Two peeves (from a comment on a friend's LJ)

[fpb]

1) Is it only my impression that Moffat and RTD only know how to write heroes who look exactly like public schoolboys from the seventies? I guess it's right for a modern incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, who was an Oxford man after all, and a Victorian one; but both Sherlock and the Eleventh Doctor look exactly like people I might have met at King's Canterbury in 1977 or so, just a few years older. I am not a pusher of diversity for its own sake, but I find their similarities a bit troubling.
2) Much more important is the drift of the heroic image away from a man in his thirties-forties towards a teen-ager. The heroes of the past tended to be men of some experience and with a past, projecting the image of a young father even when convention did not allow them to be (like Pat Ryan in TERRY AND THE PIRATES or even Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, they would have wards or nephews); today the general idea is to cast someone barely old enough to vote as the hero. I don't mean just Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl, where the fantasy element is at least obvious. To me, the most blatant and disturbing instance has been the rejuvenation of Superman. Superman is your dad, the dad we always wanted to have; he is the person who looks over you, who makes sure you are safe, who gets the kitten out of the tree - the reason you feel safe in your bed at night. The fifties Superman was clearly a man in his forties; Wayne Boring's had a recognizable receding hairline. But since the seventies he has been getting younger and younger. Dean Cain's Superman, in particular, looked like he'd just got out of high school; and it's not a coincidence that since then TV has focused on Superboy. To me, this is positively unsettling, as if one watched one's parents devolving into adolescents - like a real-life version of Buffy's Band Candy episode.

Comments

Pet Peeve #2

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

I've actually noticed the opposite in one franchise: Robin Hood.

Leaving aside the BBC Robin Hoods who are always in the their early 20s, the movie Robin Hoods have been getting older and older

* Russell Crowe was 45 in the most recent "Robin Hood" (2010)
* Cary Elwes was 31 in "Men in Tights" (1993) - breaking the pattern, but then it was a parody
* Patrick Bergin was 40 in his "Robin Hood" (1991)
* Kevin Costner was 36 in "Prince of Thieves" (also 1991)
* Richard Todd was 33 in "Robin Hood and His Merrie Men" (1952)
* Errol Flynn was 28 in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1928)

Of course, Douglas Fairbanks was the ripe old age of 39 when he played Robin in the 1922 silent version, so maybe the later versions were just gradually working their way back up in age after the young Errol Flynn's version.

Re: Pet Peeve #2

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Robin Hood is a rebel. Of course he is not a paternal figure! A rebel who was a bit on in years would begin to be a grim and sorry figure, one without hope or prospects. Even so, Errol Flynn's Robin Hood has,when necessary, a gravitas and seriousness that looks well beyond the teen-age heroes of today; remember when he states the case for the serfs to the aristocratic Maid Marian, who listens in bewilderment. You can't imagine the Dean Cain Superman acting with such force.