Super Hero
"Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.’ I believe Paul Simon wrote lyrics along the same lines, though I do like how Alfred says it in his Cockney-something accent. That’s about right for the life of a superhero, isn’t it? Falling off roofs, ladders, out of planes, trains, automobiles and love, and every time having to get back up no matter what; Whether you can or want to. Superhero’s do the dirty hard work that we citizens are not brave enough to do. Most are superhuman, being from outer space or genetically modified, which allows them supernatural abilities. Then there’s Batman, a mere mortal who feels ever nick and scratch and gets up every day to do it all over again.
It’s been hard days these past few weeks. Much like during the pandemic, there’s not a person on this planet who isn’t feeling the shocks and aftershocks of the daily earthquakes that tremor from these United States. Depressed and needing a spark of hope, I watched Batman Begins, my favourite superhero film. Much like Frank Miller’s game changing The Dark Knight Returns, Christopher Nolan’s first entry into the Batman cannon is an excellent origin story. Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher provided us with the brooding, yet fun and camp comic book Batman, yet Nolan introduces us to the man that Val Kilmer so delicately began to unearth. The number of times Bruce Wayne falls in Batman Begins is seemingly infinite; the man can’t catch a break. From the moment his parents are killed, he’s on a quest to self-actualisation, numbly and dumbly going through the stages of grief without respite. When Bruce finally reaches the top of the pyramid, he does so by following his own way, much to the dismay of Ra’s Al Ghul, who’s invested so much in the remarkable man.
Gandhi, and Jesus Christ before him, said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. A truer statement has never rung truer in our day and age. We are desperate for superheroes, leaders who will march us in the right direction without selfish agenda. Guides, that in their empathy will struggle and sacrifice with us on the journey to creating a better world. But here’s the thing: we don’t live in a comic book where events are carefully plotted panel by panel, we live in the real world, where real torment exists. A leader is only human and therefore prone to mistakes, much like us mere citizens of Gotham’s and Metropolises. We need to give leaders a chance, allow them to stumble and fall knowing that the true superheroes among them will get up and keep going. Too often in the chaos of our nonsensical fearful voices, we drown out the voices of hope. We need to embrace active silence, because if we as a collective do not check our out-of-this-world expectations, we pave the way for the League of Shadows to raze our communities.
I wanted to be Batman growing up. I wanted to conquer my fears in such a way that I could use them to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies. Mostly, I wanted my pain and suffering to have meaning. For there to be a solid goal to work towards so my many abandonments had purpose. I wanted to be a part of something that was greater than myself. So, for years I tried to be a superhero, never making a mistake, never saying anything out of place, and never ever letting anyone see me fall. Until one day, I fell off the precipice and had to claw my way out. That’s when I learned what it means to be a real superhero, to be human, to become a person.
Batman DC Comics via Forbes.com
