Heroes will not save us
Villains disturb society. They interrupt our daily lives and interfere with the gears and wheels of a functioning running economy. Heroes maintain the current situation. They resist any changes to the status quo.
This is how Hollywood frames the hero vs villain dynamic. Superheroes in movies do not bring a change to society, they only save civilians and fight villains who dare to cause “disorder and chaos”. Hollywood assumes the current status quo is the ideal utopia and whoever dares to challenge it, is deemed to be a villain.
In movies, sometimes the villain do not have a goal but to destroy. Other times, they have a goal but to achieve it, they would need to cause disturbances to the current conditions and circumstances in society. So, even if their goal makes sense, they are still seen as bad villains because they disturb our routine. Of course we need to protect our safety, but we also should strive to advance and solve problems in our societies as we progress. Some people do not see the value of solving current problems in society, because they did not face major problems in their life caused by the societal and economic system dysfunction. So, for them maintaining the status quo is the most logical approach. They fail to see that even if the status quo serves them, it does not mean that it serves all groups of people. Many times, the privilege of having many opportunities to succeed and the privilege of having safety nets to catch you when you fail, is achieved by oppressing another group of people we do not see.
When the struggles of others come up, we feel uncomfortable. “What they say cannot be true, they are finding excuses for their laziness”. We try to ignore or even justify their struggles and pains and blame it on them. After all, the system is serving me, so it cannot be the problem. The system is working, so it should be the people struggling who are not working. The system serves heroes, so heroes in movies would agree, we should maintain the current system and prevent any disturbances and changes.
Now comes the movies where the villains do not strive to destroy, but to change something in society. Sometimes, their goal would improve conditions in a society, but the means they attempt to achieve their goals is extreme, so their goal and logic fall apart. However, with this constant framing of hero vs villain dynamic, the criticism movies offer is not the means by which our goals are achieved, but rather the hero should just sustain rather than change. Any effort to thrive by the oppressed that comes by the cost of causing turbulence or even worse, reshaping, then it is a threat to people who are comfortable in the current system. So, the people in power would rather to keep oppressing the oppressed over the threat that liberating those in need might affect their comfortable status.
If luxury was given to everyone, then it would not be luxurious. No one will stand out and be above others because there would be no one to step on. We need people in the bottom so we can be on top, so we cannot risk being equals. People on the top might even believe that those in the bottom cannot even reach the top because they are truly inherently inferior. They believe that exploiting poor communities was a smart business investment and the exploited were stupid to not realize they are being exploited. The exploited and oppressed are too stupid to get themselves out of their miserable situation, so they deserve it. In reality their sin is being human. Having a heart and set of morals that would not prioritize material profit over human life.
If a country’s ultimate goal is to grow its economy and it prioritizes its gross over human life, then why are we doing what we are doing? Why are we forcing people to suffer to improve the economy? For who? For what are we destroying our planet? People in control are happy and it will not affect them up high in the skyscrapers. However, our air is becoming unbreathable, our ground and soil that grow our food are filled with poison and plastics, and the sea will drown our children. Yet, those who are up high, can filter their air and exhaust the pollution outside their bubble. They can afford expensive healthy food. They will not be there will the sea levels rise. So, why bother? Why would they give up their luxuries? It’s better for them to maintain their luxuries. You do not want to risk uncertainty, so the current situation is always the best situation. That’s what heroes do after all… protect us from any change. Who would dare to be the villain anyway. What villain would dare to disturb the heroes in order to save us?