Heroes And Fire: Similarities Between A Hero And A Celebrity

Water and Fire

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself,” -Joseph Campbell. Before I can read and write, a hero was someone in the movie who knows how to fight. All heroes made in the movies know how to fight and they never get hit by the bullet. Then after many years of being tricked, I finally found out the truth that most of all my favorite heroes were just celebrities. On the internet, Dictionary.com define Hero as a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal. It also define Celebrity as a famous or well-known person. A hero is someone who had made great sacrifices in order to help someone else. A celebrity is a
well-known person who makes a lot of money making movies. Heroes often perpetrate compassionate acts, and celebrities are more self-oriented; but celebrities sometimes use their star-power to assist in drawing attention to problems, or even helping fund agencies that tackle humanitarian crisis problem. A hero’s actions we will most often deem authentic because of its impact unlike most celebrities. The ideal hero and celebrity has shifted into a new perspective of how they are nominated in today’s media.
In spite of their many differences, the hero and celebrity does have something in common: their intention to help better shape the world.
Some celebrity have done some great things for the less fortunate. Mr. Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie who are two famous celebrities, became hero/heroine by giving $6.4 million worth of grants, and also established the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation in 2006, to assist with humanitarian crises around the world. In comparison, Dr. Phillip Goudeaux, who is a great hero, and a father figure, constantly assist people in need of personal management and even in salvation. The hero and celebrity becomes famous when they participate to improve the community in some ways. Like the fictive hero “Superman,” who is always on the look-out for trouble disturbing the peace of his community, they contribute their effort to better the world without thinking of a
reward.
Hero and celebrity are different because a hero is more of a paramount significant and the celebrity is not.
The real hero doesn’t work under a manager or get paid to be one but the celebrity does. For example, without compensation, during the Vietnam War my grandfather was drafted into the Secret Service consisted of Laos and Hmong’s tribesman. My grandfather and some of the Secret Service’s mission was to rescue American pilots at all cost. Many of them, including my grandfather, never return home because the task was so difficult. To trade his life for someone else’s is bravery and he’s my hero for doing that. Some hero doesn’t even get a chance to see what they fought so hard for, but they didn’t do it for the fame, instead for the change. A celebrity that I can relate to this is the famous Tom Hank, who played as Captain Miller in the movie, “Saving Private Ryan” a war movie set during the invasion of Normandy in WW11. Private Ryan and his only brother were both in the service until his brother was shot and killed. Captain Miller’s mission was to abort Private Ryan’s mission and give him the message of his brother’s death. Instead, Private Ryan refused to abort and delayed the entire mission causing the life of Captain Miller’s. Tom Hank, like my grandfather, played a heroic act, and was recognized for it. The difference is that my grandfather never knew he was going to become a hero and he never expect a tribute for his effort. Tom Hank, on the other hand, did it for a
reward.
It is surprising that when we look into the prerequisites of a hero or celebrity, the standard has dropped. This new uprising era of hero and celebrity in our media has been a discrimination to its elder. Please beware that most heroes and celebrities that are in our media today are only desperate for attention. There are stars rising out of YouTube and heroes being born out of Facebook every day. Sometime, we’re unsure if the celebrity’s voice was even real or if the story of the hero is true, but we are blinded by their beauty and talent. We’re being influenced by what we see and hear that sometime we confuse ourselves about the real definition of a hero or celebrity. Though there are many frauds, we can still find the real hero and celebrity. A hero is not one unless he gives up something important in order to benefit someone else life. A true talent is what creates a real celebrity. By looking at some of the heroes and celebrities, we come to conclude that some heroes was not intentionally created and some celebrity was only created in the interest of people. Either way, as long as they continue to entertain and distract our attention, we become less focus on what is really happening in this world.