Upstairs at Caroline
TRUST THE CULTURE
RECEIVED Mon., Aug. 4, 2003
I don't know where to start with this. For one thing, it's too easy to take the past 50 years of film and look only at Bogart, Chandler, John Wayne, and Jimmy Stewart and then compare it with what has turned out to be one lousy crop of summer superhero movies ["Letters @ 3AM," July 25].
Don't worry about the kids, I very much doubt that kids were watching The Searchers in the theatres either. Probably they were enjoying The Lone Ranger or Batman serials before the cartoons. And probably listening to The Shadow on the radio at home.
And let's not forget some of our oldest heroes: men like Achilles and Odysseus, who were rumored to be over 8 feet tall, fought in wars for 10 straight years, had kill records in the hundreds and did other superhuman feats fairly regularly.
Lighten up. Without the superhuman as a goal, without the hope that we can achieve the divine in some form, what are we left with?
Don't worry about the kids, I very much doubt that kids were watching The Searchers in the theatres either. Probably they were enjoying The Lone Ranger or Batman serials before the cartoons. And probably listening to The Shadow on the radio at home.
And let's not forget some of our oldest heroes: men like Achilles and Odysseus, who were rumored to be over 8 feet tall, fought in wars for 10 straight years, had kill records in the hundreds and did other superhuman feats fairly regularly.
Lighten up. Without the superhuman as a goal, without the hope that we can achieve the divine in some form, what are we left with?
Doug Stuart