Heroes
The...@gmail.com
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2007.
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2007.
In the TV show "Heroes" there are no terrorists -- only heroes whose powers
go wrong and destroy New York in the process. In other words, the only
menace to the United States is its own citizens.
Imagine a world where your genome isn't just the result of long-term natural
selection and random mutation. Instead, its composition and expression
actually mean something -- not just about you, but also about the fate of
the world. No, I'm not talking about a genetic engineer's utopia with humans
made by design. I'm talking about the driving fantasy behind hit TV show
Heroes, now heading into the homestretch of its first season on NBC.
I was a doubter when I first started watching this X-Men homage, which is
full of ordinary people who suddenly start manifesting mutant powers
(flying, telekinesis, superhearing, time travel) due to some genetic
whatsit. Created by Tim Kring, best known for the medical melodrama Crossing
Jordan, the show was uneven and slow for the first handful of episodes. We
got the boring origin story of each hero and learned that they all have a
genetic destiny via an irritating voice-over from the nonsuperpowered (so
far) Dr. Suresh, who studies these "special" people to find out what makes
them tick.
But then things got interesting. Unlike the mutants of X-Men, none of the
special people in Heroes has a visible mutation that makes him or her look
strange -- there are no giant blue cat professors or women made of pure
diamond.
Instead, there are, among others, a flying politician, a superhealing
cheerleader, a time-traveling Japanese comic book otaku, a comic book artist
who can paint the future, a psychic police officer, and a villain who
absorbs mutant powers by extracting and possibly eating the brains of
heroes.
The plot is typical comic book fare: our future-painting artist has
predicted that New York will be blown up by one of the heroes, eventually
resulting in the election of the corrupt flying politician as president.
Somehow, these events will destroy the world. The time-traveling otaku's
future self warns his past self that the fate of the cheerleader is bound up
with all this by using the show's cult tagline, "Save the cheerleader, save
the world."
I've gone from being a skeptical watcher to a rabid fan of this show for two
reasons: one, the hero team that forms around the wacky time travel plot
manages to capture what's so seductive about comic books generally; and two,
I think the TV show is an interesting fantasy about terrorism.
So: the seductions of the comic book. One of the benefits of comic books
over, say, movies is that they last for decades and thus have plenty of time
to evolve complicated relationships between characters whose powers are
foils for their personal vulnerabilities. A superhero team is like a cast of
characters in a speculative soap opera -- they have bang-pow adventures, but
the best writers and artists in the medium force them to grapple with the
human cost of being a hero.
The Hulk is a good example: over the years Bruce Banner and his green alter
ego have fought, gone to therapy to reconcile their warring impulses, joined
and then been expelled from superhero teams that couldn't trust the Hulk,
and generally played out the drama of what it means to be a high-functioning
manic-depressive.
Heroes offers us the bizarro soap opera pleasures of comic books and at the
same time sets up the collective power of the heroes as a foil for the
problems of the world. There are no terrorists in Heroes -- only heroes
whose powers go wrong and destroy New York in the process. In other words,
the only menace to the United States is its own citizens.
In the show's fantasy reenactment of 9/11, the al-Qaeda bombers are recast
as misunderstood heroes who are hunted by shady pseudogovernment agencies
and go mad, or as power-hungry politicians who see destruction as the best
route to power. I'm intrigued by the implication, in this season's plot arc,
that the destruction of New York is a deliberate effort to ruin the world on
the part of US politicians and businessmen.
There's a strong dose of social criticism in that simple idea. Our heroes
aren't trying to stop terrorists from outside the country -- they're trying
to stop forces working on the inside. Sure, you can watch Heroes just for
the bang-pow, and I definitely recommend it for that. At its best the show
is action packed and edge-of-your-seat thrilling. But it's also, like great
comic books, about the real world. Best of all, it's about fixing the real
world and making it safe for geeks, cheerleaders, and regular people.
Lord Gow333, Conservative Fullback!
"TehMot...@gmail.com" <The...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ae1b5$464b6b0c$44af6008$16...@allthenewsgroups.com...
> Heroes: The TV Show with Comic Book Edge and Political Bite
>
> By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2007.
>
> By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2007.
>
>
>
> In the TV show "Heroes" there are no terrorists -- only heroes whose
> powers
> go wrong and destroy New York in the process. In other words, the only
> menace to the United States is its own citizens.
Subliminal message noted...
LG
--
The only way to get Democrats to focus on terrorists would be to convince
them that the terrorists are interfering with a woman's right to choose or
that commercial jetliners exploding in midair are a threat to America's
wetlands. - Ann Coulter
JeffH
wrote:
Why did you feel the need to post this? Was there a lack of American
Idol news or something?
JeffH
you suck dude