On the street

Who are your heroes?

Who are your heroes? “Our Hawkeyes are Heroes,” the theme for this year’s University of Iowa Homecoming, spurred me to ask this question to performers and audience members at Iowa Shout, held Sept. 27 in the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City. Iowa Shout is a yearly Homecoming pep rally of sorts, in which members of UI sororities and fraternities perform skits, songs and dances. So who does our society elevate to hero status?

This year’s Homecoming theme implies our heroes are athletes, those who battle for the sake of team spirit on the football field, soccer pitch or track.

On the other hand, the guest of honor at this year’s Homecoming is Brandon Routh, the UI alum who soared through theaters as Superman in the 2006 blockbuster Superman Returns. Superman, Spiderman, Batman, X-Men and more: pop culture has been full of heroes of the very obvious kind over the last few years, right down to that hit T.V. show, Heroes.

Then again, making a movie star the Homecoming guest of honor implies something about the status of celebrity in our society – vacuous as it may be, are actors and rock stars our heroes?

Then there is another category of hero, of the firefighter, risk-your-life-for-others set. Not to mention the Martin Luther King Jrs and Gandhis of the world, the leaders of revolutions. These seemed to me to be the obvious answers, so I was surprised when no one gave them.

Instead, when I asked people who their heroes were, those I questioned almost invariably named their parents.

It’s kind of nice to know: you don’t have to be a skilled athlete, posses a superpower, or risk your life to be considered a hero. At least according to this informal poll, the parents who support their children, who help them through the worst and best parts of their lives, are as heroic as they come.   |    Login or Join to Post Comments