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

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

Apart from what I've already said, FWIW, I think Doctor 11 and Sherlock would have loathed each other at King's :)

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

You know, I really love the eleventh Doctor, but yes, he is YOUNG! The doctor has been de-aging at an even more alarming rate than Superman. Superman has taken decades to get as young as he is, but the doctor has gone from mid 40's to young 20's in 5 years!

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

While the two main heroes of my film are in their late teens, I made sure to include a number of heroic characters alongside him who were older, often considerably so. This was not only to serve as mentors in the coming of age trope, but also a display of virtue and courage in their own right. I also am loathe to focus all the credit on one single person in any epic story; group efforts are more realistic in such scenarios.

However, I might offer to turn this on its head. Per Epstein, what we decided to (recently) call 'adolescents' were, in the past, were expected to fulfill adult responsibilities.* Therefore it should not be surprising that the presence of younger heroes is not uncommon to literature through the ages (Jason and the golden fleece, etc.). Perhaps we can use youthful heroes as Trojan horses to again encourage adult virtue in those age groups.

* Yes, life expectancy has increased, but that's because less people die earlier. Even centuries ago, people did live to what we would consider old age as opposed to keel over at 45 jut because, so the argument of relative age is groundless.

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.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

#1 Surely neither Christopher Eccleston not David Tennant were public school material? (And Matt Smith, for all his RP, isn't, and certainly not in the way that Benedict Cumberbatch very much is - the assumption contained in "He's with me" shrieks major public school.)

#2 Sherlock and John, if anything, are older than Holmes and Watson in A Study in Scarlet, since Holmes when Watson first discovers him in the laboratory at Barts could still pass for a medical student, and Watson himself has not spent more than a year in uniform after getting his own medical degree....

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I don't know whether Northampton is an independent school (was a grammar school in my youth) , but didn't 11 play with the wrong shape of ball to be public school material?
More seriously, my understanding (which might be wrong) is that they deliberately cast a youngster, so your second point is entirely valid