When your childhood heroes become zeroes…

I read an article in Men’s Health this morning about Chuck Norris—apparently he just turned 85, and is still in excellent shape. I got a few paragraphs in when I thought to myself, it’s such a shame he supports Trump and MAGA, I really looked up to him as a kid. Then my mind jumped to Kevin Sorbo, another person I looked up to as a kid, and how much I loved watching Hercules every week while it was on, admiring the character and his determination to stick to his morals and ethics. (If you’re new here, I’m autistic. Turns out some of us have a thing for following the rules. Who knew?) Then I got to thinking, how many of my childhood “heroes” were people I’d still look up to today?

The first three rejects off top of my head are Norris, Sorbo, and Dean Cain. His Superman was another one of the characters I looked up to and forward to seeing every week. His recent advertisement for I.C.E. made me sick. Sir, you played an immigrant that saved us over and over again and spread love and peace, and now you’re going to do the opposite in real life? Just eww. To post that video and be proud of himself over it tells me all I need to know—he’s off the list.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how those characters affected me as a child. I was too young to care if they were attractive, so my only focus was on the kind of person the character portrayed; intelligent, strong, honest, kind—all characteristics I would later seek in a partner. Those characters fought for the everyman, insisting on equality and fairness wherever they found themselves that week. They were never petty, never cruel, they didn’t lie or play mind games with those around them, and they constantly defended the weak.

Now Sorbo is claiming to be the “first victim of cancel culture” on Fox News. Norris is a Trump supporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily; his column about Martin Luther King Jr. and gun ownership is a lesson in overlooking the truth for his white-washed version. Dean Cain played “tough guy” when he recorded another video, this time of him running the obstacle course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth looking up. Needless to say, the internet is a vicious place and they shredded him to pieces.

The cognitive dissonance is jarring to say the least. These men were all actors playing parts, and as the audience, we tend to assume they must be like the characters they portray. The reality is that they are like any of the rest of us, doing their day job. It’s just like politicians—you see what they want you to see, regardless of what goes on when the cameras are off.

Fortunately, that does not take away from the lessons those characters imparted all those years ago. Will I rewatch any of those shows? Probably not, as it would disappoint me knowing what I do now. However, that doesn’t change the fact that these characters, who represented the pinnacle of masculinity to many, (my childhood self included), still exist. At least if the men themselves are now a disappointment, the lessons those characters taught are still valid and worth revisiting.

And we still have Lucy Lawless.