Daredevil and Matt Murdoch

You’re closer to being a superhero than you know.

What is it about some television that means it has such a hold upon us? I’ve been watching Daredevil recently, and I have found myself totally embroiled in the story.

Daredevil’s plot line, in one sense, is totally absurd. A blind man, trained from a young age to be a kind of hybrid ninja-machine, goes around Hell’s Kitchen looking to distribute justice by kicking the ass of bad-guys. Daredevil is driven by the principle of never actually killing anybody, which sounds rather far fetched for somebody who never pulls his punches and finds himself in messy situations most nights. Add to the story a little Japanese black magic, plus an ancient mythic figure embodied by Daredevil’s ex-lover, and the narrative seems all the more incredulous.

But still, there is a remarkable attractiveness to Daredevil’s story. Oddly, amidst practicing multiple martial arts, Matt Murdoch (Daredevil’s real name) becomes a practicing lawyer in New York city. He partners in business with his best-friend from college, and together with a girl who works as their paralegal, they go to the pub, hang out and have a good time. I wonder whether it is this starkly human perspective into the story that draws the such a large audience.

Matt Murdoch by day. Daredevil by night.

You see, I love that Marvel have appropriated the stories from their comics to find a wider audience. That’s great. But what I love more — as somebody who has never been into comics — is the way in which these stories have been appropriated. These superheroes are portrayed as very human, and not at all invincible. They’re a little less super than we might ordinarily expect superheroes to be.

It is this human nature to Daredevil that makes him more relatable and more understood. As an audience, we can empathise with the daily grind of a lawyer, or any other profession, more so than the elaborate fight scenes however well choreographed they might be. Daredevil, as Matt Murdoch, is more grounded in reality when we are exposed to his human side. He is vulnerable and prone to injury, wrestles with doubt over his Roman Catholicism, and becomes suspected of alcoholism by his girlfriend.

When Daredevil is more human, and more relatable, it is far easier to imagine our story being incorporated into his. With this dose of realism we can begin to imagine what life must be, or could be, like as a superhero.

We begin to look for glimpses of heroism in the ordinary and everyday. Who are your superheroes? When can you be superhero for someone else?

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