What Really Defines a Hero?
Professional athletes are not heroes. This statement of mine seems harsh. Why? Because when I say it, it sounds like I don’t appreciate their immense talent or that I don’t think that some star athletes are also great people. Neither is true. I am happy when my favorite ball player scores to win the game for my team. I do applaud the great things some sports figures are doing off the field/court, etc. It is just that I subscribe to a more literal definition of a hero. A hero is someone who saves another person from a burning building or saves someone else’s life in some other way. (As an animal lover and cat daddy, I would also say that saving animals is heroic.)
Most people when they use the term “hero” really mean “role model.” A role model is somebody you want to be like. You like the way the role model acts, and you want to imitate whatever made him or her successful. Just because role models can hit a baseball out of the park, act in a movie, have external beauty, or play the drums in a rock or country concert doesn’t mean that their moral character is also excellent and that we should live like them. There is something about human nature that makes these things hard to separate.
In stories, a hero is the character we are supposed to sympathize with. A less formal word for the hero is “good guy.” A fancier word for the hero is “protagonist.” You have probably heard that word only in literature class. A villain acts against the hero. The villains are also called “bad guys” or “antagonists.”
Children love superheroes. Even today, I sometimes like to see a superhero movie. Who could blame them for this love? Superheroes can fly, bend steel bars, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and more. They suggest to children and adults that there can be goodness in the world. What’s the problem? There are rare exceptions, such as a Batman superhero who once served my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. But in general, superheroes are not real.
I will never forget in the wake of 9/11, there was an image of ordinary looking firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders with Superman literally and metaphorically looking up to them and saying “Wow!” At a time when a nation was shaken to the core, our concept of a hero was one of many things that had to be reexamined. These real-life heroes made fictional superheroes pale in comparison. I almost felt guilty about enjoying superhero movies and cartoons. However, growing up watching and reading about fictional heroes can give children a picture of what heroes are and lead them to appreciate the real heroes, and perhaps even become one later in life.
True heroes don’t know they are heroes. They do what they do because it is the right thing to do. Heroes do not pass judgment on the people they are trying to save. They see them as humans who need to be saved. If you support them, you can be a part of their heroic effort.