Peter on Heroes

As Krich mentioned, my heroes when I was a child were superheroes, like Spiderman. But Spiderman was not one of my childhood heroes. Batman comes to mind first. I remember I always used to hurry home from school to watch Batman. I think it must have been on at 4:00 PM. When I think of it now, it seems pretty silly: Batman and Robin stories were all two episodes of thirty minutes each, they always ended with Batman about to be killed in some weird way, and the next day he always made an amazing escape. But when I was in primary school, around 6 - 10 years old, I loved these silly stories. The escape usually involved some amazing tool that Batman carried in his Bat belt: the Bat shark repellent, the Bat gas mask, the Bat rope, or some such thing. Batman had a lot of amazing equipment, and he always had just the right thing for whatever emergency he and Robin were in that day. And Robin was always amazed, and said something like, "Holy smoke, Batman," when they escaped from a room full of poisonous gas, or "Holy cows, Batman," when they escaped being eaten by man eating cattle. (That one's not a real Batman story, I just made it up.)
When I think about the Batman stories of my childhood now, they seem even weirder than I've just written. They were, in fact, pretty kinky. Batman and Robin dressed up in sexy, close fittting leather, and some of the villains those masked heroes battled against were also a bit weird. Cat Woman was one of my favourites: she also wore tight, black leather. The actress was Eartha Kitt, who was also a famous jazz singer, well known for her sexiness, and although it never occurred to me as a child, Cat Woman dressed up in leather, whipping Batman who was tied up, is the sort of thing that would probably be banned today. Or maybe not. Childrens cartoons are even more violent, if not so obviously sexy.

Interestingly, the new version of Batman, ... not finished this morning.

Continued at 7:54 PM ...

Interestingly, the new version of Batman is more like my idea of a hero now. For example in Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale as Batman,  he starts as a weak, scared, child. After his parents' murder, Bruce Wayne is not a hero, he is just a selfish person bent on revenge, but he can't revenge himself on the people who killed his parents, and messes up other people's lives, like that of his childhood friend Rachel. But then he accepts help to overcome his own weaknesses and problems. When he returns to Gotham City and becomes Batman, he continues to grow, both in strength, in skill and emotionally. He wins and becomes a super hero, but it's the struggle and the difficulties, physicial, emotional and spiritual, that make him a super hero. Of course, the new Batman is for adults, not children, so perhaps that's why I like him now, even though I loved the old version when I was a child. The hero Batman has changed to match my changed ideas of heroism.