THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508270038
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
We yearn for heroes.
We want them on our cereal boxes, on our TV screens and in our newspapers.
But we're fickle about heroes, too. As soon as they start to fray at the edges, we throw them away. ``This person isn't a hero,'' we lament. ``They're like us.''
We like heroes when they stand for something bigger than themselves. And bigger than us.
Mickey Mantle wasn't just a guy who hit home runs; he was baseball at its best. Norma McCorvey wasn't a woman who wanted an abortion; she was the reproductive-rights movement. Shannon Faulkner wasn't just a student who wanted to go to The Citadel; she was an equality-seeker in an unfair world.
The news media like heroes, too. A cause is fuzzy, hard to get your hands around. You can't videotape a political movement or get a decent sound bite from an idea.
Heroes are people who can be brought into focus, icons to push before cameras and interview. They leave no room for uncertainty. They become public property. They are our role models, our symbols, our political shorthand. They owe us perfection.
We make life hard for them. We train our cameras on their every move, dig deep into their personal lives, looking, always looking, for flaws. We make them more than they want to be, then find ways to bring them down.
We set ourselves up to be disappointed. Because in the end, fallen heroes are worse than us. They are failures.
``Don't be like me,'' becomes the most enduring statement of Mickey Mantle, the man every kid dreamed of being in the '60s. The potential lost to alcoholism taints the memory of the legendary slugger.
When McCorvey, the ``Roe'' of Roe vs. Wade, admits that the idea of abortion has troubled her for years, the pro-choice movement immediately downplays her role. She wasn't that important, just a name on a lawsuit.
But now she can be a hero for the other side! Until she says she still agrees women should have the right to first-trimester abortions.
Oh.
Too many shades of gray there, Norma. You're too much like the rest of us. You're uncertain. You don't have the sharp edges of a hero.
And now Faulkner. She was hero material. Persistent. Tough. Unrelenting in the face of taunts. She methodically worked to remedy an inequality, from the moment she turned in her application with the gender box blank through the following 2 1/2-year court battle.
But when she showed up on campus, we forgot all that. Why? She was pudgy. She lasted less than a week. Dropped out saying the emotional stress had been too much.
Wait a minute. You're not following the script, Shannon. We don't want a normal human being. We want Wonder Woman. We want Rosa Parks-Susan B. Anthony-Jackie Robinson-Joe DiMaggio-Name-Your-Favorite-Hero-Here.
We didn't get her.
Faulkner won in the courtroom, but lost on the parade grounds. Whether it was because of the excess pounds or the excess of cameras, whether it was lack of fortitude or load of expectation, it didn't matter.
No wonder we don't know the names of the two women who announced last week that they are carrying on Faulkner's fight to get into The Citadel. Who can blame them for wanting to be anonymous? To be called a hero too soon is a jinx.
Let's do both women a favor and let them be mere mortals for a while. by CNB