Sunday is football day and since my beloved Cowboys took care of the Arizona Cardinals it freed me up to think about something I heard on Saturday. The minds at ESPN were pushing their NFL game on Sunday and the return of Tedy Bruschi from a stroke. Now that is pretty amazing and shows a great strength of will, something I definitely admire in anyone.
But whoever it was that wrote the copy put in something that made me wince. They called his return one of the defining moments of our generation. There has been a lot of sports hyperbole in the past several millennia I would imagine, but to call this an event that will define a generation is insanity.
Isn’t it just perfect in this time of the “Game of the Century” being played every several weeks and a real icon like Lauren Bacall being tortured with the notion that Nicole Kidman is somehow a legend that ESPN would make history out of a molehill? When did you just have to show up to get a medal?
Which brings me to the real crux of this matter for me; when did someone who plays a game, for money no less, somehow become a hero? Isn't that called having a job? Just a really fun one? I always thought doing something heroic was about accomplishment wrapped in selflessness and usually included saving a life along the way?
Here are the top two definitions from dictionary.com:
In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.
A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war
Farther down the line is this one where they talk about being a man of note, like the heroes of medicine, see also celebrity. Now I don’t mean to be a dick, though it seems that I often am, but I just really chafe under this idea that a celebrity is somehow a hero.
Maybe it’s because I am jealous and just really want to be a celebrity but don’t have the heroic gene to get it done. Maybe the courage that it does take to put yourself out there, drive around with three changes of clothes in your trunk, and send out pictures of yourself every week announcing your day as an extra on “The West Wing” is somehow heroic.
Let me think, sitting in a fox hole while people who want to kill you shoot live ammunition at your head while your best friend bleeds to death next to you, or being able to hit a fastball one out of every three times…. Hmmmm. One says hero to me; any guess which one that might be?
I think that this society has gotten so shallow, so market driven, so brainwashed by television that we are willing to sell our morality for the slimmest chance for fifteen seconds of fame. Because with that fame comes the Great Cash Out and isn’t that really the American Dream.
So is Tedy Bruschi a guy to be admired? Absolutely. Is he a hero, someone who has risked his life and limb to make the world a better place for us all? Not unless he somehow single-handedly kept the Patriots under the spread.
And I’m pretty sure he isn’t from Olympus. No, I think I’ll make my hero’s those people who really deserve it. And I’ll keep my generation defining moments to things like space flight and the Berlin Wall coming down. Those things, I think, are sure not to cheapen our collective psyche as time goes by.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment