Hero Worship

“Hero worship never died and never will” (Carlyle, 208).The dreams of becoming a superhero, the desire for success, and the worship of heroic figures are deeply rooted in our hearts. My feelings about heroes are always triggered by the most pervasive form of modern art—films. Every time I watch a heroic film, I feel deeply moved by the strong personalities of the hero. In different films, he can either be a cowboy riding a horse, a warrior who fights for the independence of a country, a policeman who strikes the criminals or a successful man who makes a great contribution in a certain field. And right now, when writing this essay, the first heroic figure coming up on my mind is "Rancho" in the Bollywood film 3 idiots. Rancho’s “strong sense of personal choice and effectiveness” (Polster, 2001), his courage to break the rules and his respect and sacrifice to his friends makes him the ideal hero in my heart. To begin with, the first heroic characteristic of Rancho is his strong individual opinion and his insistence of his dream. In other words, he knows exactly what he wants and he chases his dreams without hesitation. In the film, Rancho and his two best friends, Farhan and Raju, go to the same school which is the best Engineering College in India. However, the reasons why they go there are completely different. Both Farhan and Raju have their own interests and dreams, yet they go to the top-ranked university only to fulfill their families’ wills. Instead, Rancho is a genius who studies for the sheer joy of his major—he goes to the college because he has a real passion for machine and engineering. As Polster (2001) mentions, “the hero has an original perspective that distinguishes him from others who settle for agreement and conformity or are too beaten down to ask necessary questions”. To put this in another way, she suggests that those who stick to their own thoughts and never compromise to the reality can be called heroes. Like what Polster says, Rancho is

References: Barth, J. (1968). Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. Browne,R.(1990).Contemporary Heroes and Heroines. Gale Reaserch Inc,Detroit. Polster, M. (2001).Eve’s Daughters. Gestalt Journal Press. Thomas,C. (1968).On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Tollefson,T.(1993,May/June). Is a Hero Really Nothing but a Sandwich?. Utne Reader.