Read The Requirement Then Write The Literature Review: Heroism in American Films (Essay Sample)

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Heroism in American Films
The film industry has experienced an exponential growth since the 20th century as the most influential tool to propagate political, social and economic ideologies to the general public. This makes it an indispensable tool for cultural influence through which the American culture is propagated to the rest of the world. In view of this, America has used its unique position as an information powerhouse to project its cultural values through heroes who are featured in American-made films that have an audience all over the world. The idea of heroism has been in existence since when human beings started to use language in the form of stories. These stories were meant to pass on cultural values, educate and entertain the audience. The emergence of film technology provided a perfect medium of narrating the stories and giving them a realistic experience. As a consequence, heroism in films was developed and has advanced over the years. It started by the portrayal of cowboys as the defenders of new settlers in old towns against indigenous occupants of the plains and the farm lands. The cowboys were heroes of their time because of their actions and what they stood for. As communities adopted more modern lifestyles, the narrative changed to fit the modern needs of the society but the motif of heroes was dominant in the movies. It incorporated other new ideologies such as science and fiction to further illustrate how heroes were fighting against villains in everyday life by the introduction of characters such as aliens from the space and the underworld. This paper will seek to explore heroism as theorized by various scholars in their scholarly works to explain the heroism in American films and how it influences individuals as well as the culture. This will prove that heroism as featured in American films has a significant influence on the culture of the country.
Heroism is a creation of the human mind generated from the desire for human beings to attain certain ideal behaviors that are deemed beneficial to any culture (Berndt et al, 19). The concept of heroism has been preserved through generations through storytelling and through films in the modern culture. Therefore, the concept of heroism varies from society to society depending on their view of life and their traditions. For instance, according to Yang and Biying (17) heroism in the Chinese culture greatly differs from heroism in the American culture. In Chinese films, for example, developers focus their efforts in developing heroes who befit the Chinese culture and way of life. Such heroes are defenders of the native communities from invaders who are trying to expand their territories. The developers mainly focus on the physical attributes of the heroes and avoid featuring intimate human emotions as part of the characteristics of the heroes. They further argue that, Chinese film heroes lack the appeal to a larger audience who need emotional associations such as love, passion, affection and intimacy from the heroes. The American heroes, on the other hand, are not limited to any social norm thus allowing directors to include human passions and actions such as kissing as part of the traits of the hero. This allows the films to appeal to an unlimited number of audiences since there is an emotional attachment by the audience to the film through the scenes of passions included. However, some scholars such as Attwood (10) have argued that too much inclusion of intimacy scenes has led to ‘sexualization' of the society thus having a negative impact on the society.
Heroism in films is defined by the characteristics that are assigned to the hero featured in that particular film; they vary from time to time depending on the film and the motifs to be highlighted as well as the specific social trend they are addressing (Berndt et al, 13). However, in general, American heroes are generally masculine, they are developed from the initial cowboy model that existed in the 20th century. Theorists such as Mueller (3) indicate that this is to protect the male domain in the culture from threats from other minorities and feminist advances. The heroes are usually vehicles of profound moral and metaphysical instruction since they shape and control the society by acting out how ideal human should behave. Berndt et al (32) theorizes that heroes have been developed to be human beings who make noble decisions and stand by noble principles especially in occasions that where they place themselves at great risk and in self-sacrificing situations in order to save other human beings. In actions, they represent valuable societal values, provide a standard of conduct, act in a courageous manner and project the ideal self-image of a society. As a consequence, they are worshiped by some of their audiences for the roles that they play in the films; this can lead to serious misconception and misrepresentation of the individuals since their personal life varies for the script life they play on movies. To counter this, some directors have developed universal characters whose facial identity is not revealed or the same character is acted by various characters to dispose the misconception and protect the real identities of the actors.
Murray (28) points out that to develop the motif of heroism, a film director has to pursue the theory of binary opposition that pursues to bring out the contrast between civilization and wilderness, heroes and villains, and good and evil. To achieve this, he/she must be able to extensively develop the villains who oppose the heroes by identifying the traits that the villains must have and why they should not exist in the society. The villains are usually characterized to have undesirable traits in the society thus they should be defeated in the end; the villains are usually many in number to amplify the significance of the hero. However, the effect of these villains in the society cannot be determined easily since some of them have inspired bad social habits such as drug and substance abuse as well as gangster mentality among young people leading to more insecure societies. As a result, the binary theory approach has had both positive consequences as well as negative consequences on the society.
The rise in popularity of action movies that majorly subscribe to the binary opposition model of content development is a clear indicator of the psychological effect that movies have on the population. Niemiec et al (16) argue that this can be attributed to the psychological fact that human beings are attracted to the heroes and enjoy watching them defeating the villains. This attraction is backed up by the identification theory that explains that individuals form a bond with characters whom they admire and would wish to emulate them in their real lives. The adoption of their hero character's traits and actions brings a sense of satisfaction to the individual and influences his/her behavior. According to Pope et al (260), this effect is clearly seen from children since they are the best source of empirical data on the psychological effect of films on individuals. They further explain that children try to emulate their heroes in their lives by adopting their characters, even their way of dressing, thus shaping their individual characters based on the motifs of their favorite movies.
Heroism has had a great impact on the social culture of the American people due to the psychological impact that the films have had on the people over time (Crane, 370). It is common to see commercial advertisements featuring some of the heroes of the American society such as Superman and Spiderman pointing to the entrenchment of the heroes in the American culture. In addition, it has also helped people to develop good character traits that have been evident in scenes where people need assistance. On the other hand, violence acts from the scenes of movies based on heroism have inspired gun violence against unarmed citizens leading to loss of life. This can be attributed to negative inspirations from the heroism movies that include extreme violent be...