The Atomic Bomb, Collective Sin, and the rise of the Anti-Hero in America; or John Wayne vs. Clint Eastwood

[Mikenike]

So you are writing a Lex Luthor origin story? Its been done

I don't know. I never liked dc comics so I don't know jack shit about them.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

I don't know. I never liked dc comics so I don't know jack shit about them.

I don't either, random memories from occasional views of smallville as a teen.

 

[FJC11]

And a shitty actor.

I doubt you could do better there skippy,

 

[IowaOffRoad]

I doubt you could do better there skippy,

Dunno, can he play himself?
I like the Duke, but even when he played Genghis Khan he was just the Duke on the Steppe

 

[FJC11]

Dunno, can he play himself?
I like the Duke, but even when he played Genghis Khan he was just the Duke on the Steppe

Type cast is real.

 

[grumpy356]

 

[JD Mark]

I'm writing a science fiction novel in my spare time. The main character is something of a tarnished hero anyway. But my hope is it pisses off most of the people who read it when they find out in the end he is actually the bad guy and they have been rooting for him for about 400 pages.

Sweet...no need to read the book now.

 

[DVanVorous]

He was almost 35 when PH was bombed and had several children. He did not need to dodge anything.

Meh...by the same token Jimmy Stewart was 1 year younger. Stewart enlisted in the Army AirCorp cuz he was already a pilot in 1941, became the commander of the 703 Bomb squadron based in UK and flew 20 combat missions in WWII. He became a USAF Brigadier General in 1959 and flew a couple B-52 missions before he retired in 1968...That PLUS being a much better actor and being a republican without all the political diatribe that Wayne and/OR Reagan had.

No, Wayne talked his way into just doing pro US military flicks during the war unlike a multitude of other actors that fought.

 

[Mikenike]

Sweet...no need to read the book now.

Well since the odds of it ever actually getting finished are about 500 to 1 I think it is safe if i spoil that bit here.... Might be the only way any of us ever see the end. Besides you'll miss all the descriptions of alien tittays

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Well since the odds of it ever actually getting finished are about 500 to 1 I think it is safe if i spoil that bit here.... Might be the only way any of us ever see the end. Besides you'll miss all the descriptions of alien tittays

Lemme guess, 3 tittays?

 

[clodhopper]

 

[Filthy McChevy]

trivia:

Bathroom reader book we have says that when he was a kid John Wayne had a dog named Duke that always chased after fire trucks and the firemen started calling him Duke too. Supposedly he said "I was named after a damn dog".

 

[Mikenike]

Lemme guess, 3 tittays?

Nah i always found that a wierd trope. Guess youll just have to read it in twenty years when i finish to find out.... Just kidding arse says you're old and gonna die before that

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Nah i always found that a wierd trope. Guess youll just have to read it in twenty years when i finish to find out.... Just kidding arse says you're old and gonna die before that

There’s children yet to be born he will say that about too

 

[Mikenike]

There’s children yet to be born he will say that about too

Insert arbitrary ok boomer meme here. Im too lazy to make one because im a millennial

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Insert arbitrary ok boomer meme here. Im too lazy to make one because im a millennial

You, uh, know that I qualify in that bucket as well (depending on what arbitrary line is drawn)?

 

[Mikenike]

You, uh, know that I qualify in that bucket as well (depending on what arbitrary line is drawn)?

I did not. I don't know any of y'all motherfuckers personal like

 

[IowaOffRoad]

I did not. I don't know any of y'all motherfuckers personal like

He would say boomer is a state of mind, not an age. That's the cop-out for his insults

 

[DMG]

Young people/young countries grow up. WW2 was a huge 'grow up' moment for the US. In that growing up, we learned we had to make sacrifices to meet goals. We had real hand to hand combat, very hard choices and very adult things happen that, for many, caused them to see the 'anti hero' as more palpable than the sacharine sweetness of a protagonist without fault.

We wanted lead characters to more closely reflect who we were... guys who'd grown up mostly innocent, but called to do a job, and in the course of that job, we had to face some realities and some situations where the options were a hobson's choice vs. real choices.

But, even with the advent of the anti hero, romanticism is still king in the western world. If you want to read more about the question you are talking about you might like a book by a guy named Leslie Fiedler called 'Love and death in the american novel'.

Essentially, we still pretty much demand that good win out over evil and that the good guy walks away the good guy.

Even in a story like Cormac McCarthy No country for old men (which is a good example of this) the hero is not the poor slob who took the money. but our old friend (and Al Gore's college roommate) Tommy Lee Jones who is conflicted by the shortcuts he's taken in life and in his work, the price it took, and the uncomfortable misgivings he has about his life.... with the surety of hunting down a monster.

That the monster is done in largely by accident is testament to that whole notion... not of an active universe, but that everyone gets collected in the machine....

American film (and literature) has played a key role in world wide film and literatture over the past century or so.... it is watching the changes in how we portray narratives and the smudging of the white hat, the rip and tear in the blue jeans and the restless souls of the people who took action and did something to resolve a conflict that make it interesting.

I could imagine a world in 200 years that deifies some of the most notorious criminals in light of shifting moral senseibilities.

In No Country, Ed Tom (Jones) represented the old ways and a little bit of innocence. Chigur was an unstoppable monster, evil change and things getting worse. The world is a scary place and getting scarier.

Chigur was not done in by the accident. He was injured like he had been earlier in the book and was going to doctor himself back to health to pass that test so he could go back to being an instrument of fate.