As I'm sure you've noticed, there have been a ton of Hollywood superhero movies in the last decade. To be exact, from X-Men in the year 2000 until now, there have been 33 movies with main characters I personally would classify as "superheroes", and most of those are related to either a Marvel or DC Comics universe. Culturally we are on a binge. (If you are afraid of spoilers, stop reading here.)
As much as I enjoy a good hero, I find it funny and somewhat irritating when Hollywood decides the day is saved by a supporting character, with the "hero" figure cheering them on. This annoyance only seems to plague me in superhero movies.
Take Iron Man 3 for example. Pepper goes all gangsta on the drones at the end, beating the crap out of all of them and the Mandarin while Tony Stark kinda just sits there watching. While this did make me chuckle, it really felt like an anomaly in the Iron Man saga. I left the theater feeling somewhat unsatisfied.
I think The Amazing Spiderman handled things a little better. Gwen is instrumental in synthesizing "the cure", but her father then has her whisked away despite her protests while he goes to beat on the baddy. This fits in with the theme of her being a very intelligent, (hence she made the cure) awkward young girl (hence she got stuffed in a police car headed out of Dodge).
While I felt like Thor 2 had other problems, I think it stayed true to the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster. Jane didn't suddenly turn into Xena, Princess Warrior and throw down on the dark elves. Instead, she hovered around the outside of the fight and influenced it from afar using technology. (On a side note, the most amusing part of this movie was Hogun getting left on his home planet at the beginning of the movie. It seemed like the writers couldn't think of a way to stuff him into the plot later on.)
In all three movies, though, we can see the proclivity of all main characters (and even some minor characters) toward heroic acts. This makes some sense since that is a motif of the genre, but it also reflects some trends in society that are causing problems in my generation.
My generation has a HUGE problem with a sense of entitlement to what our parents have. A bigger TV, a huge house when just married, a nice car right out of college... whatever it is we want it NOW. We have been told 'you are special' so many times that we have begun to believe we are the exception to needing education, hard work, dedication, etc before being rewarded. We somehow feel like our "specialness" warrants having more opportunities or more stuff than those around us.
My generation begins to become unhappy, then, when reality checks in. Sooner or later, our perspective of self (I am different, smarter, better, etc than my peers) is repeatedly proved false. The resulting cognitive dissonance leads to confusion, lack of confidence, and depression.
"Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone." - C.S. Lewis
There is only one cure, humility.
True humility isn't debasing of oneself, it is seeing things as they really are. When we see ourselves through the lens of truth, we will notice we have both strength and weakness. We can find encouragement that we can make a difference in the world, while also understanding that growth is possible if we are willing to work at it.
Deep down, all of us want to make a difference. We may do so to great social applause, like Mother Theresa at the end of her life, or our actions may only be heralded by angels. When we are ok with either scenario, we can know we are beginning to escape the clutches of selfishness and, by association, our false sense of entitlement.
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