Hollywood and the Hero
By Mary Beth Gentle
Explosions. Natural disasters. Diabolical bad guys. Hollywood has always known how to set the scene that puts us on the edge of our seats waiting for the hero to appear and save the day. And for the most part, whether Hollywood gives us a character that is inherently heroic or reluctantly heroic, they do a pretty good job at delivering. Bottom line, Hollywood loves a hero. They create them. They promote them. And whenever possible they build an entire franchise around them.
From the time we are very young we find heroes at every turn. They are in our bedtime stories, our television shows and our movies. We pick our favorites, we collect our action figures and we fight over who gets to play the hero and who has to be the bad guy. Hollywood did not invent the concept of the hero, but they are better than anyone at making them larger than life.
There have always been heroes and the tales of their heroic deeds have been told and written down since the beginning of time. By definition a hero or heroine is a person endowed with great strength or ability and who in the face of danger or adversity displays great courage. Hollywood has made a pretty good business out of the telling and re-telling of the famous Heroes throughout time. There have been countless movies of swashbuckling and sword-fighting heroes, cowboy movies helped define the early Hollywood hero and of course Superheroes have become the ultimate Hollywood box office hero.
And whenever possible, Hollywood will look to the world around them for heroes that have walked among us. Every war movie ever made is based on a true-life hero or an amalgamation of the many heroes that have served our country, historical heroes are an easy mark for Hollywood as they can spin the facts in order to tell the most captivating story and then there is the modern day hero. He is the every-man, the imperfect hero who steps forward when no one else will or can.
We have had one such man in the news over the recent week, Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger. He was the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 who went on to safely land the Airbus A320 in the Hudson River saving all 155 people on board. This is the type of heroic event that had all of us in the Hollywood cubicles glued to our computers to watch and read every detail we could. In the Hollywood cubicles we spend our days working on the TV shows and movies of the make believe heroes. It was amazing to see something that heroic happen in real life.
It is events like this that in many ways prove Hollywood right. We all want a hero. We want the innocent to be saved. We want the wrongs to be righted. We want the hero to save the day. And right now that hero is a commercial airline pilot named “Sully”.
And I know that in many ways there are heroes all around us. They are serving our communities, caring for our children or even simply taking the time to help a neighbor in need. In someway to someone, we are all heroes. But, when you want to escape the daily routine and see something that is larger than life, it’s Hollywood that we turn to for that escape.
And I can guarantee you that right now every Producer in Hollywood would love to be the person that ends up owing the rights to tell “Sully’s” story. Because of this man, what could have been a horrible disaster had a very happy ending. It is a story with all the elements to be found in a Hollywood movie, but this one has a real life modern day hero in Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger.
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