Heroes, goddamit, when will they get it? The job is simple enough, save the day, trounce your opponent, provide an example for all the mere mortals to follow, and if possible, look good in colorfully accessorized spandex while doing it. We, as the adoring public, and occasionally the damsels and damsos in distress (masculine for damsel, anyone?), have done our part by outlining these standards and providing the venues for heroic acts of splendor and daring do, so why do these heroes of ours continually trip on their capes?
We love our heroes. We have a natural tendency to seek figures to revere, emulate, and merchandise. There are few things as recognized in our society as the pedestal we put our heroes and achievers atop. Remarkably, the one thing more noteworthy to us is to watch those heroes fall to the ground we the mortals share. We’re fickle in our admiration, there is no doubt, and tend to be thoughtless in our outlay of this commodity, but nonetheless the admiration always exists. The still stranger aspect of hero worship is that more than we love Hero Wreckage, and more than the image of the hero itself, there is a velvet rope, a red carpet and a standing ovation waiting for the hero that falls and rises again. There are few images as majestic as the eagle soaring, but prepare to put your hands together for the phoenix kicking some ash. Yes, I said ash.
Maybe it’s that we feel more of kinship with a hero that suffers the weakness of humanity and failure. Perhaps we give more validity to that victory because it is closer to something we ourselves could achieve. Maybe the hardship itself is something similar to an experience felt by our loved ones or ourselves. For whatever reason, heroes with that fallible human weakness, the ones that ride high, fall to earth, and make a staggering comeback are always the ones we remember, no matter how much we want to forget them.
A red cape and a bullet-bouncing chest are great, but isn’t it so that bruises, blood, and a worthy victory a true hero make?
Below is a list of heroes, otherwise known as celebrities, public figures, tabloid fodder, idols, clowns, what have you. The only thing that these tragic heroes share is unfinished business in the eyes of this particular mere mortal. None of us will lose any sleep if none of these once-heroes continue down their respective roads to anonymity, but it would be nice to see them put foot to ass. If for no other reason, to give value to our adoration and to the pedestal space they once occupied.
CHRISTOPHER REEVE
Why not start off with an actual hero?
When I was a kid, Superman was the man. He was the idol for me, and continues to occupy every memento space in that segment of my long-term memory. There was no hero, no bird, and no plane that came before or faster than a speeding bullet. My mom made for this awesome costume for me that I wore for two consecutive Halloweens and pretty much every day in between. When you’re a kid, that popular fiction idol is your god, your moon and stars. They help you feel okay about the world.
Kids of my generation grew up with a different Superman than generations before. For us, comic books and TV serials weren’t it, Christopher Reeve was it. Though some consider the role to be a shadow cast over his career, that role beams a light on my childhood as bright as our planet’s yellow sun.
I can remember a selfish disbelief in the news of my childhood hero’s severed spine. I shook my head and waited for that image of youth to be youthful again, to heroically defeat any notion of mortality. Idols, parents, and saviors, oh my, why do they ever have to show us faults and ruin everything?
In his second life Reeve became a new kind of hero, there’s no question. He earned an immortality beyond and yet somehow an interesting compliment to his celluloid legacy.
Some would argue that he did make his comeback. That he continued fighting when he could have relented, and in his legacy he’s blown a hole through a comeback, standing up to an enemy more diabolical than any comic book villain. Many would argue even that he won. These people, incidentally, are heroic in their own way.
Here’s a guy who made a huge comeback and still deserved more to come back to. He was a hero who was down, but not in the typical form of popular opinion. We all needed this guy to come back and show that a human who looked cool in a blue leotard could be a man of steel again. The little kid inside me wearing that cape and those big red boots would have relished it too.
It’s almost cliché at this point to even call attention to something so blatantly obvious, as though I’m proudly unveiling my newly invented wheel, but I don’t care if I’m preaching to a worldwide choir. He fought valiantly and has earned the stature he will eternally hold, but Christopher Reeve deserved to stand over his vanquished foe, he deserved to come back and... stand.
MICHAEL JACKSON
I wouldn’t presume to think that I’m about to say anything that hasn’t been said. But nonetheless…
Is there any greater modern tale of tragic celebrity than that of the King of Pop? I am apprehensive about his position on this list simply because I can’t fathom a nook or cranny of his public persona that hasn’t at this point been hammered into the ground under the weight of a thousand telephoto lenses.
He represents the quintessential good and bad, the height of talent and the evil incarnations of too many aspects of his industry to mention. What stands out among the many trails he’s blazed, both for those who’ve followed and where most dare not tread, are two major gospels of modern public life, accomplishment and speculation.
He is the epitome of a life of invited invasion. His face may appear in the dictionary under several notorious titles, but most are based in the speculative and alleged. What happens when you spend your entire life under a microscope? You find it very difficult to conceal the parts of you that you didn’t know you had to hide. And if you don’t name those parts yourself, someone’s going to go ahead and name them for you. He has set the bar for being judged by elements completely separate from that which he offers the world. He gives us music, we judge his appearance.
Of course, the grand tragedy of his life still unfolding is the genius that is still acknowledged and thought to be squandered. In many ways the mold he has cast will never be duplicated or improved upon. His accomplishments are every bit as well known as his controversies. He has influenced the recordings and stage shows of every single performer to follow in his genre.
He is the King of Pop, and there’s no amount of eccentricity that can take that away and make us stop paying attention. Many aspects of the King, Ex-Son In Law to another King, are as plain as the nose on his face. An easy one, I know.
Cleary eccentric, potentially troubled, obviously talented, an immortal performer, an inspired dancer, a constantly emulated artist.
A self-loathing man-child with too many resources for his own well-being? Perhaps.
A man fixated too much on recapturing his stolen childhood? Quite possibly.
A pedophile? Unproven.
Innocent until proven guilty? Not on your life.
A hero to many and due for a serious comeback? Absolutely.
He could change things. There has been very few if any public figures whose life has been dissected to the lengths that his has. Granted, there have been very few lives presented as fantastically theatrically absurd. If he could turn it all around, he could set another standard for all that follow him.
Imagine acknowledging and appreciating a popular artist for their artistic contributions and nothing else. Imagine a halt being put to the credibility that somehow gets attached to paparazzi fodder. Imagine a world that practices the idiom of innocent until proven guilty. Imagine, above all else, a chance for more great songs.
I like seeing a decadent member of the American royal family ridiculed as much as the next guy, but one day we may find that intrusive camera's lens turned on us, and believe me, no one needs to know what goes on in my Neverland Ranch.
I’ve never been a huge MJ fan, but I’ve always resented how speculation has altered the current of his career. Hero or Villain, King or Clown, Black or White, I just like to see conclusions made based on truth not the pandering of Enquiring Minds.
If nothing else, his celebrity has proven that talent and evidence come second to legend.
MICHAEL MOORE
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. They’re not always idols, when we’re lucky they’re more than enviable. The greatest heroes don’t appear as you’d expect, because they rise from the masses and make a David kind of difference in face of a Goliath kind of villain. Society rewards the Goliaths of the world… but is beginning to beware the power of one little guy… and a camera.
At this point the term ‘comeback’ might seem misleading or misplaced. This year’s Fahrenheit 911 is perhaps the successful ‘documentary’ in history. Michael Moore has never been so influential, and has never had the capacity to reach so many people with his David-ist message.
Therein lies, as I’m certain the New ‘EM ‘N EM’ would agree, the problem.
Forget the ‘effectiveness’ of his anti-Bush film, its bias narrative, or the ensuing conservative backlashes. The result is not the point… or in a way it is exactly the point. Michael Moore is not the little guy anymore… resisting humor… he has become an institution and in doing so is not the same kind of hero.
The little guy is most effective when you don’t see him coming, when you underestimate his means and his will. As a brand name, Michael Moore is a figure that you can’t not see coming… harder to resist humor… he is in danger, as all heroes are at some point, of becoming that which he most detests: an institution.
How does he change such a thing? It’s almost too easy to say such things as returning to a grass roots kind of liberal cause, and frankly I’ve already come too close to insulting him to be so bold as to suggest such a thing. Despite all I’ve mentioned, I am a fan, I’m confident his comeback will as unglorious and unenviable as is required to bring meaning back to his unfranchisable and uncompromising name.
At the heart of it all, the fame, the controversy, the opinions, and so on, we can all resoundingly agree there is an intention to do some good. Though many may disagree with the methods, the madness is sound: get your opinion out there, get people talking and together find a solution.
Heroes are champions for people overlooked and pushed aside. We live in a society that often treasures and rewards the wrong successes. I should amend that. We live in a society that should beware the little guy, because the little guy will again be Michael Moore.
CHEVY CHASE
There is a recent stir of well-deserved notoriety that surrounds the brilliant Bill Murray. The legend grows and one day will certainly encompass the ownership of an Academy Award. There are few people as deserving… well, I suppose I could think of one.
There was a time when Bill Murray and his predecessor on Saturday Night Live, Cornelius ‘Chevy’ Chase, were on very parallel paths. They led their generation as leading men-children with very few challengers. Remember that scene they did together in Caddyshack, with Chevy trying to 'play through' Bill's shed/shack/home while he tried to get him to stay and hang out? Brilliant Dueling Gonzos. Chevy’s career didn’t unfold the way Bill’s did, but if not for a couple of well played gambles, namely Wes Anderson (writer/director of Rushmore, et al.), we’d likely file these two geniuses in the same box.
I consider Chevy Chase to be among the most sadly underrated comedic actors in the history of funny films. Even more sadly still, he likely has by now reached an age when his brand of physical humor begins to seem awkward. It’s cold, but I don’t know if Clark W. Griswald could be as funny without that dopey exuberance that just seems to get diminished with age.
There is no one that can pull off that dry pratfall humor like him. It is in his finer moments, like standing his scalp into a light fixture, in which he seems confused about being absurd, that he achieves this unique signature. Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Lou Costello, and other broader performers, own physical comedy of a different realm. I see Chevy standing with Peter Sellers, but I don’t think enough other people would agree.
Clark W. Griswald: “Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I’d like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?”
As the eighties wound down, Chase’s film career seemed to deflate. I don’t have a big problem with my movie idols aging or retiring and becoming footnotes, but with this goofball, things just seem unfinished. I believe one more divinely dumb performance could Ty, or Webb, the rest of his work together. If that last sentence confused you, watch Caddyshack… ah, watch it regardless.
Maybe Wes Anderson could create another Chevy/Bill scene for them to share, or maybe some clever writer could weave a feasible Fletch plot together… okay, I’ll get to work.
Remember in Fletch when he meets the villain's wife and makes up that horrible last name: “Cock-toe-sten… It’s Dutch-Romanian.” I love that stuff.
Be the ball, Danny. Nananana…
CHILD STARS
I’m so sick of the cliché of the child star ruined by adulthood, simply becaue of an immatured stamina that, if they were grown up, would have taken at least twice the time to break.
Of course, these are again the kind of heroes that are more public figure than role model. We don’t want to be them, but they do smile and giggle, earn that cutie-pie ‘awwww’ and mock-admiration. That is a sense of inspiration, so they are entitled to a comeback.
Very simply, what I’d like to see here is one of these human puppy dogs make the transition into adulthood in the mildly painful manner that we all endure.
Drew Barrymore, whom has ascended beyond her troubled youth, rendering it an almost forgotten footnote and has an image not at all defined by it, belongs in the winner’s column of this essay.
Very very simply, grow up. Don’t make a performance out of your own life… at least until you’re twenty-one.
POETS
This one goes out to all the wordsmiths and posers. The establishment, the ‘artists’, the wannabes, and the ingredients that make up our popular media culture. Does any one of you have a single clue what poetry is?
Poetry, real poetic creation, needs a comeback. This is highly debatable, and will certainly offend some notions and definitions; at least I hope it does.
Poetry is this: a word-crafted image that offends a previous notion or definition.
Poetry is that: I’m an individual in an individual moment.
Poetry is this: Fuck this guy typing for trying to define me.
How dare I even try.
I have a degree in English Literature. Do you know what I learned about poetry in four years? Expensive bullshit and invaluable independent thought, just what every undergrad should be learning. There are no words that should contain creativity. No one can know for sure what Emily Dickinson was saying, either literally or figuratively, but I hope she was swearing too.
Poets need a comeback. Poets can be heroes again, not because they fit a previously established label, a disheveled Bob Dylan or a demented, tortured, thoughtful… none of it. New words, new thought, and a new goddam label.
We live in a time of labeled thoughts. Contemporary poetry is simply an experiment that can’t be labeled. We shouldn't even know it's poetry... here I am trying to define it again, but you'll know it when you're creating it.
Be my hero.
ENDINGS
There is nothing as satisfying as a good ending. In our overly medicated, vacuum packed, preservative laden society we’ve forgotten that ending is as important as beginning and something we all share. We shouldn’t be afraid to appreciate the November as much as we relished the May.
Thanks for sticking around for one of my many long-winded takes on the pedestal and the people on the perch. Now that you’ve made it this far, allow me to wrap things up.
I should mention that I realize that women, well, aren’t here. Maybe I’m a misogynist, maybe my female heroes have all made their comebacks, my mom certainly has, or maybe heroines occupy a kind of flawless heroism that manages a self-sustained dialectic perfection that perpetually redefines its own greatness. You’re a smart cookie, choose your favorite.
Heroes come in two forms, Gods and Champions. Gods were born to be heroes, share little in common with their sheep, and often simply aren't real. The other kind are always more interesting because they were once us, they screw up like us, and if they’re really heroic they rise again. Nobody keeps the poster of the one hit wonder, we all wait to love and to hate and to love again the winner whose lost and got back up to fight.
Here’s to the heroes who take their second shot.
Go.
Patrick
PS. Comment Idea: Nominate Other Comeback Kids To Be.
1 comment:
Comeback kid: The South. Who knows, maybe it will rise again?
BRO
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