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Date and Issue: Number 4 / Ausgust, 1979
It's ironic that a country that can't afford a real hero (O.J. Simpson?) has "super-heroes" coming out of the seams in the wallpaper. From Saturday morning cartoons through adult-oriented prime time, TV is loaded with those who can perform amazing acts.
The thought that stops me cold, though, is this: are we really showing heroism, or has TV done with heroics what it has done with sports; i.e., shined and polished it up so hard that all the substance is gone?
I set out on a little survey to examine TV's current crop of superheroes. Some are born of comic strips and translated (or transmogrified) onto the small screen, others created by it. It wasn't hard, really, since I watch all those shows anyway. What l saw when I pondered it a bit amazed me.
Heroism—real heroism—still lives. But it isn't the heroism of Truth, Justice, and The American Way. (I always wondered, the American way of what? Selling? Dying? Canning fruit?) In some surprising and subtle ways, TV is showing the heroism of living, being a complex person in a complex world who is forced to make the really heroic decisions. Moral choices. And the speaking of truth.
l'II admit that's a pretty broad description of what goes on. So before you decide I've lost my cookies altogether, let's look at a few of TV's newer ""super" shows a little more closely.
Let me say first that a good show is a good show. Since when are children ineluctably different from their parents? Nearly always, aiming a show at children is aiming too low. Proof of that is that a lot of these shows have impressive adult as well as youth audiences.
Next, let's abandon quickly all the places where heroism-in-disguise is rampant, like the vast majority of "serious" Saturday morning cartoons. There is no honesty to be seen there. There are no real characters in those shows. (Unlike "non-serious" cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny and Sylvester, which have real, believable characterizations.) But Superman and Batman and Robin and the others are for zip. They fly around, they cartoonly save a cartoon world, and they never make decisions that mean anything. And no one cares.
Attempts to inject "reality" into those shows are pretty feeble, indeed. The result is ironic-cum-moronic. On a recent Fantastic Four, for example, the evil Medusa had captured the whole quartet, and was announcing her intentions to take over the world, when Rubberman interceded. And it blew my mind. "You don't want a world like we have," he told her. "Crime. Poverty. Strikes. Slums. Pollution. You'd be better off in your own little haven here." Medusa's henchmen all agreed. A pretty nifty plot resolution, wouldn't you agree?
But there are real characters and real heroism to be found on TV. Example Number One, the familiar face from Marvel Comics, The incredible Hulk. The Hulk is really quite a show. It has a big following across the demographic spectrum. Bill Bixby, as the pre-green Hulk, is an engaging and believable David Banner, a man who has blundered ""into realms where men should not go," and now has a monkey on his back like no one ever had. But he's trying. And he's concerned about saving himself. But he doesn't let that get in the way of helping other people. That counts, for sure. And because of quality writing and acting, Banner's concern for his fellow person seems a lot more real tome than Starsky/Hutch's ever did. The Hulk is the only TV show that was success-fully translated from the comic book, be-cause it hung onto something more basic than loud groans and green skin.
Now l admit there are problems with that show. Banner hulks out obligingly before the first and after the third commercial every week. And maybe he is lately blowing his cork for some less than justified reasons. (I think he greened out once last week because he got the wrong change from a newspaper vendor.) But the Hulk is a man possessed, as we all are, by an ugly side of himself. Yet he tries to make some good happen. And he isn't afraid of puttinghimself on the line. That's courage. That's heroism. And there's nothing phony about it.
Maybe Wonder Woman deserves a mention here. This show is a perfect example of a comic book set to jiggles. Lynda Carter is pleasingly copious, but the rest of the show is trapped in the hackneyed formula of heavy bad guys (no one wants to take over just New Jersey) being defeated by wholesomeness. Wonder Woman is at its worst when it tries to be funny. The fact that it feels it needs to try is a dead give-away.
Battlestar Galactica is an unusual ex-ample of modern TV heroism. Maybe it isn't really heroism as much as it's space fantasy on a big budget. But l often get the feeling from Galactica that the religious nature of their quest (an interestingly American-myth quest, by the way) really has an impact on that show, even when all they seem to be doing is running from the Cylons or chasing down other interstellar baddies. Maybe its the way the names often allude to other works, works of power. From the Bible to Moby Dick. Maybe it's the way Lorne Greene carries himself. I'm not sure. But there is some-thing powerful and positive there, some-thing firmly rooted in myth and religion, that makes Battlestar rise miles above most of what preceded it.
You may think I'm crazy, but Mork & Mindy is a superhero show. And a super one. Mork is engagingly funny, but much more than that, he is innocent. And his innocence makes him someone very special. Innocence is a rare treat nowadays, and it's not just its rareness that makes it mythic. (Read The Sound and the Fury.) Because he is innocent, Mork sees the obvious that the rest of us cannot. Because he is innocent, he can see the beauty in people we would find ugly, and he can share their space instantly. Take Exidor, for example. On any other show he would be too outrageous to exist, much less be sympathetic. Yet on Mork & Mindy Exidor is lovably whacko, because we can see how quickly Mork's naive, yet total empathy touches him. There is nothing else like that on television. A person who is totally good, not because he lives up to some artificial ideals, but because he is noble enough tolove people for themselves. Compare that to the screaming glorification of our own bad natures that Norman Lear specializes in. (I didn't say Norman Lear stuff wasn't funny, mind you.) Mork's reports to Orson at the end of each show are like small epistles of beauty. I remember especially well the one at the end of the show about old people, in which Mork told his immense boss, "Earthlings don't care about old people. But they do one nice thing for them...they fix their incomes." The innocence and comic truth of that statement nearly brought tears to my eyes.
That is heroism to me: seeing the truth despite all the ludicrous inventions of our "civilization" to hide it. Being a moral, decent human being is an immensely courageous act. So even though today's world seems to be devoid of heroism, the real McCoy is showing up, in small ways, in small places. Heroism isn't missing today; it's right there on your tube.
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