Very well put. If our heroes are no longer vibrant and meaningful, we look to the villains.
The Marvel movies are a great example of this postmodern phenomenon. All of the heroes are quippy and acerbic, ready with a postmodern "So that just happened" one-liner at all times, dealing with ironic cartoon problems with no intellectual weight or moral confkict -- which means there are never any stakes and you never feel invested.
Contrast that with Thanos, who has a strong moral purpose, an inflexible ideology and is deadly serious in every scene he's in.
I think a lot of this has to do with the feminization of modern culture, and the increasing number of young men who are unplugging from it as they are being pushed away -- the idea that masculinity is toxic, that men must suppress their competitiveness and vitality to thrive in a modern environment. Every thought has to be followed by an emoji to let people know you're not threatening, every joke or insight vetted to make sure it's not dangerous or hurtful. To bastardize the Superman speech, we're out of work warriors living in a world of cardboard.
If you look at the pulp heroes of the '50s, or even the action heroes of the '80s, there was a positive depiction of masculinity -- that it could improve society, and protect the defenseless, and make the world better -- that's been drummed out of entertainment for the last decade.
Our heroes are almost ashamed to be heroes now. Their heroism needs to be handled ironically, their good deeds never tied to anything real world or consequential, their actions bereft of consequences or moral ambiguity. (Remember when superheroes used to fight criminals?)
Even the Joker has been defanged. The online right saw something in 2019's The Joker because he was presented as a mirror of the young modern man -- cast aside, mocked, abused and ignored, convinced his virtues were vices, who finally fought back against it.
But this is just the same grievance politics that the left indulges in. For all his anarchic rage, he was still just a victim.
We need to make heroes heroic again. We need to bring back a new positive masculinity. We root for the villains because we don't have true heroes.
Batman is another great example. He's not really a superhero -- he's a pulp vigilante. He sees a corrupt society unwilling and unable to deal with the criminality rotting it at its foundations, he sees a city consuming the helpless, and he takes ownership of the problem. He sees himself as personally responsible for the welfare of others. This is an incredibly right wing hero, which is why the left is always quick to label Batman "fascist". Batman isn't waiting for a bureaucracy to handle his problems for him. Batman is acting.
Now look how the latest Batman movie handled this -- he starts the film as a vigilante, but the movie makes it clear it's not because he has a clear driven purpose, a moral code, a dream of a better tomorrow. He's just confused and violent, an emotional child lashing out at something he doesn't understand.
The movie resolves that confusion by having him realize he was wasting his time fighting crime. He contrasts himself against a fictionalized online right of vigilantes, and realizes he'd do more good becoming some manner of social worker.
That's right: Blink and you'll miss it, but it's the first Batman movie where Batman literally decides not to be Batman at the end of it.
This is what we're dealing with here. We have cowards in hero suits. On the surface they have lantern jaws and steely gazes, but watch what they're actually saying and doing, and you realize they're all being written by the same people who were double-masking in the shower three years ago.
"I would wager the Right’s propensity to attach itself to these figures is because we intuitively sense that something has gone awfully wrong. The heroes in mainstream stories are not actual heroes, and while the villains are horrendous, they at least point to something that’s more true"
I'm jealous of this essay as whole, particularly this bit though.
Stories in a culture perform tremendous work in general, but one I haven't heard much about is their relationship to social interactions. They provide common archetypes and roles for people to use with one another to grant context for those passing relationships that have no time nor purpose in developing more deeply, I'm thinking like co-workers, customers, vendors etc. I wouldn't say this is done with much self-awareness, same as how we rarely think about how a particular medium effects our communication.
These "psychopaths with honor" code anyone out of lockstep with the modern narrative, and make it that much harder for them to be understood.
Just think about explaining say Integralist political leanings to a normie coworker...
Your code is alien and doesn't count as moral per the architype.
I'm reminded on an interesting counterpoint in the character of Rorschach in Alan Moore's "Watchmen" (the comic, not the movie or Amazon prime series). Rorschach in the story displays psychopathic tendencies, believes in grand conspiracies, has racist and antisemitic opinions (he's basically a standing for the John Birch Society), and yet is the only character with the spine not to acquiesce to Adrian Veidt's murder of a million New Yorkers to protect the world from nuclear war. He actually makes the Superman analogue of the story kill him to stop him going back to the States with the proof that the "alien invasion" was a false flag operation.
He ends up being the embodiment of the unwillingness to countenance evil that good may come.
Very well argued, you're absolutely right about the problem with relating to Joker for example and other villains. The idea is to get not simply 'RW' Men but Men in general to say that the villain is cool, or to otherwise empathize with them in order to weaken them, to be able to say 'you're evil' and more than that it is a means by which they seek to confuse, disorient and tear down men by making them doubt themselves and their morality. It's pretty twisted.
Between the joker getting raped and the on-male rape in the boys, it’s becoming a disturbing new trend where Hollywood says I should be raped and it’ll be funny when it happens.
"Just don’t get attached to them insofar as the Left can turn them into a weapon against you. The proper response is to just shrug and let it go."
I think people have done that. Apparently Joker 2 had a pretty low audience turnout, especially for a sequel to a billion dollar movie, so people are just ignoring it.
Thank you for writing this! It often feels like I’m going crazy and the only right-winger not obsessed with these immoral, “sigma male” characters. I’ve never understood why everyone latches on to them. What’s with all this “literally me” BS?
Why would you not gravitate toward characters that inspire and embody the virtues you purport to believe? There are tons of them — watch and read older things! Find a character worthy of emulation!
As an example, the type of character right-winger “sigma” guys would seem to like would be someone who walks to the beat of his own drum, unwavering in his convictions, uninterested in the opinions of others or society, unapologetic, unrelenting, unforgiving toward evil, and capable and willing to commit righteous violence.
May I suggest Solomon Kane? The warrior puritan compelled by his faith to seek out and destroy evil!
It would do one far better to obsess over him, rather than Joker or Patrick Bateman.
The Joker is effectively useless as a character without Batman. The very existence of the Joker is predicated on the existence of Batman. To make him the paragon of rightwing disillusion was a clever trick as he is the fundamental apotheosis of *not* rightwing, i.e., chaos, disorder, annihilation.
Like you, I was not all that invested in the Joaquin Phoenix Joker either. That's why I was able to look at Joker 2 with an "objective" (for lack of a better word) lens. And the way I see it, this was a fitting end for Arthur Fleck. It is, and you can't tell me otherwise.
Personally, I find the "alternate universe" Joker in 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold' as the Joker I relate to the most because he is the good guy. He is the trickster clown fighting for freedom in a world where Batman is the straight-laced villain who acts as the secret police of dystopian society. And at the risk of coming across as hypocritical given the bent of your essay, that should be the Joker that we relate to rather than this delusional loser.
"The Left will never make a true Rightwing hero, only Rightwing villains."
And any right-wing heroes that do slip through the cracks they will then spin the machine to paint and spin the hero as actually a villain all along. (Just look at the talk about "batman being a fascist.")
Or they'll paint them as actually left-wing and let the Right tear itself apart debating on whether the hero is one of theirs or not.
A good example of this is Iron Man. Iron Man 2 is possibly the most Right Wing heroic movie ever, with Tony Stark sounding like an Ayn Rand Protagonist. So naturally Age of Ultron has him creating the main villain and Civil War has him as the main villain. By Infinity War and Endgame his right wing characteristics were watered down or eliminated. And then of course he is killed so they can make more diverse heroes.
"Iron Man 2 is possibly the most Right Wing heroic movie ever"
A few other candidates (specifically within the superhero genre):
1. "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011). Steve Rogers, as depicted in the movie, is a classic paragon archetype. He embodies virtually every noble and masculine trait to a greater degree than perhaps any other movie hero in recent memory.
And there are also subtle anti-transhumanist and anti-globalist themes. The Red Skull prides himself on having transcended humanity and become something greater. In contrast, Dr. Erskine tells Steve that, despite his scientific/medical enhancements, his strength is in remaining a good man (a trait that he already had even when he was physically weak). When the Red Skull asks Steve "What makes you so special?", he replies, "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," demonstrating his humility and humanity.
In the final fight scene, the Red Skull shouts the globalist spiel, "You could have the power of the gods! Yet you wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations! I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!" Cap replies "Not my future!"
2. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014). Nick Fury reveals that S.H.I.E.L.D. is creating a new surveillance/weapons program call Project Insight that uses artificial intelligence to predict which people will become terrorist threats and automatically kill them with giant drones before they act. Cap disagrees with the decision to create this program, believing that this is a vast overreach of power and could be abused.
Cap is proven right when it turns out that S.H.I.E.L.D. is infested by HYDRA agents who plan on using Project Insight to kill everyone who the AI system predicts would stand in the way of their new world order. Also, the HYDRA gameplan explained by Arnim Zola in the movie is exactly what the real-world elites have been and still are doing to create a new world order.
The Captain America movies were made back when Ike Perlmutter (a politically right-leaning producer who went on to become a major Trump donor and even a Trump advisor) was still in charge of Marvel Studios. In 2015 (during the making of the third Captain America movie) Kevin Feige (who had to work under Perlmutter at the time) had Disney boss Bob Iger oust Perlmutter from his leadership position, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has started steadily becoming more and more woke since then. Feige and Iger have both admitted that Perlmutter was standing in the way of their plans to wokify the Marvel movies, and that this was part of why they got rid of him.
3. "Spider-Man 2". Aunt May gives the following speech on the nature of heroism: "He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people, setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them. Cheer them. Scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble... and finally allows us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams. Spider-Man did that for Henry and he wonders where he's gone... he needs him."
In the final battle with Doc Ock, Peter quotes the part about the necessity of doing what's right, even if it means giving up one's dreams, and this is what convinces Doc Ock to sacrifice his project and his own life to save New York.
And of course, like all of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies, it includes a shot of Spider-Man swinging by an American flag. There's a great LA Times interview from 2004 in which Sam Raimi explained why he put the American flag shots in the Spider-Man movies. Here's a link:
"I just love this country. I’m so happy to be here. My kids aren’t persecuted for their religion. All rights are protected; no one comes and slaughters you for anything you might think or believe. An incredible place."
"This movie is a story of a hero, and I know all these kids are coming to see this picture, these Spider-Man movies, and look at Spider-Man as their hero. And I want to make sure that the movie has a positive portrayal -- a good role model of somebody who is good of heart and is faced with conflict and perhaps makes the hard choices, but the right choices, to be this hero. So that this admiration that is given to these superheroes in these movies is earned by Tobey Maguire and the character of Peter Parker."
There's a very similar Raimi quote to that second one in the bonus features for "Spider-Man 2". He explained how movie heroes automatically get admired by the audience regardless of whether they actually deserve it, so he felt that it was important to make the hero actually deserve the admiration he's going to be getting one way or another.
A whole lot of young men have been so brutally villainized their entire lives that they're happy to play the role into which they've been cast. An entire generation of young men are thinking, "I'm a villain, am I? Okay. I'll be your villain. But be careful what you wish for."
This is why there's a market for stories like Anime's Rising of the Shield Hero, Failure Frame, Arifureta, and Western characters like V and the Punisher.
I saw the first movie without knowing quite what I was getting into. I really hated it. I finished the movie feeling dirty. I don't want to view the world through an evil lens. I prefer heroes. I had no interest in seeing the next one. There is enough evil in the world without seeking it out.
I got about half way through this article before, unfortunately, I hit TLDR. Not because it wasn't a good article, it was. I just started getting short of time. There is a lot of good food for thought here and wanted to capture these thoughts. So pardon if i miss anything int he later parts of the article.
What I, and many other people, emphasized with in the (first) Joker movie was the feeling of life beating you when you are down. That as much as you struggle and try, you can't get ahead. The sense of futility in the modern world. And yet, the Joker flips the script and ultimately because his ultimate, and highly successful, self. He got ahead, even if it was in a way that is morally abhorrent.
What I believe people are looking for is a modern Robin Hood. Robin Hood is, objectively, a villain. He robs, kidnaps, ransoms, and conducts a guerrilla war against lawful authority. But he doesn't do it for his own gain, but for the poor and downtrodden who can't protect themselves from the powers that be. That turns vice into virtue. But modern Hollywood apparatchiks and elites would rather commit literal seppuku than give people a virtuous model like that to look up to in modern culture. Lacking a virtuous model, people are latching on to downtrodden, but authority busting figures that they can get inspiration, and even a degree of hope, from. It's the same effect that allowed past Outlaws like Jessie James or Billy the Kid to become folk heroes.
Good thoughts here but I can't agree with your take on Robin Hood. He's not a villain and has never been portrayed as one. He does commit "crimes" in the legal sense, but he's doing so for the sake of the poor and downtrodden, and keeps his activities amongst the corrupt elite. Also, the rule of King John was not wholly lawful, as he was usurping the authority of King Richard.
>Why don’t we have an unabashed love of heroes and a hatred of our villains?
In most cultures heroes are figures who commit massive violence that establishes a new reality (Indra vs. Vritra), polity (Romulus) or dynasty (Augustus). The notion of the PRIMARY hero as a cucked out suffering preserver is like an inverted Gilgamesh. It has little to do with actual archetypes. Closest I can think of in classical myth is Hector, who was an honorable man fighting for a city that was corrupted by impiety, or Bhishma who fills a very similar role.
I don't think that's a fair description of the heroic. To be sure there are some heroic figures "that commit massive violence." But for all of human history, most stories had a hero's journey and not all of them (or even most of them) were that way.
Very well put. If our heroes are no longer vibrant and meaningful, we look to the villains.
The Marvel movies are a great example of this postmodern phenomenon. All of the heroes are quippy and acerbic, ready with a postmodern "So that just happened" one-liner at all times, dealing with ironic cartoon problems with no intellectual weight or moral confkict -- which means there are never any stakes and you never feel invested.
Contrast that with Thanos, who has a strong moral purpose, an inflexible ideology and is deadly serious in every scene he's in.
I think a lot of this has to do with the feminization of modern culture, and the increasing number of young men who are unplugging from it as they are being pushed away -- the idea that masculinity is toxic, that men must suppress their competitiveness and vitality to thrive in a modern environment. Every thought has to be followed by an emoji to let people know you're not threatening, every joke or insight vetted to make sure it's not dangerous or hurtful. To bastardize the Superman speech, we're out of work warriors living in a world of cardboard.
If you look at the pulp heroes of the '50s, or even the action heroes of the '80s, there was a positive depiction of masculinity -- that it could improve society, and protect the defenseless, and make the world better -- that's been drummed out of entertainment for the last decade.
Our heroes are almost ashamed to be heroes now. Their heroism needs to be handled ironically, their good deeds never tied to anything real world or consequential, their actions bereft of consequences or moral ambiguity. (Remember when superheroes used to fight criminals?)
Even the Joker has been defanged. The online right saw something in 2019's The Joker because he was presented as a mirror of the young modern man -- cast aside, mocked, abused and ignored, convinced his virtues were vices, who finally fought back against it.
But this is just the same grievance politics that the left indulges in. For all his anarchic rage, he was still just a victim.
We need to make heroes heroic again. We need to bring back a new positive masculinity. We root for the villains because we don't have true heroes.
Batman is another great example. He's not really a superhero -- he's a pulp vigilante. He sees a corrupt society unwilling and unable to deal with the criminality rotting it at its foundations, he sees a city consuming the helpless, and he takes ownership of the problem. He sees himself as personally responsible for the welfare of others. This is an incredibly right wing hero, which is why the left is always quick to label Batman "fascist". Batman isn't waiting for a bureaucracy to handle his problems for him. Batman is acting.
Now look how the latest Batman movie handled this -- he starts the film as a vigilante, but the movie makes it clear it's not because he has a clear driven purpose, a moral code, a dream of a better tomorrow. He's just confused and violent, an emotional child lashing out at something he doesn't understand.
The movie resolves that confusion by having him realize he was wasting his time fighting crime. He contrasts himself against a fictionalized online right of vigilantes, and realizes he'd do more good becoming some manner of social worker.
That's right: Blink and you'll miss it, but it's the first Batman movie where Batman literally decides not to be Batman at the end of it.
This is what we're dealing with here. We have cowards in hero suits. On the surface they have lantern jaws and steely gazes, but watch what they're actually saying and doing, and you realize they're all being written by the same people who were double-masking in the shower three years ago.
The problem with Batman is that he didn't help implement the death penalty in Gotham City.
You’re not going to be able to do that. Universalism doesn’t allow for heroes that aren’t cucked.
"I would wager the Right’s propensity to attach itself to these figures is because we intuitively sense that something has gone awfully wrong. The heroes in mainstream stories are not actual heroes, and while the villains are horrendous, they at least point to something that’s more true"
I'm jealous of this essay as whole, particularly this bit though.
Stories in a culture perform tremendous work in general, but one I haven't heard much about is their relationship to social interactions. They provide common archetypes and roles for people to use with one another to grant context for those passing relationships that have no time nor purpose in developing more deeply, I'm thinking like co-workers, customers, vendors etc. I wouldn't say this is done with much self-awareness, same as how we rarely think about how a particular medium effects our communication.
These "psychopaths with honor" code anyone out of lockstep with the modern narrative, and make it that much harder for them to be understood.
Just think about explaining say Integralist political leanings to a normie coworker...
Your code is alien and doesn't count as moral per the architype.
I'm reminded on an interesting counterpoint in the character of Rorschach in Alan Moore's "Watchmen" (the comic, not the movie or Amazon prime series). Rorschach in the story displays psychopathic tendencies, believes in grand conspiracies, has racist and antisemitic opinions (he's basically a standing for the John Birch Society), and yet is the only character with the spine not to acquiesce to Adrian Veidt's murder of a million New Yorkers to protect the world from nuclear war. He actually makes the Superman analogue of the story kill him to stop him going back to the States with the proof that the "alien invasion" was a false flag operation.
He ends up being the embodiment of the unwillingness to countenance evil that good may come.
Alan Moore said you're not supposed to root for Rorschach, so he's in line with this essay's portrayal of Joker moreso than being a counterpoint.
I think it just goes to show even our psychopaths are worse now - Rorschach actually had some positive, heroic qualities in a tableau with none.
Moore has been getting dunked on for this screwup for years.
Very well argued, you're absolutely right about the problem with relating to Joker for example and other villains. The idea is to get not simply 'RW' Men but Men in general to say that the villain is cool, or to otherwise empathize with them in order to weaken them, to be able to say 'you're evil' and more than that it is a means by which they seek to confuse, disorient and tear down men by making them doubt themselves and their morality. It's pretty twisted.
Between the joker getting raped and the on-male rape in the boys, it’s becoming a disturbing new trend where Hollywood says I should be raped and it’ll be funny when it happens.
"Just don’t get attached to them insofar as the Left can turn them into a weapon against you. The proper response is to just shrug and let it go."
I think people have done that. Apparently Joker 2 had a pretty low audience turnout, especially for a sequel to a billion dollar movie, so people are just ignoring it.
A good detox essay for the poisoned RW mind.
Thank you for writing this! It often feels like I’m going crazy and the only right-winger not obsessed with these immoral, “sigma male” characters. I’ve never understood why everyone latches on to them. What’s with all this “literally me” BS?
Why would you not gravitate toward characters that inspire and embody the virtues you purport to believe? There are tons of them — watch and read older things! Find a character worthy of emulation!
As an example, the type of character right-winger “sigma” guys would seem to like would be someone who walks to the beat of his own drum, unwavering in his convictions, uninterested in the opinions of others or society, unapologetic, unrelenting, unforgiving toward evil, and capable and willing to commit righteous violence.
May I suggest Solomon Kane? The warrior puritan compelled by his faith to seek out and destroy evil!
It would do one far better to obsess over him, rather than Joker or Patrick Bateman.
Haven't been given screentime. This is no doubt partially intentional.
I think the basic rule stays the same "Don't give money to people who hate you."
Also, "don't don the devil horns". As per Brian Niemeier who gave us that same rule.
The Joker is effectively useless as a character without Batman. The very existence of the Joker is predicated on the existence of Batman. To make him the paragon of rightwing disillusion was a clever trick as he is the fundamental apotheosis of *not* rightwing, i.e., chaos, disorder, annihilation.
Plus they keep bringing him back. Since he keeps breaking out of prison.
Like you, I was not all that invested in the Joaquin Phoenix Joker either. That's why I was able to look at Joker 2 with an "objective" (for lack of a better word) lens. And the way I see it, this was a fitting end for Arthur Fleck. It is, and you can't tell me otherwise.
Personally, I find the "alternate universe" Joker in 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold' as the Joker I relate to the most because he is the good guy. He is the trickster clown fighting for freedom in a world where Batman is the straight-laced villain who acts as the secret police of dystopian society. And at the risk of coming across as hypocritical given the bent of your essay, that should be the Joker that we relate to rather than this delusional loser.
"The Left will never make a true Rightwing hero, only Rightwing villains."
And any right-wing heroes that do slip through the cracks they will then spin the machine to paint and spin the hero as actually a villain all along. (Just look at the talk about "batman being a fascist.")
Or they'll paint them as actually left-wing and let the Right tear itself apart debating on whether the hero is one of theirs or not.
A good example of this is Iron Man. Iron Man 2 is possibly the most Right Wing heroic movie ever, with Tony Stark sounding like an Ayn Rand Protagonist. So naturally Age of Ultron has him creating the main villain and Civil War has him as the main villain. By Infinity War and Endgame his right wing characteristics were watered down or eliminated. And then of course he is killed so they can make more diverse heroes.
"Iron Man 2 is possibly the most Right Wing heroic movie ever"
A few other candidates (specifically within the superhero genre):
1. "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011). Steve Rogers, as depicted in the movie, is a classic paragon archetype. He embodies virtually every noble and masculine trait to a greater degree than perhaps any other movie hero in recent memory.
And there are also subtle anti-transhumanist and anti-globalist themes. The Red Skull prides himself on having transcended humanity and become something greater. In contrast, Dr. Erskine tells Steve that, despite his scientific/medical enhancements, his strength is in remaining a good man (a trait that he already had even when he was physically weak). When the Red Skull asks Steve "What makes you so special?", he replies, "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," demonstrating his humility and humanity.
In the final fight scene, the Red Skull shouts the globalist spiel, "You could have the power of the gods! Yet you wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations! I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!" Cap replies "Not my future!"
2. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014). Nick Fury reveals that S.H.I.E.L.D. is creating a new surveillance/weapons program call Project Insight that uses artificial intelligence to predict which people will become terrorist threats and automatically kill them with giant drones before they act. Cap disagrees with the decision to create this program, believing that this is a vast overreach of power and could be abused.
Cap is proven right when it turns out that S.H.I.E.L.D. is infested by HYDRA agents who plan on using Project Insight to kill everyone who the AI system predicts would stand in the way of their new world order. Also, the HYDRA gameplan explained by Arnim Zola in the movie is exactly what the real-world elites have been and still are doing to create a new world order.
The Captain America movies were made back when Ike Perlmutter (a politically right-leaning producer who went on to become a major Trump donor and even a Trump advisor) was still in charge of Marvel Studios. In 2015 (during the making of the third Captain America movie) Kevin Feige (who had to work under Perlmutter at the time) had Disney boss Bob Iger oust Perlmutter from his leadership position, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has started steadily becoming more and more woke since then. Feige and Iger have both admitted that Perlmutter was standing in the way of their plans to wokify the Marvel movies, and that this was part of why they got rid of him.
3. "Spider-Man 2". Aunt May gives the following speech on the nature of heroism: "He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people, setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them. Cheer them. Scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble... and finally allows us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams. Spider-Man did that for Henry and he wonders where he's gone... he needs him."
In the final battle with Doc Ock, Peter quotes the part about the necessity of doing what's right, even if it means giving up one's dreams, and this is what convinces Doc Ock to sacrifice his project and his own life to save New York.
And of course, like all of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies, it includes a shot of Spider-Man swinging by an American flag. There's a great LA Times interview from 2004 in which Sam Raimi explained why he put the American flag shots in the Spider-Man movies. Here's a link:
https://archive.ph/7sKBC
Some relevant quotes:
"I just love this country. I’m so happy to be here. My kids aren’t persecuted for their religion. All rights are protected; no one comes and slaughters you for anything you might think or believe. An incredible place."
"This movie is a story of a hero, and I know all these kids are coming to see this picture, these Spider-Man movies, and look at Spider-Man as their hero. And I want to make sure that the movie has a positive portrayal -- a good role model of somebody who is good of heart and is faced with conflict and perhaps makes the hard choices, but the right choices, to be this hero. So that this admiration that is given to these superheroes in these movies is earned by Tobey Maguire and the character of Peter Parker."
There's a very similar Raimi quote to that second one in the bonus features for "Spider-Man 2". He explained how movie heroes automatically get admired by the audience regardless of whether they actually deserve it, so he felt that it was important to make the hero actually deserve the admiration he's going to be getting one way or another.
A whole lot of young men have been so brutally villainized their entire lives that they're happy to play the role into which they've been cast. An entire generation of young men are thinking, "I'm a villain, am I? Okay. I'll be your villain. But be careful what you wish for."
This is why there's a market for stories like Anime's Rising of the Shield Hero, Failure Frame, Arifureta, and Western characters like V and the Punisher.
I saw the first movie without knowing quite what I was getting into. I really hated it. I finished the movie feeling dirty. I don't want to view the world through an evil lens. I prefer heroes. I had no interest in seeing the next one. There is enough evil in the world without seeking it out.
I got about half way through this article before, unfortunately, I hit TLDR. Not because it wasn't a good article, it was. I just started getting short of time. There is a lot of good food for thought here and wanted to capture these thoughts. So pardon if i miss anything int he later parts of the article.
What I, and many other people, emphasized with in the (first) Joker movie was the feeling of life beating you when you are down. That as much as you struggle and try, you can't get ahead. The sense of futility in the modern world. And yet, the Joker flips the script and ultimately because his ultimate, and highly successful, self. He got ahead, even if it was in a way that is morally abhorrent.
What I believe people are looking for is a modern Robin Hood. Robin Hood is, objectively, a villain. He robs, kidnaps, ransoms, and conducts a guerrilla war against lawful authority. But he doesn't do it for his own gain, but for the poor and downtrodden who can't protect themselves from the powers that be. That turns vice into virtue. But modern Hollywood apparatchiks and elites would rather commit literal seppuku than give people a virtuous model like that to look up to in modern culture. Lacking a virtuous model, people are latching on to downtrodden, but authority busting figures that they can get inspiration, and even a degree of hope, from. It's the same effect that allowed past Outlaws like Jessie James or Billy the Kid to become folk heroes.
Good thoughts here but I can't agree with your take on Robin Hood. He's not a villain and has never been portrayed as one. He does commit "crimes" in the legal sense, but he's doing so for the sake of the poor and downtrodden, and keeps his activities amongst the corrupt elite. Also, the rule of King John was not wholly lawful, as he was usurping the authority of King Richard.
>Why don’t we have an unabashed love of heroes and a hatred of our villains?
In most cultures heroes are figures who commit massive violence that establishes a new reality (Indra vs. Vritra), polity (Romulus) or dynasty (Augustus). The notion of the PRIMARY hero as a cucked out suffering preserver is like an inverted Gilgamesh. It has little to do with actual archetypes. Closest I can think of in classical myth is Hector, who was an honorable man fighting for a city that was corrupted by impiety, or Bhishma who fills a very similar role.
I don't think that's a fair description of the heroic. To be sure there are some heroic figures "that commit massive violence." But for all of human history, most stories had a hero's journey and not all of them (or even most of them) were that way.