling that our fictional hero creates inside us is real.

The real gift of Hollywood heroes is hope. If they can conquer the impossible, we can cope with the challenges in our own lives. Because every one of us has a hero living inside just waiting to emerge and conquer the day. Hope connects each of us to that hero.