MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Does real life REALLY have no heroes and...

Does real life REALLY have no heroes and villains in it UNLIKE the movies?


And that everything is complex, in a flux, full of life's natural inconvenience etc and that its not the type of world where good wins, evil gets it and everyone lives happily ever after as a result, right? But more importantly...

As UNFORTUNATE and INCONVENIENT as it all IS, sometimes if not always MASSIVELY SO, is it all normal and natural? Doesn't matter where you're coming from, what religion and nationality you are, what your gender is etc?

(And sorry if I sometimes talked ambiguously and with shy embarrassment about "some unique bad cases" here or there but its all alright now, thank you, point was - I, like others, was sometimes touched by things other than law and morality in certain cases, and FILM WISE, I sometimes just wanted to keep the dark escapist black comedy fun TUNE going discussion wise, but its all alright now, and yes I know I know I know I know.)

Is there nothing we can totally do to change that even in theory? Let alone practice, besides our USUAL methods, even if they may be steeped at times in controversies, contradictions, lack of perfect agreements etc. Does ignorance and arrogance ACTUALLY exist or is it a myth or at least just as much as WE make it out to be? Strict "whiny" moralists, are they always right etc?

In life, Hannibal Lecter style, can we be intrigued by real life monsters, "villains" etc and grave wrongdoers, MUCH more than mere "flaws" mind you? And what about attractive as such female characters - ALSO, even HERE, can we discuss it all PEACEFULLY and CALMLY, without getting carried away on ANY side, and still come out with your pride and dignity intact? (Some MOVIES, I am looking at you also.)

Anyways...

P.S. Yeah, I did make MANY similar threads, but in here, does anyone want to actually cleanse their own souls and come out and say "Aaah, YES, that's how it all is, and here we have to this and that etc...". :)

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Hhmm , interesting question. Well, rather than read the essay - some personal experience of mine....

No, no heroes. No one I really look up to (in the sense of a non-celeb, a regular person).

However, Bruce Lee is a hero of mine.

NO villains either. Sure, plenty of people I didn't care for, but you just get rid of them. Spending your time concentrating on your hatred for someone is a complete waste of energy. Better off simply removing them from your life.

In the movies, a very despised villain would be the bad guy in the first Dirty Harry film. I don't remember his name - he was awful.

ANyway, perhaps real life does not consist of real heroes and villains as the movies do.

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Life does have heroes and villains. The problem is, people on either side of the conflict have different perspectives on the heroes and villains involved.

A good example would be Sir Francis Drake. He was a privateer, hired by Queen Elizabeth I to harass the Spanish ships in the Caribbean and take whatever booty his crew could get their hands on to bring back to England. The English saw him as a hero because he was so good at his job, and survived several epic sea voyages. The Spanish, on the other hand, hated his guts and saw him as a villain for what his men did to their ships. It was because of him that Spain was robbed of great fortunes in gold taken from the Americas.

There's also something else to consider. Regardless of whether a historical figure is considered a hero or a villain, they're all capable of doing good and bad things, particularly if they were a complex individual. Like a greatly hated villain from history could be found to have done a few good things in their life, but nobody cares because the bad things they did overshadow that, and the few good things they did do not exonerate them. A real-life hero could also be scrutinized, and found to have had a dark side that people would find problematic, and they'd have trouble respecting the same person after idolizing them for decades.

While it's a complex subject, usually the lines drawn between hero and villain can be as clear or as murky as the people studying the situation.

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Unfortunately no. Only dumb people think in such a binary fashion.

Also unfortunately, those same dumb people get to vote.

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Of course there are Heroes - here are a few obvious American ones.

Ben Franklin
Abe Lincoln
US Grant
Clara Barton
FDR
Jonas Salk
MLK
Rosa Parks
9/11 Firefighters, First Responders
War Zone, Investigative Journalists
Political reformers
Peace activists
Aid workers

The question of heroism doesn't hang on the end result, but upon the courage & intentions - however foundational heroism, which improves the conditions of humanity is, again of course, highly venerated. But I and everyone have met many quiet unsung heroes throughout our lives :

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