Take a look at the offerings of “reality programs” that have become popular in the last decade. Young men and women, showing off physiques honed at the gym, climb, propel, dive, dangle, and devour in displays of derring-do. They, however, are not larger-than-life inspirations for little boys’ fantasies, but are peers in McMansions next door. This is democratic heroism; it’s based on the assumption that all have access to the gym, pool, and gymnastics lessons.
The “challenges” that are presented rarely go beyond the skill or physical ability of the young person who has had the opportunity to hone his healthy body. Sometimes the challenge is to touch and eat squishy, squirmy things blindfolded (but always scantily clad and with an even tan). Even dating shows offer challenges of a not-too-subtle physical demonstration of crude foreplay.
The prevailing attitude among the young who can afford the regimens for such beauty and pumping up is cynicism and lack of admiration or acknowledgement of anyone or anything better than themselves. Young women pose unashamedly in bikinis, mistaking this for daring. But, to them, to condemn such display is to engage in judgmentalism, the closest they have been exposed to the idea of sin or wrong. Bonds formed by such “acceptance” produce the fake sense of camaraderie we see on these television shows. These young people display an upper-class, artificial concept of equality; they strive to overcome superficial fears and physical challenges. We have the narcissistic heroism of the pouting James Dean or the man surviving in the wild with a camera crew.
How different from the Greatest Generation, young men who had experienced Depression years, who lived in a time when it was expected that adults would care for their aging parents and would wait until marriage for cohabitation. The iconic image of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima involved brothers in arms. This image of heroism was symbolic of life sacrificed and suffering withstood for a larger good, for the country of their families.
But today’s iconic hero—the one who fills our airwaves—is the young man with sculpted muscles and gelled hair, who has practiced his expressions in front of a mirror. Of course, we still have the real heroes, our soldiers. But they get little media attention or acknowledgement of their heroism. What icon greets the little boy turning on the television or opening a book his teacher has recommended? In the book, the hero will likely be a girl. On television, the boy will see a cynical and self-glorifying young man rappelling off a cliff, smearing something on a nubile woman’s body, or eating worms.