I Need a Hero

Have you noticed anything missing from TV lately?  Think hard.  What used to be around all the time that is now increasingly tougher to find?  It’s simple – we’re running out of heroes.

Amazing, isn’t it?  We have hundreds of channels, probably thousands of shows and the old-fashioned good guy — a strong, brave soul determined to do good and tirelessly battle evil – is harder to find than an episode of TMZ where they don’t mention the name “Kardashian.”

Going back to the early days of TV and continuing well into the 80’s, there were always plenty of ‘good guys’ to be found.  Batman, Joe Friday, the Lone Ranger….hell, even Magnum P.I. was basically a good guy (despite owning a man-servant and being a bit of a womanizer).  Parents could let their kids watch TV and convince themselves that the kids were picking up some good morals from the characters who frequently had their name in the title.  And while TV’s “24” featured the one-and-only Jack Bauer who was a certified badass (and basically good), Jack is now gone, leaving a vacuum left to be filled.

It seems nowadays you can’t really have a successful show if your main character doesn’t have some deep, dark secret or, at the very least, some negative personality traits.  Dr. House, for example, is brilliant and saves lives just about every week…but is also an egotistic asshole addicted to pain killers.  Dexter Morgan has no problem taking out society’s trash, but he seems much more motivated by his own “Dark Passenger” that fills him with the overwhelming urge to kill than by any altruistic motivation to make the world a better place.

Maybe now that I’m in my 30s, I’m starting to pine for the 80s and bemoan the fact that so many things aren’t as good as they used to be.  I saw this fully aware that I’m starting to sound like a bitter old man who will loudly proclaim to anyone who will listen that music, films, and TV shows were unequivocally better when he was a kid and that everything out there today is crap.  I won’t go that far because, to be honest, there were some disastrous shows back then, too.  There always have been.  But that old man does have a bit of a point.

On the one hand, it’s probably natural, good, and healthy that society’s tastes in TV shows have changed and that there is more variety than ever.  After all, the saccharine-sweet days of the 1950’s and 60’s are gone, and for the most part…good riddance.   Watching a presumably married couple sleep in separate twin beds has a certain antiquated charm, but says at least as much about the producers’ idea of what society could tolerate than it does about our collective standards for what is normal, natural and healthy.

There’s a whole “chicken and the egg” question with regards to what kind of shows get picked up and become popular.  Is there so much junk on TV because we demand it as an audience, or do we consume it simply because there’s so much of it?  Society has undeniably changed and now more than ever, there is a ‘gotcha culture’ where we build up our new idols to be larger than life, only to tear them down when they reveal that they have some human flaw.  Nobody can be under a microscope these days without some dirt being found, even if that dirt is just that you have issues with your weight or a bad relationship with a parent or sibling.  Perhaps it’s only natural that writers and producers now build these flaws into our characters simply because nobody could believe that there is anyone, anywhere who can be good all the time.

Regardless of the answer, TV is the land of fiction, and I for one miss the days of the simple hero.  The human condition is full of problems, mistakes, and bouts with moral ambiguity.   We see it in our own lives, on the way to work, and within our own families.  I’m just not convinced we need to see it on every TV show, too.

I hope I’ve given you something to think about, kids.  Now stay off my lawn.

-Bill Henry