A Hero Like You looks at everyday heroes and highlights qualities such as loyalty, compassion, resourcefulness, justice, and courage. The lyrical rhyme and relatable illustrations remind us that we all have the opportunity to be a hero by helping others, doing right and making the world a better place. "What the world needs is a hero like you!"
Current characters in children’s entertainment media illustrate a growing trend of representations that challenge or subvert traditional notions of gender and sexuality. From films to picture books to animated television series, children’s entertainment media around the world has consistently depicted stereotypically traditional gender roles and heterosexual relationships as the normal way that people act and engage with one another. Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children's Entertainment Media examines how this media ecology now includes a presence for nonheteronormative genders and sexualities. It considers representations of such identities in various media products (e.g., comic books, television shows, animated films, films, children’s literature) meant for children (e.g., toddlers to teenagers). The contributors seek to identify and understand characterizations that go beyond these traditional understandings of gender and sexuality. By doing so, they explore these nontraditional representations and consider what they say about the current state of children’s entertainment media, popular culture, and global acceptance of these gender identities and sexualities.
Our worldwide storytelling heritage is vast and varied and yet contains common threads, themes and motifs running throughout the many legends, whether they hail from the dusty plains of Africa or the cherry-blossom-blanketed hills of Japan. This astonishing anthology, in Flame Tree’s covetable series of myths and tales, gathers together the most iconic and entertaining tales of adventure and daring from around the world. From Perseus the Gorgon-Slayer of Greek myhology, and the exploits of Frithiof the Bold of Norse saga fame, to the tragic tale of Irish heroine Deirdre, these exciting stories vibrate with the heart and soul of age-old narrative. An extended introduction is followed by four main sections, with mythic stories from Mexico, Egypt, India and more: Tales of Warriors, Travel & Adventure; Heroes & Heroines in Literature & Poetry; Legends of the Gods, Demigods & Culture Heroes; Leading Ladies & Affairs of the Heart.
It's easy to name a superhero--Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine--but it's not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn't have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn't have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and why do we need them? In What is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore this question from a variety of viewpoints, bringing together contributions from nineteen comic book experts--including both scholars in such fields as cultural studies, art, and psychology as well as leading comic book writers and editors. What emerges is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most popular of pop-culture figures. Writer Jeph Loeb, for instance, sees the desire to make the world a better place as the driving force of the superhero. Jennifer K. Stuller argues that the female superhero inspires women to stand up, be strong, support others, and most important, to believe in themselves. More darkly, A. David Lewis sees the indestructible superhero as the ultimate embodiment of the American "denial of death," while writer Danny Fingeroth sees superheroes as embodying the best aspects of humankind, acting with a nobility of purpose that inspires us. Interestingly, Fingeroth also expands the definition of superhero so that it would include characters like John McClane of the Die Hard movies: "Once they dodge ridiculous quantities of machine gun bullets they're superheroes, cape or no cape." From summer blockbusters to best-selling graphic novels, the superhero is an integral part of our culture. What is a Superhero? not only illuminates this pop-culture figure, but also sheds much light on the fantasies and beliefs of the American people.
In The Anti-Heroine on Contemporary Television: Transgressive Women, Molly Brost explores the various applications and definitions of the term anti-heroine, showing that it has been applied to a wide variety of female characters on television that have little in common beyond their failure to behave in morally “correct” and traditionally feminine ways. Rather than dismiss the term altogether, Brost employs the term to examine what types of behaviors and characteristics cause female characters to be labeled anti-heroines, how those qualities and behaviors differ from those that cause men to be labeled anti-heroes, and how the label reflects society’s attitudes toward and beliefs about women. Using popular television series such as Jessica Jones, Scandal, and The Good Place, Brost acknowledges the problematic nature of the term anti-heroine and uses it as a starting point to study the complex women on television, analyzing how the broadening spectrum of character types has allowed more nuanced portrayals of women’s lives on television.
An investigation of society's heroes during any time period will reveal the personnel deemed worthy of being emulated at that particular time by that particular society. There will be many old and time-tested figures, sometimes with new faces and new profiles; there will also be a mix of new faces. Thus the hero--like history itself--is constantly in transition, and both the hero and the transition are fundamental to the study of a culture. These essays turn the pantheon of heroes around before our eyes and reveal the many complicated aspects of hero worship.