Writers as Movie Heroes
America’s top grossing films feature superheroes and fantasies. Imagine a nation where real writers, artists and poets are heroes.
The top U.S. films are all fantasy (Avengers, The Lion King, Toy Story 4 and Captain Marvel). Major new Polish films feature stories of true writers and poets fighting the powerful to change the world.
That contrast between heroes (American and Polish) struck me when I realized I first considered journalism when I was a boy noticing Clark Kent was a newspaper reporter and Superman. My ancestry is Polish and a number of true Polish stories center on writers who actually did change the world.
America, the Super Power, demands larger than life superheroes. In Poland, a land that was conquered and enslaved for 183 of the last 224 years, artists (including writers, poets, painters and actors) had to use their gifts to keep the Polish culture and history alive during the decades Polishness was forbidden.
November 11, Veteran’s Day in America, is the 101st anniversary of the end of World War I, and Polish Independence Day, the date Poland rose from 123 years of slavery to be reborn. As you write your next story, imagine true heroes like this:
