“Heroes live close to the land of myths and serve as gatekeepers showing the rest of us the way to greatness. They are larger than life and feed our desires to be more than we are, to succeed in being superior. They inspire us and lead the way for us to develop outside limitations of our own skins and circumstances and become greater and more important individual. Spiritually and physically they are our role models” (Browne, 2005, 35). This is true on many levels, as a society we look to the heroes for ways to improve our lives, and we just them as a how to for many other areas in our lives. We often think of the heroes as role models because they are who we want to be like. We as a society want to be popular and well-liked. We are taught as early as elementary school that the popular people are the ones that are more well-liked and they tend to grow up and be better people. So we look to the heroes and aspire to be just like them.
After reading about Heroes this week, the first hero that came to mind is rapper T.I. To me he is not a hero but to some he is. October 13th, 2010, rapper T.I. reportedly stopped a young man from committing suicide. “We’re told T.I. heard about the jumper on the radio — and called Ryan Cameron to see if there was anything he could do to help out with the situation” (tvoneonline.com, 2010). Once he was at the radio station the police and T.I. made a video to play to the man, which made him decide not to jump. Some people are very skeptical of these events since these happened only days before he was to appear in court for probation violation. “I’m sure now T.I. can tell the judge that maybe he can make up for his grievances by helping police fight crime. I’m sure his graphics team is already coming up with a Bat signal like image to use” (tvoneonline.com). T.I. responded to the criticism by saying “The fact of the matter is, God put me in a position and in my spirit to help. I can’t take credit for that. I didn’t wake up this morning with the intentions of being a negotiator and talk someone off of a ledge” (tvoneonline.com). But the question is if God lead him to help, why did he call the radio station first? This is why people are still skeptical of his motives.
Before these events rapper T.I. (Clifford Harris), was released from prison where he served a year for gun charges. Upon his release he was on probation and had to submit to random urine tests. In the latter part of August, T.I and his wife were stopped on for a traffic violation and after the police smelled marijuana, the car was searched and so were they. During this search the police found the drug ecstasy on both T.I and his wife. Since T.I. was on probation he was sentenced back to prison for eleven months. So this heroic act came right after he was in trouble with the law. This is why I do not really believe that he is a hero. T.I. called the radio station after hearing about this young man and asked the radio personality what he can do to help. As stated in the article, The concept of hero against democracy by Ray B. Browne “The only hero who is not a figure of fantasy is that person who sees somebody in trouble, relieves him of that trouble, then goes silently on his way” he goes on to say “Most people who do an extraordinary deed call a press conference. That’s the way heroes are created and live these days” (Browne, 2005, 52). T.I in my opinion is an example of a modern day “hero”.
References
Browne, R. (2005). The Concept of Hero against Democracy. In R. Browne, Profiles of Popular Culture. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
TV one. (October, 2010). T.I. SAVES MAN FROM COMMITTING SUICIDE. Retrieved from
http://news.tvoneonline.com/scandal/t-i-saves-man-from-committing-suicide-8187.htm.
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