Heroes

by Jon Gardner on 30.11.08

So Batman Begins… again. A Hero’s return has shattered the box office; has led the way over a Summer full of fiction fuelled by our apparent desire for Justice being done. As much as we are giggling like gleeful babies into our popcorn over Iron Men and Hulk-outs, and we are, many of us are also wondering; “Where are our real heroes then?”

Many of us are musing, Surely by now, someone should have tried this, here in the real world?

To grease the wheels in this particular “Comic book” movie, we have a setting we actually can recognise. Gotham is New York; is London. It’s Manchester. It is, as we know of our own cities, seething. The citizens are generally afraid. Fear, at least on some level, is their normal state; as it is ours. Gotham’s nerves have been shredded so far that they needed a lunatic to jump in and rescue them and it worked, by all accounts.
And we love that it worked.

So where does that leave us? If we also feel that fear, I mean. Wanting a hero, perhaps, but not deciding to be that hero. Certainly not. And quite right. After all, we can’t publicly condone an aggressive response to aggression, or business done by virtue of aggression, can we? No most definitely we cannot. That would be wrong. It would be “Playing into their hands”. The Terrorists would win.

But… Oh, it would be cool. And let’s not kid ourselves friends, we’re a cool bunch. Having flung ourselves two, three generations past those chumps who believed Love would save the day before they even knew just how long and dreary that day really was, we can see the world behind the world behind the guys behind the world, can’t we? We’re razor sharp. We’re hip. Hip enough to see through the bullshit and ask the real questions, in our great shades and our awesome shoes. Our questions are these:

- If we’re so beautiful and evolved; If we’re so clear on that Real Deal, then why are we still surrounded by predators and frightened of each other?

- Why is a World of Warcraft so preferable to the real world for so many?

- Why does everyone stare at each other in that way?

Well first off let’s establish the obvious: There are just too many people around. It’s true, smarter apes than me have said it clearly and often, and it can’t be fixed. So yes, we’re gruff. We’re sick of looking at each other at all, understandably and so yes, we frown and we stare. We don’t, on the whole, really mean to say “I hate your very soul with all my being” with every fleeting glance, but sometimes we stop concentrating properly and we wear that face, despite ourselves. This has, in its’ own way, contributed to a pot starting to boil…

“What are you looking at?”

“You better than me?

“You wanna go?!”

Like a slow and sick game of Pile-On, we have, over the decades, absent-mindedly provoked each other into a state of constant mistrust, dislike and threat. We are now all, ALL of us, either Victim or Aggressor. You know this is true, and right now, being one or the other, you’re either smugly smiling in agreement or wishing you could fix it.

That’s why so many love Batman. We want the bullies to go away and wish he would do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. But here lies our rub, my loves. You see, for every person that wishes we had a silent saviour prowling our rooftops, keeping us safe, there’s another who wishes he was Tony Montana, or Al Capone, or the Joker. There are another five that just want to see what your blood looks like.

But we cannot condone vigilantism. It is a line we cannot cross. Isn’t it?

A rapist thwarted. A gang who would cripple or kill a family man rather than leave his car alone; discouraged, and anyone else who might see them as a practical example of how to be a part of this evolved city, this beautiful society you’re damn lucky to have slipped into, turned off the idea by the potential response.

No we cannot condone this being considered as a solution. We must, instead, watch the rooftops and dream, and sigh. Because it isn’t going to be you, my fresh and freckled faced young monkeys. You’re not going to do it are you? Snatching a purse, stabbing someone, lying on your couch wanking over Transformers, it’s all the same isn’t it? All of this is easier than making a stand isn’t it?

I put it to you that this attitude is the reason we are living with bars on our windows and cameras on our street corners. This tied down life is easier on you all than getting rid of the dogs that are trying to bite their way through your cage. If you weren’t so afraid of what taking that Stand might lead to, we wouldn’t be on the menu. We wouldn’t need saving.

I’ll leave it with you.