Outlaw Heroes

Casablanca, a movie directed by Michael Curtiz, according to many people, is one of the world's best movies ever produced. The movie had an all-star cast, which was considered legendary. The main stars of the film were Ingrid Berman as Ilsa Lund, Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, and Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. The cast did a fantastic job of portraying their characters. Rick played the leading role as a man who ran a popular “saloon” in Casablanca. His true love, Ilsa, came with her spouse, Victor, to seek help to go to America. Upon encountering Rick, Ilsa became weak and desired to stay with him in Casablanca rather than go with her husband to America. Being the big-hearted person he is, Rick got them both their visas and helped them escape

Ray compares common values and stances between both outlaws and official heroes. Outlaws are often portrayed as people who are against a unified society. Ray even goes so far as to talk about outlaws “who worked to remain idle, unemployed, and unattached” (453). He also quotes a statement from a man who envies the poor and the criminals due to the amount of “freedom” that they have. Many people do not want to have so many responsibilities in their lives. They want the ability to think for themselves and have their own opinions without others influencing them. Also, due to having no responsibility, the outlaw hero is able to be freer in his adventures and throughout his life due to the

The concept of a hero has been around for many generations, and the meaning of a hero is defined in ways people grasp its idea. A hero can be a person who has a superpower and is willing to make a personal sacrifice for the benefit of others or can be an ordinary everyday person who just wants to help people out of his or her own heart. Linda Seger’s article, “Creating the Myth,” tackles the idea of a “Hero 's Myth,” and shows the ten steps of how heroes are transformed from an ordinary person to the Savior. On the other hand, Robert B. Ray piece titled, “The Thematic Paradigm,” emphasizes that in modern films, it is either having an “Outlaw Hero or an Official Hero,” which he uses three stages to demonstrates how they are different each other in the way they perform in the society. Further, the article, “Out of Character: Wonder Woman’s Strength Is Her Compassion - What Happened?” by Stevie St. John, explains how Wonder Woman was viewed as a compassionate woman in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 2000s she changes into a more violent person. In this essay, I argue that a hero is subjective, and is defined by the villain or event that they had to adapt to suddenly.

Slavery. Possibly the most horrid thing human beings can do to one other, other than dispatching each .Slavery was the most controversial topic and the greatest issue of the 1800’s. This spawned many fractious people, groups, and rebellions throughout the United States. Inevitably, when trouble arises there are also “heroes” who stand to face those challenges. To fight their oppressors and stand for what they believe is right. Heroes of the 1800’s include Fredrick Douglass and many others who found a way to prove their points with as little bloodshed as possible. However one man is known as a heroic liberator (Thoreau, A plea for Captain John Brown, 1859), terrorist (Horwitz, The 9/11 of 1859, 2009) and a National hero (Reynolds, Freedom’s Martyr, 2009) all at once. This man’s name was John Brown.

Ray uses the two archetypes in American film the outlaw hero and the official hero to make his point as well as he discusses the “reluctant hero.” This is a hero that helps their community, but only if it is on their terms and helps them in the end. It is this hero that cuts into the sharp contrast of the official hero by helping their community and the outlaw hero by helping themselves in the process that allows for the hero to reach all of the audience rather than lean too far to one end of the hero spectrum which could make the hero become unrelatable. Likewise, Seger creates a list of steps in which the hero goes through that makes them relatable to everyone, thus giving the hero their popularity. These steps have the hero start out as a normal person, meet a catalyst to start their journey, receive help to start their journey, the hero starts their training, a near death experience happens to our hero causing contemplation, and finally the hero changes to be the permeant hero the story needed. It is the steps that the hero goes through that at some point every person is to be able to relate to such as a struggle to continue, a mundane life to escape or a feeling of determination that the audience has felt at some point. It is in the relatability that Ray and Seger both agree since each states that it is due to how the American audience relates to the hero that allows them to be

Casablanca is filled the idea of sacrifice, everyone has sacrificed something in this film. Rick puts his own feelings of love aside for IIsa, to protect her from danger and IIsa sacrifices her feelings for Rick to be with her husband Victor. Victor was forced to sacrifice his own freedom during the war, as he was forced to live in a german concentration camp but escaped only to be on the run again once he was united with IIsa. Even the minor characters in the story, such as the refugees have made a clear sacrifice by leaving everything behind to seek a new life by staying in Casablanca until they can get safe passage.

Casablanca promotes American involvement in World War II. It shows that Americans need to step up in the war effort. Rick represents America as a whole and his actions can be related to our actions we took involving the war. For example, the way Rick would act to other people is how we as a nation would act. This movie is considered propaganda because it tries to convince Americans to join the war. It talks about all the accomplishments Rick made and it will make other Americans want to accomplish things like that. It goes into details about how Americans are pesky and underrated which made many Americans

In "The Thematic Paradigm", Robert Ray explains how there are two distinctly different heroes, the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero embraces common values and traditional beliefs, while the outlaw has a clear sense of right and wrong but operates above the law (Ray). Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. "The attractiveness of the outlaw hero's childishness and propensity to whims, tantrums, and emotional decisions derived from America's cult of childhood", states Ray. (309) Ray also says, "To the outlaw hero's

Welcome to Rick’s: A Closer Look to the Introduction of Rick When the opening of the film Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) first introduces Rick at “Rick’s”, many indications of his character are shown. He is sophisticated, mysterious, and a hard thinker. These traits are shown by his playing chess by himself and wearing very expensive, well-kept clothing. The “Rick Introduction” scene in the film is able to give the audience an immediate perspective on who Rick really is, within a matter of seconds.

Throughout Casablanca, there is a definite sense of patriotism and nationalism from the American side. Although the marketing team focused on the action, romance, and movie stars, the underlying political themes of Casablanca are eminent; the film’s intention was to get people to support the war. Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, is the representative of the Americans in the film. He is, after all, called a patriot by Captain Renault after the murder of Mayor Stasser. In the film, America is shown as a safe place for refugees; this further promotes American involvement in the war, because Americans should want to keep fighting for their land to stay safe.

There are many facets that can either make or break someone as a “hero”. In literature, a hero does not necessarily have to be a knight in shining armor, a caped crusader, or an exact replica of the archetype but, there are certain qualities and expectations that determine what makes a hero. A typical hero has strength, appeal, courage, righteousness, and success, meaning that they have the physical and mental capabilities that can lead them to eventually achieve their goals. In most cases, the protagonist of a story is the hero, but this is not true in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. Set in Sleepy Hollow, the story chronicles schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane’s, time and sudden disappearance from the “haunted” town.

The government hired a special man that was known to be able to take down any outlaw or low life scum, that why they hired Sherif McCollin. McCollin was known as the best Sherif to ever roam the earth, McCollin had taken down more outlaw than you can count. Sherif McCollin was retired. But McCollin decided to come out of retirement because he wanted to catch the most dangerous outlaw that ever roamed the Wild West. The government trust McCollin to catch Levi. The government hopes McCollin catch Levi in four

In the film Casablanca they show various different aspects of American culture during the wartime forties. These things are cumulated in the films sole American, whose name is Rick. However this film not only shows the culture of Americans but also shows a look into what Americans viewed the war as. The values of people and what was considered obtuse for society are ever changing, and you can see this as plain as day within the movies and films of the time. Casablanca is an amazing example for this because it is special in the fact that it’s the only play written during the time that was never played but was instead turned straight into a movie. Now let’s take a more in-depth look into the movie and how it’s connected to the people who were meant to watch it.

“The Lone Ranger” by John Shelton Lawrence discusses how the Lone ranger is a well-known hero who has created a template for American Superhero’s today. Common characteristics illustrated by the lone ranger consist of honesty, patriotism, fair play, and a sympathetic understanding of people and their rights and privileges. The Lone Ranger is considered a model of American manhood, devoting his time to humanity and the country. Accompanied by Tonto and Silver, who all worked together to establish law and order in the west. The lone ranger is based off of six different templates that are used today to describe superheroes’. The first template, the Bipolar Moral World, good and evil is deviled as in melodrama. Second is the License of Innocence/

Doing what’s right is not always easy, especially when choosing between loyalty to one’s family name or justice to their community. When a society is faced with injustice, a hero must arise to make things right. Wesley Hayden portrays the characteristics of a hero in the novel Montana 1948 through using his power as the sheriff to arrest his sexually abusive brother, Frank, and serve justice to his community.