摘 要

随着大众传媒的发展，电影逐渐成为了人们生活中不可或缺的一部分。作为文化价值观的载体，电影对青少年文化价值观的形成具有重要的影响，而在诸多电影中，尤以美国电影最具影响力。美国人推崇个人主义，尤其是包含美国文化和价值观的个人英雄主义，因此在美国电影中，个人英雄主义成为了一个永恒的主题。近年来，诸如《钢铁侠》，《美国队长》之类的个人英雄主义电影层出不穷。本文旨在通过对英雄电影的研究全面解析美国个人英雄主义的内涵，分析个人英雄主义在电影中的体现和社会影响。此外，本文客观评价个人英雄主义与当今社会价值观的异同，肯定个人英雄主义对当今社会的积极影响。

关键词：美国电影；个人英雄主义；文化价值观

Abstract

With the popularization of mass media, movie becomes an integral part of our lives. Movies, the carrier of cultural values, have huge influence on the formation of the values of teenagers. Apparently, American culture becomes the most influential one in the world, so does its movies. What’s more, American culture and values highly praise individualism, especially Individualistic Heroism. Thus, in American movies, the Individualistic Heroism has become an eternal theme which deeply impacts people in different countries. In last 80 years, Individualistic Heroism Movies bloom endlessly, and the representative movies become household names, such as Iron Man, Captain America, Air Force One, Saving Private Ryan and so on. This paper depicts the prototype in such Individualistic Heroism Movies, which aims to evaluate Individualistic Heroism of American value and tries to conclude the cultural influence of the Heroism movies. The paper also compares the impacts of Individualistic Heroism on Contemporary Chinese culture, like the similarities and differences of two cultures, especially the significance of positive effects of Individualistic Heroism in broadcasting.

Key Words: American Movies; Individualistic Heroism; Cultural Values

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Individualistic Heroism in America 3

2.1 The Origin of Individualistic Heroism 3

2.2 The Status of Individualistic Heroism 4

2.3 The Characteristics of Individualistic Heroism 4

2.3.1 Freedom is Eternal Pursuit 4

2.3.2 Braveness is Natural Instinct 5

2.3.3 Enemy Makes Hero 5

2.3.4 Female Sets off Hero 6

3 Heroes in American Individualistic Heroism Movies 7

3.1 The development of Individualistic Heroism Movies 7

3.2 The Embodiment of Individualistic Heroism Movies 8

3.2.1 In Western Movies 8

3.2.2 In War Movies 8

3.2.3 In Science Fiction Movies 9

3.2.4 In Disaster Movies 9

3.3 Different Types of Heroes 10

3.3.1 Super Hero 10

3.3.2 Civilian Hero 10

3.4 The Common Features of Heroes 11

3.4.1 Strong Body and Machismo 11

3.4.2 Charming Personality and Self-redemption 11

3.4.3 Defeating Setback and Approaching Success 11

4 Opinions on Individualistic Heroism Movies 13

4.1 The Role of Individualistic Heroism Movies 13

4.2 The Defects of Individualistic Heroism Movies 13

4.3 The Trend of Individualistic Heroism Movies 13

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

On the Individualistic Heroism in American Movies

1 Introduction

As a significant part of American culture, Individualistic Heroism plays an important role in the formation of American values. As the carrier of cultural values, movie plays an important role in the spread of Individualistic Heroism. In recent years, Individualistic Heroism Movies emerge endlessly, and the representative works are familiar to us, such as Iron Man, Captain America, The Shawshank Redemption, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and so on. With the popularity of various heroes, Individualistic Heroism receives intensive attention. On the one hand, it advocates freedom, independence, justice and so on. While on the other hand, there are serious conflicts between chasing freedom and obeying social order in the events of Heroism. Therefore, how to achieve balance between Individualistic Heroism and obeying social order is a controversial issue.

Individualistic Heroism is closely linked to the history of America. Firstly, the founding of America comes from struggle of people (Hu, 2014). Later, the ideology of equality announced in Declaration of Independence forms fundamental faith of American which emphasizes the importance of individualism — all people are equal. Because the independence is valued, Americans believe freedom including the opportunity for prosperity and success could be achieved through hard work. During the pursuit of happiness, individuals may encounter difficulties, worries and fears so they need heroes to save them or lead them to break barriers, thus Individual Heroism is born at the right moment. There are many symbolic works of Individualistic Heroism. The Stagecoach created the hero Ringo Kid, the series of 007 movies created the hero James Bond. This kind of movies created heroes of saving others. Moreover, there are many self-redemption heroes. The Shawshank Redemption created the self-redemption hero Shawshank, the movie Forrest Gun created the hero Forrest Gun. In recent years, there are lots of superhero movies, such as Iron Man, Captain America and so on. In some ways, these movies do have some positive impacts. Influenced by them, we keep pursuing the truth, the good and the beautiful, being yearning for justice, dignity, peace, freedom and so on. However, the values that revealed by these movies are too American (Liu, 2014). Strong body, outstanding intelligence, exceptional will, it seems that the heroes are beyond ordinary people. In addition, in these movies, the heroes disobey social order but push individual freedom forward, which makes the conflicts between fiction and reality. However, despite the conflicts, America just seeks cultural identification through exporting its movies to solid supremacy. Furthermore, the unilateralism in diplomacy and absolute advantage in military are all the reflection of American Individualistic Heroism (Qi, 2009).

The American scholar Rollins (2003) proposed that heroes in American movies are lonely. They are mavericks who keep pursuing justice. And former U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger once said: Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else. We can see that Americans highly praise Individualistic Heroism. As in China, nearly all scholars agree that the Individualistic Heroism in movies is the reflection of American cultural values. It do has some positive effects. However, there are some conflicts between individual freedom and social order, so how to deal with Individualistic Heroism is still a pressing issue.

This paper aims to introduce Individualistic Heroism through representative movies. Firstly, the paper will introduce Individualistic Heroism, including its origin and status, analyzing its characteristics. Secondly, the Individualistic Heroism will be analyzed in diverse ways, including its development, embodiment in different movies and common features. Finally, the paper will analyze its defects and evaluate its trend, concluding how we should deal with Individualistic Heroism.

2 Individualistic Heroism in America

2.1 The Origin of Individualistic Heroism

America is established by Puritans who persecuted by English politics and upper classes. The rigid social hierarchy and oppression of privileges made American immigrants yearn for equality and freedom. Moreover, facing the new environment and uncertain psychology of defense, people demanded heroes to lead them to achieve success. The rudiments of Individualistic Heroism appeared (Drake, 2013).

Individualism is widely accepted by Americans. Those early immigrants, who ran away because of the cruel abuse and exploitation of European colonists, were of strong individualism. With the intolerance of control and oppression of privileges, the immigrants overturned the European ruling system which event is the beginning of individualism. Among the system of American values, pursuing individual freedom is beyond other values. Actually, the appearance of heroism is accompanying with the development of spiritual world of Americans. When social chaos appears, people need heroes to save and protect them, so they create ideal heroes. During the process of pursuing Individualistic Heroism, Americans take happiness as goal, and take freedom and individual value as inner power (Li, 2012).

American Individualistic Heroism has long history. Firstly, looking back into the past, the birth of America results from struggle of endless individual heroes (Zhang, 2013). The early immigrants came to the unknown new land, building it with hands and wisdom. At the critical moment of independence, the early immigrants became their own heroes. They fought against oppression and set good examples for later generations. Later, no matter in the phase of establishment or the civil war, there were outstanding heroes like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Led by them, Americans fought for freedom and democracy perseveringly. These early founders of the United States build the faith of America (Price, 2014). Then, being developed by generations, the faith becomes the inner power of social development, motivates Americans forward, encourages the pursuit of American dreams and makes Americans undertake their responsibilities actively. Secondly, from the perspective of culture, the influence of religious culture is far-reaching. Influenced by Christian culture, Americans pay attention to redemption. They care about others during their pursuit of happiness (Uhlman, 2015). Moreover, apart from themselves, people also save the beloved, the vulnerable and even the world people. The above mentioned shows the appearance and development of Individualistic Heroism. Finally, the worship of Individualistic Heroism comes from external crisis—economic crisis, wars and terrorism, which bring serious anxious to Americans, so people need heroes to save them.

2.2 The Status of Individualistic Heroism

America highly praises Individualistic Heroism and advocates independence and freedom as well. Americans adore individual efforts and believe that everyone can earn loving life and benefit the society with their own hands. Compared with many European countries, the American history is young, so does its heroism. Moreover, as an immigrant country, American is inevitably influenced by other ethnics, especially the culture. So, in American movies, the created heroes still share some similarities with other nations, such as strong individualism, aggressiveness and absolute confidence. No matter what nations the audiences are, the heroes in movies could resonate them in their mind. Actually, we can get the impression from movies, nearly all the western movies follow the same pattern that heroes fought by themselves and finally achieved success when they encounter difficulties and obstacles. Influenced by this kind of Individualistic Heroism, America led founding the United Nations, realized The Marshall Plan, promoted the renaissance of European, achieved reconciliation with China and so on. All in all, guided by American values, America can throw itself into national affairs actively.