The Performative Nature Of Heroism

the performative nature of heroism

Thinking about how Lin Ling has only defeated one real villain so far. His dream is to “protect those who are worth protecting,” but besides defeating his boss, he has only:

1) helped Moon escape the system and her role as accessory girlfriend* 2) fought Nice's fake nemesis 3) held up the statue representing the hero system

*And Moon's escape is being undone because of Lin Ling:

1) lying about being Nice, which is what God Eye wants to expose by holding Moon hostage. It's also how he even became a hero. 2) continuing to feed into and benefit from the system that forced them to fake Moon’s death in the first place

(Btw, here's a fan-subbed ep 4 preview)

In light of the ep 4 preview, the way that heroes are forced to perform for their fans becomes even more obvious. The crowd is insisting that Lin Ling not give into God Eye's demands, and Miss J agrees wholeheartedly because Lin Ling's power is derived from giving the fans what they want - never mind that Miss J knows that a life is at stake. Lin Ling's only a hero so much as he performs as what the fans expect of him. They're preventing him from doing an actual heroic act because - what? "It's a trick"? Even so, they can't be so sure that "Moon" is only a hologram or whatever. That could be an innocent person disguised as her! The fans believe they know better than Nice himself what he should do. (Hm, I wonder where I've heard something like that before...)

So much outpouring of support for Nice holding up a statue. It's very visually impressive, right? Of course he would become No. 10 after a stunt like that. But that's all it is. A stunt. Yet, when a life is possibly in danger, the fans don't support launching a rescue at all, because it's Nice's hero image on the line. The Perfect Hero bowing down to the demands of a madman, who's probably just bluffing? Pshhh. Yeah, right.

There's no heroism in being fallible - in appearing weak. We have to sell the image, not the person. Commodified heroes are just puppets on a stage, marionetted by the masses to do whatever looks the most heroic.