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People already think heroism is something you only see in movies. Will putting real heroism already far too underrated up there ruin the whole example it has set out for others to follow? Or will it amplify the need for it? I'm pretty sure seeing it in movies is only feeding our already lethal habit of treating everyone else as though they were fictional humans on the world screen, but, well, am I wrong?
I don't think I'm wrong about that, but I'm very weird about movies. The good ones are completely real for the duration and I react accordingly. I made it all the way through Platoon, but everyone in the theater had to deal with my reactions. I still have not made it through Reservoir Dogs. I keep running out when the guy gets tied in the chair. The dread is so thick I can't even make it to find out what happens. Wait Until Dark landed me in a stranger's lap. I yelled and sobbed so loudly when that leprous psychopath betrayed us in Braveheart the only reason I wasn't kicked out was because there were only three of us in the theater and the other two completely understood.
But there aren't that many people like me with movies and books... people who are viscerally involved. Most people take it as fiction, or fictionalized reality, and aren't even as involved as sports fans in the stands. It's a diversion. Beyond whatever mind control mechanisms they throw into TV and movies, the number one problem with the public being saturated by these media is that it entrains them to look at anything and everything as though it's a diversion and all that is required of them is to have an opinion about it... one of the set of pre-approved opinions, at that.
