On “Heroes”

Reader beware: long post!

Having indulged for much of this week in watching "Heroes" online while suffering (though not so much that I couldn’t have spent my time more productively—see previous post) from a bad cold, I feel as if I should make some effort to extract some significance from the experience.

I should state, for the record, that we do not have TV in this house, and that all of my TV-show consumption of the last two years has come, for the most part, from the web or Netflix. It has consisted mainly of Six Feet Under (we watched the very last episode last week, sniff!) and LOST (which I feel I must fully capitalize, as per the TV credits), with a few migrations into Ugly Betty and that one about the sexy interns on ABC. And that’s it. I have no idea what people are saying about Heroes, only that it seems to be quite popular, and I imagine that any thinking person would probably say ‘no duh’ to what I’m about to write. Anyway.

First of all, it is definitely an addictive show, for all the usual reasons: like LOST and probably a bunch of other shows I haven’t seen (24?), it maintains a high level of suspense and mystery by promising a big “reveal” sometime in the future, while each episode gives you a missing link, and thus the feeling that you’re somehow inching closer to some kind of grand revelation; and it gets you involved in the lives of an attractive assortment of characters, each of whom is special and important and, with a few comic exceptions, sexy, and whose stories gradually become increasingly interlocked.

I think Heroes does these things a bit better than LOST, actually, because it hasn’t gotten itself stuck in any dead end romance plots or love triangles, and its “big mystery” isn’t as mysterious, or ever-shifting, as LOST’s has become. You actually believe, in other words, that the writers have control of the narrative and aren’t just making it up as they go along. The story promises to have more linearity even as it continually jumps from character to character, setting to setting. (Is this the key to its popularity? We 21st-century consumers want nonlinear narratives with multiple points of view, because that is now how we experience the world, but we still want to believe, or are willing to suspend disbelief, that everything’s tied together somehow, that an omniscient narrator (aka “Destiny” in Heroes-speak) will eventually step in to reveal all.)

I find I’m enjoying Heroes more than I ever enjoyed LOST, perhaps also because it takes itself less seriously. Even as it deals with encroaching nuclear apocalypse and personal tragedies, the show’s comic-book aura and super-hero plot kind of keeps it more honest than the increasingly ponderous LOST. I get so sick, with LOST, of all those pseudo-philosophical revelations everyone's always spouting; Heroes arguably does the same thing, but somehow doesn't grate in the same way. (I also hate how no one could talk to Jack without saying his name in every damn sentence. Makes for a good college drinking game, I’m sure, but drives me beserk.)

On the other hand, Heroes’ production value seems lower than LOST’s. The acting is more uneven, and the writing at times sloppy and unconvincing (and not always in a coyly comic book kind of way, either).

Also disappointing—and this is perhaps what I’d like to think about most, in relation to today’s American popular culture—is that (like LOST) it projects itself as a new kind of narrative with its international cast and multiple perspectives, but it seems really to be yet one more celebration of the white American male. (This thesis depends to some degree on how the plot develops...so don't hold me to it.)

It seems to me that the main characters (the ones you are led to care about most) are white American guys and gals. The people of color/non-Americans are marginal, adding complexity to the main white characters but not themselves very 3 dimensional. Perhaps Hiro is the exception, in that he seems to be one of, if not the, main “hero,” what with his name and his comic book/manga stylings. But he’s also, I think, molded after a classic orientalist stereotype: goofy and childlike, his likeability seems to hinge on his being essentially asexual, an Asian male whose masculinity pales before that of the Petrelli brothers (macho and sensitive white guys), the black men (hot), and the Indian narrator, who himself embodies another stereotype: wise Indian guru man’s budding guru son, who’s also effeminate, pretty, gullible. The effeminacy of the Asian men doesn’t only contrast with the masculinity of the white men, but helps prop it up in our imaginations.

Also, it seems, though who knows, that all of these potential heroes aren’t in fact, as is so often being stated, trying to “save the world,” but rather trying to save New York City, where we’re being led to believe some kind of nuclear explosion will take place. As we know, another huge explosion in NYC would be a horrible thing, but not necessarily the end of the world.

As for gender, not only are the two main women both blond, beautiful, white Americans, but they are also both—so far at least—presented to us less as empowered by their newly discovered skills, than as victims of their own power, and in ways that invoke very familiar constructions of femininity. (All of the heroes are victims of their power at first, but the men quickly become determined to gain control over it (for good or evil); the women don't seem to recognize that they could own their own power.) Claire is the classic horror movie target: the innocent cheerleader girl next door; and Nicki (who, tell me if I’m wrong, is the spitting image of Nicole Simpson) is a classic Madonna/whore split personality straight out of daytime soaps. Simone, the one prominent non-white female (am I forgetting anyone else?), is killed off, but before then functions primarily as the shared love interest of two white men.

All of that said, I must say I’m enjoying it immensely.