Thank you. What a great topic to dig into!
Some of my thoughts on it ...
In films, theatre, literature and the performing arts in general, the creatives work with extremes and exaggerations. The stylistic means should transport what otherwise would not be obvious.
... The fascination of hero and anti-hero probably began around the campfire when people were still telling each other stories orally and had to resort to strong symbolism because of the tension. It is also quite boring and without any special effect when the storyteller just says that someone has had a long life and that feeding himself and his fellas and basically passes away one day after the other.
What we as TV viewers in the modern world do not recognize very well is when we find ourselves in a situation that should awaken the hero or the brave in us. Since we are hardly ever in danger of death. Unlike our film protagonists, who go through one or two hours of adrenaline-filled experiences.
The extremist protagonists are confronted with ethical questions much more than one itself (or so it seems; unfortunately). ... So when I look at my banal everyday life, I probably can hardly see where I come across an ethical question and instead of following my intuition and hitching up exactly where it would be important, I miss this opportunity and feel relatively insignificant.
In real life, heroism has much less to do with strong feelings and extreme situations. ... Of course, you know that - I am only thinking loud :)
It is extremely heroic, for example, to stand in front of one's class as a teacher and recite a play or bring it so sensitively that the students, who otherwise have no interest in literature, are infected by the fire of passion (like here: https://steemit.com/ifc/@youhavewings/ifc-s1-r35-catchup-entry-creative-minds). Such scenes appear in the film, but are hardly perceived as heroic in real everyday life.
Both the hero and the anti-hero and other roles in the films always describe the poles and thus serve as a means to place oneself somewhere there on the broad scale.
I also think that the comfort of a modern life and the few really life-threatening events in everyday office life want compensation because we are not exposed to dangerous predators and natural hazards. We humans seem to feel really alive in such challenging situations, which, if not from eight to five, are supposed to occur in prime time.
Others jump out of an intact aircraft or master records in ocean deep diving.
As this is the case, films are needed for symbolism and creativity. But I asked myself a thousand times: What indeed got me creative? Watching a movie or seeing a person in my real life (or even hearing of a real life event) presenting a heroic or brave act? You know my answer ... :)
Thanks for your thoughts, Erika, you truly are a gem.
Of course in real life heroism has nothing to do with what we observe in the superhero movies. But sometimes we have to experience what you mention as "extremes and exaggerations" in order to see how little or how much, depending on the perspective it has to take to be a hero.
When we self-reflect we are able to search for heroic traits within us.