Where is that masked man?

So there’s a new grocery store across the street from my apartment and it has a motion detector security system. While I’m sure it keeps the various gangsters and ninjas of Toronto at bay it also has it’s sensitivity jacked way up. Like, when someone walks down the sidewalk it goes off. This happens from the hours of 11 pm until 3 or 4 am and while my girlfriend is able to sleep blissfully through it I am not. This happened last weekend and I ended up staying awake until 4 in the morning.

Lacking anything better to do I tossed up the tvlinks and streamed up a couple of movies that I knew my ladyfriend had no intention of watching. Pineapple Express, and Step Brothers. Now these were both funny movies, I laughed at many scenes, but it brought something into perspective. These manchildren are being looked up to by today’s youth. Now, while Rook is 87 years old, I’m only 24 so I don’t think I’m much past ‘youth’ but I can say that I never looked up to guys like this as my personal heroes, but where have all the heroes gone? Or were they ever there to begin with?

Rook, upon discovering the internet.

I grew up with an abundance of ‘heroes’ of course; Spiderman, Captain Planet, The Ninja Turtles. But all the characters of these are young folks, teens and tweens. There isn’t anything to look up to there. There are moral lessons of course, ‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’, ‘Recycle’, and ‘Eat Pizza’. In years past the heroes were Zorro, the Lone Ranger, and the Green Hornet. Who were these masked men? Anyone of them could have taken off their mask and been my favourite teacher, the guy who owns the comic shop down the street, or my father. They’re characters to be sure but they could be real and they seeped justice, responsibility and courage.

That costume is totally not canon.

In modern society though the father figure has become more and more absent (Single mothers are ever on the rise and male teachers account for only 13% of primary school professionals)and is being replaced by the ‘characters’ of actors such as Seth Rogan and Will Ferrell which doesn’t bode well for today’s youngsters. It seems to me that young men have naught but pot smoking, beer guzzling irresponsible 40 year old men living in their parents basement for role models. Young ladies don’t fare much better with the abundance of ‘celebutantes’ and pop singers in and out of rehab on a regular basis. The real joke is that we’re supposed to laugh at these people AND want be like them. What happened to Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne who, in their 40's, were kicking ass and taking names in a way people aspired to.

My actual dad.

In a world where single parents are more and more common and you have to chose between Sports Stars with drug problems, Manchild actors, Celebrities who are only famous for being famous, and faceless soldiers who shoot first and ask questions later, who do you look up to in life?

Until next time, I can be your hero baby.

-King