I’ve never really been into superheroes. I know that typically they are stereotyped to be the kinds of things that girls don’t really care about anyway, and it’s boys who have the Superman action-figure and the girls who have Barbies (which, might I add, in their own right are superheroes. Who can keep up a mansion and maintain that figure?). I guess my sister was an exception. She grew up semi-obsessed with He-Man and his female counterpart She-Ra: Princess of Power. My sister had both of their castles and all of their partners-in-crime, including the evil nemeses (for they had several). All birthdays would mean her getting something else related to these superheroes of yesteryear, including birthday cakes with their faces silk-screened on top. I was a silent observer of this trend that she eventually (thankfully) grew out of. Though I have I feeling that even today she misses their significance.
Everyone around me has been talking about this new TV show, Heroes, that in all honesty, I haven’t seen even ten seconds of (something about a cheerleader?). This is mainly due to the fact that I don’t have time to watch a lot of television, and when I do, it’s difficult enough keeping track of the usually ultra-ridiculous and extra-intensive storylines of LOST and 24. Miss one episode and you suddenly feel like you’re the one trapped on a deserted island with that ticking noise pulsing in your ear. Friends make you an outsider when you can’t contribute to the morning coffee pot conversation of: “Oh my god, did you even seen what happened last night!?” (Spoiler alert) “Jack totally killed Curtis!”
We are a television-set culture these days, with more things to see at the press of a button than we know what to do with. Nights, afternoons, weekends are planned around our religious viewing schedules (dear TiVo, thanks for nothing. love, the outdoors). But what I don’t necessarily understand is why these shows (Heroes) need to be based in New York. After I got past the whole concept that these Heroes characters actually acquire their abilities through I’m assuming some form of divine intervention, I learned (as this is all people are talking about) that the whole show is currently pivoting around the heroes attempt to avert a nuclear explosion in, you guessed it, New York City.
At least LOST happens on an island, or in purgatory, or really, wherever you want it to be happening, and 24 (equip with its own nuclear explosions) happens in Los Angeles, which is on the down and out anyway. Can’t this show Heroes pick another location too? How about Detroit? Or Billings, Montana? It’s scary enough living in this city with the threat of running into one of these people on any given day, let alone having to worry about some super kids’ attempt to stop nuclear war.
I liked heroes better when all they had to worry about was defending Eternia and the forces of castle Greyskull from the evil forces of Skeletor. Not WMD’s in the Big Apple. But like I said before, I’ve never really been into superheroes. Jack Bauer’s resilience is about all I can take, always leaving me at the end of every hour asking no one in particular: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
But I guess we need heroes in our lives, in some form or another, because in reality – they’re hard to come by.
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