Myths and Heroes

I am going to talk about the notion Myths and Heroes.

To start with, I’d like to define the notion. “myth”: it’s a popular belief or tradition embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or an unfounded or false notion.

But it is also important to bear in mind another aspect of “myth” like an ancient story about gods, heroes and magic or also a theme or character type embodying an idea.

On the one hand a “hero” means a mythological or legendary figure often endowed with great strength or ability or a person admired for his/her achievements, noble qualities and great courage but on the other hand it can also be understood as the main character in a literary or dramatic work, an event, period, or movement or an object of extreme admiration and devotion: icon/role model.

We may wonder to what extent they won the title of hero. We may wonder what remains of their actions.

To my mind, the documents that seem to best illustrate the notion are Hidden Figures (poster and trailer); and the CO Thomas Pesquet.

Hidden Figures, realized by Theodore Melfi, 2016. adaptation of Hidden Figures’s book written by Margot Lee Shetterly

Hidden Figures poster’s, three blacks women walking in a Nasa’s hangar when rockets are launch. Their clothes show us that they weren’t cleaning women, but scientist and mathematicians and that the scene takes place during the 1960’s. They seem to be determined and self-assured, proud, because they are conscious of their skills. It is astonishing at this period to see mathematicians or scientist women’s. Places which are dedicated to science are generally male-dominated.

Context Cold War  Space Race Astronaut who were considered as heroes, « victories in the space race » “the names of the first cosmonauts and astronauts are remembered as the heroes of the Space Race” ex: Thomas Pesquet, Europe’s youngest astronaut (38 years old), 2002 research engineer at French space agency CNES, passion for flying in his spare time until 2004 Air France pilot cadet program, 2009 selection (every 15 years or so in Europe), 6 retained, dreamt about it when kid, and become astronaut. 10th French astronaut sent into space. He is smart, athletic, talented, brilliant.

But with Hidden Figures it’s the three black women’s action who are remaining by a movie.

Let’s move on to another point, namely that the scene takes place in Virginia. But in the 1960’s in Virginia they were segregation: separation between white and black people in public places like buses, toilets, schools, streets. Black people were considered as second-class citizen. African Americans didn’t have the same rights as white citizens. Couldn’t go to the same schools, live in the same parts of town, or use the same public services as white citizens. And in the trailer, we can see that these three black women fought, they return home late, they were obliged to accept discrimination: “They were part of an elite working team but when they left the NASA base, they were discriminated against.”

To conclude we can say that they won the title of hero because they do amazing actions (Thomas Pesquet do a lot, he is incredible, he is an example of life)

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