Anties & Heroes

“Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things… and the God of peace shall be with you.” – Philippians 4:8-9

“John,” I heard my wife Patricia say, “I want you to come and look at this!” “Patricia,” I answered, “I am really busy right now.” “John,” my wife repeated with a little more emphasis, “I want you to come and look your son’s high school reading assignment now!” There are times when every married man knows that the economies of time management demand some flexibility – accordingly, I did as requested.

Indifferent at first but completely involved before long, the school assignment had me engrossed. Not only did I read the assigned story, I read every story in the entire book. Every chapter of the reader at issue was a story about a weirdo, a misfit, a failure or an oddball. Good-bye Horatio Alger – Hello to the modern Anti-Hero!

I believe John Garfield was Hollywood’s original angry young man. Regardless, his career dissipated in the 1950’s communist witch-hunt spearheaded by late Senator Joe McCarthy. The next member of this genre to catch wide public attention as a great method actor was Marlon Brando. Eventually, Brando stuffed cotton in his mouth and hung around wise-guys for his portrayal of Don Corleone in the Godfather movies, as crime families were glorified.

But in my opinion, it was Paul Newman who was the most successful in glorifying the anti-hero as Lucas Jackson in Cool Hand Luke. There, the WWII soldier becomes a hero in the Pacific Theater because he simply didn’t like anyone, including the Japanese, telling him what to do. Back at home in Florida, he didn’t like rural parking meters and showed his drunken displeasure by cutting off their heads with a massive wrench. His refusal to submit to the prison camp system and defiance of a heartless Captain and prison guard bosses ended with his being shot and dying from treatment the Captain deliberately delayed. For reasons known only to them, the United States Library of Congress deemed the movie to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and chose it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Many years after the incident described above with my wife, I experienced a moment of déjà vu while helping my granddaughter with her literature assignments. This time, it was a novel about a teenage girl who was raped and became an outcast high-school freshman unable to communicate with her parents, cut off from all friends and failing her classes. The girl eventually finds her voice by expressing herself in her school art classes – hence the title Speak. It was a New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly Best Seller, a Printz Honor Book in 2000 and became a movie in 2004. Publishers Weekly called it “stunning.” However, the book had its detractors to whom the author responded by stating, “Censoring books that deal with difficult adolescent issues does not protect anybody – our children cannot afford to have the truth of this world withheld from them.” So I and my wife were left to pray and counsel with a granddaughter left extremely disturbed about the content of this “highly acclaimed” book and the negative behavior and attitudes it produced in her classmates after they read it.

But all of this raises the question: Why are all the “truths” of these people and stories so negative? Why do so many seem to choose to wallow in the beggarly and degrading elements of life? And why is it that the real life of the anti-hero actor has so often mimicked aspects of the role they portrayed?

The truth is you become the part you play and the thing you admire. I think I’ll admire old heroes like those in Hebrews chapter eleven and new ones like Tim Tebow. Alger and Tebow have profoundly impacted America – so can you and I.

By John G. Cathcart
www.wme.org