Where have all my heroes gone?
Mild rant I've covered before, but one I remembered seeing a discussion about Arrow.
I've come to realise recently that most of my favourite characters in TV shows are female.
This isn't a problem, in fact, given the lack of good female characters its possibly quite a good thing.
Black Widow is clearly the best of the Avengers,
my favourites in Game of Thrones flip between Cersei, Arya and Daenerys.
In Hannibal its Dr Bloom, Defiance has Stahma, Arrow has Felicity.
But why is it the women in these shows that I most identify with and not the men?
The reason is not because they are the ones I fancy (although I won't deny a certain element of that)
but because they get to be clever.
Most male heroes these days are horribly boring macho guys.
They are always some sort of warrior and their claim to fame is the ability to punch other guys.
These characters hold little interest for me, because they are nothing like me.
I realised this a while ago when I considered who my childhood heroes were, and found I had painfully few.
Starlord was my favourite comic hero - not the Guardians of the Galaxy one, they really screwed with him there.
The others were Raistlin and the Doctor, but I struggle to think of others.
Raistlin was a wizard who turned to evil, having suffered from being surrounded by too many nice guys who always saw the weaker but cleverer magician as something to be looked after. He proved them very wrong, almost becoming a god.
The Doctor is the most long lived of my heroes, and my favourite, and he is what has always hooked me into Doctor Who.
Here, finally is the clever hero of the show, but one who rarely ever fights.
He wins because he is clever, not because he can punch people.
Thats the sort of man I can look up to, one I could want to emulate.
He's an alien with two hearts and he is still more like me than the legions of men I see on telly.
I say this because while there are clever male characters, they are always the weak link in the chain.
Stargate is a prime example.
Daniel Jackson is always the butt of the joke or the one who needs saving, and only seems to gain respect when he picks up a gun.
Rodney in Atlantis is clever but also a jerk whose arrogance and lack of social skills constantly gets him into trouble.
Fitz in Agents of Shield essentially has Simmons to look after him.
Rudy in Almost Human stays in a basement because he doesn't deal well with other people.
Every clever character is either so unsocialised it is a wonder they have any friends,
or is considered some sort of weasel for not taking the villain head on. He's not a real man, because real men solve their problems by punching people. When they do try and fight its a comedy moment where they screw it up dreadfully, dropping their gun or shooting a friend until the 'real hero' comes to save them. They are only ever support characters, never the lead.
Sure, its ok to be clever, but only as long as you know your place.
This leads me a little back to the female characters.
I like them because they are always cleverer than the men around them.
The TV producers won't let them physically take down the men around them - that would never do!
So instead they are competent and clever, but rarely the butt of the joke.
Their cleverness is respected in a way male scientists are looked down on.
I say this not to complain at all about female characters.
Dear god, lets have more like this, for so many reasons.
But also, can we have some decent male role models that aren't macho idiots?
Can we tell boys that punching your way out of things is not the way to prove you are a man, and that intelligence is not something to be laughed at or looked down on.
Luckily the Doctor continues to thrive, and Game of Thrones gave us Tyrion Lannister (although he is laughed at and considered 'lesser' but not for his brains). We also have the new Sherlock, even if he too is a bit of a nutter.
To be fair, if any effort is to be made we need to catch up on the amount of female characters before we worry about the male ones. But I continue to hope that there will be more heroes geeky weeds like me can look up to, because I don't think I'm the only one, and we need heroes too.
I've come to realise recently that most of my favourite characters in TV shows are female.
This isn't a problem, in fact, given the lack of good female characters its possibly quite a good thing.
Black Widow is clearly the best of the Avengers,
my favourites in Game of Thrones flip between Cersei, Arya and Daenerys.
In Hannibal its Dr Bloom, Defiance has Stahma, Arrow has Felicity.
But why is it the women in these shows that I most identify with and not the men?
The reason is not because they are the ones I fancy (although I won't deny a certain element of that)
but because they get to be clever.
Most male heroes these days are horribly boring macho guys.
They are always some sort of warrior and their claim to fame is the ability to punch other guys.
These characters hold little interest for me, because they are nothing like me.
I realised this a while ago when I considered who my childhood heroes were, and found I had painfully few.
Starlord was my favourite comic hero - not the Guardians of the Galaxy one, they really screwed with him there.
The others were Raistlin and the Doctor, but I struggle to think of others.
Raistlin was a wizard who turned to evil, having suffered from being surrounded by too many nice guys who always saw the weaker but cleverer magician as something to be looked after. He proved them very wrong, almost becoming a god.
The Doctor is the most long lived of my heroes, and my favourite, and he is what has always hooked me into Doctor Who.
Here, finally is the clever hero of the show, but one who rarely ever fights.
He wins because he is clever, not because he can punch people.
Thats the sort of man I can look up to, one I could want to emulate.
He's an alien with two hearts and he is still more like me than the legions of men I see on telly.
I say this because while there are clever male characters, they are always the weak link in the chain.
Stargate is a prime example.
Daniel Jackson is always the butt of the joke or the one who needs saving, and only seems to gain respect when he picks up a gun.
Rodney in Atlantis is clever but also a jerk whose arrogance and lack of social skills constantly gets him into trouble.
Fitz in Agents of Shield essentially has Simmons to look after him.
Rudy in Almost Human stays in a basement because he doesn't deal well with other people.
Every clever character is either so unsocialised it is a wonder they have any friends,
or is considered some sort of weasel for not taking the villain head on. He's not a real man, because real men solve their problems by punching people. When they do try and fight its a comedy moment where they screw it up dreadfully, dropping their gun or shooting a friend until the 'real hero' comes to save them. They are only ever support characters, never the lead.
Sure, its ok to be clever, but only as long as you know your place.
This leads me a little back to the female characters.
I like them because they are always cleverer than the men around them.
The TV producers won't let them physically take down the men around them - that would never do!
So instead they are competent and clever, but rarely the butt of the joke.
Their cleverness is respected in a way male scientists are looked down on.
I say this not to complain at all about female characters.
Dear god, lets have more like this, for so many reasons.
But also, can we have some decent male role models that aren't macho idiots?
Can we tell boys that punching your way out of things is not the way to prove you are a man, and that intelligence is not something to be laughed at or looked down on.
Luckily the Doctor continues to thrive, and Game of Thrones gave us Tyrion Lannister (although he is laughed at and considered 'lesser' but not for his brains). We also have the new Sherlock, even if he too is a bit of a nutter.
To be fair, if any effort is to be made we need to catch up on the amount of female characters before we worry about the male ones. But I continue to hope that there will be more heroes geeky weeds like me can look up to, because I don't think I'm the only one, and we need heroes too.