Opinion | Hanukkah Marvel Corner: Their Humanity - Their Heroism Israel today

When asked years ago by screenwriter and writer William Goldman to sum up his experiences from 30 years of Hollywood activity, he stated: "No one knows anything. The success or failure of a film is a completely random matter."

A look at the recent failures of Marvel Studios, the most successful film brand of our time, can confirm the determination of the creator of "The Magic Princess".

This view may even teach us quite a bit about the place of heroes and the nature of the act of heroism itself in the popular culture of the early 21st century.

The commercial success of Marvel in the last decade has to be attributed to various reasons. The various films produced there, which regularly placed superheroes who had to struggle, every film and film, on the well-being and safety of the people of the country, combined eloquent cinematic action and a plot that ranged from bursts of pathos to blessed self-humor. While cinematic skill is not self-evident, it seems that making Marvel's Cinematic Universe the most popular film series of our time depends on the ability of studio directors to create a world whose values ​​have directly appealed to our cultural world.

More than anything else, they have introduced us to superheroes whose humanity is their art. Before our eyes was presented a frail boy from Brooklyn who becomes "Captain America," a cynical initiator who adopts the "Iron Man" armor or a bunch of losers sent to serve as "Guardians of the Galaxy." The virtues and uniqueness of the heroes did not stem from their being gods, on the contrary. They were designed as complex and defective. Human, too human. Their ability to overcome the screwed-up character traits and perform, from time to time, the right act, provided us with an accurate definition of the nature of contemporary heroism. Heroes are not born heroes. They become such when they first struggle on their own. Their success is never guaranteed, and every day may summon them to another formidable struggle. Our inability to fly through the air or send cobwebs from the wrist did not prevent us from identifying with the sweeping humanity of the "Black Panther" and "Antman." The acts of heroism committed on the screen instilled in all of us the belief that heroism is a trait given to every person,And that we have the power to win every war of infinity if only we refuse to lose hope.

But recently something went wrong.

The latest films to come out of the Marvel production line have received critical acclaim, and the box office results are not what they used to be.

The reason is clear: the place of human beings has been replaced there by figures who boast of their divine origin.

The place of stories about earthly heroes aspiring to heaven, has recently been taken by gods who do the opposite route.

Their heroism is an innate matter, and therefore arouses yawning.

It turns out that our heroism we prefer is made of only natural materials, and we will only get to the cinema if we can get excited there about miracles, deliverances and wars that are human deeds.

Like the Hanukkah legacy, cinema also provides proof of the super-temporal need for human heroism, in stories of "few versus many" passed down from generation to generation.

In the face of Antiochus or Thanos our humanity was and remains the most powerful superpower and may expel all darkness, in those days, in this time.

Were we wrong?

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