{"id":38,"date":"2001-11-04T22:22:15","date_gmt":"2001-11-05T01:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericbrooks.com\/soapbox\/?p=38"},"modified":"2011-06-02T11:26:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T15:26:37","slug":"zorro-or-batman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericbrooks.com\/soapbox\/zorro-or-batman\/","title":{"rendered":"Zorro or Batman?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I almost never like anything I create.
\nFor some strange reason, I’m really liking the way “Enemy of the State looks. It’s got a cross between “Zorro” and “Batman” going on here. At least I think so. Got the swashbuckling CyberPal carving a flaming “E”, the logo is the “Batman Forever Alternate” font… the colors are dark and foreboding with an air of uncertainty… and for once, I’m getting a minimal amount of shit when I check it in Netscape 4.7.<\/p>\n

I had to take an extended leave from work while my wife is away. There’s no one else here for the kids.<\/p>\n

My son and I are constantly switching off between the two heroes on videotape. I have to tie a cape on him when we watch the Batman movies, and he always goads me into a swordfight with our brooms when”The Mask of Zorro<\/a>” is on.<\/p>\n

I’ve always loved that movie. And it’s taken on such a significant meaning in our lives lately.<\/p>\n

Like I said before, I’ve been confronted by enough assholes with badges, holding their guns, talking to (unarmed) me… been told enough times: “We do things differently out here”… that you can’t TELL ME our being New Yorkers doesn’t have just a little something to do with it?<\/p>\n

That’s why My son and I like “The Mask Of Zorro<\/strong>” so much. Zorro fought for oppressed people living in the corrupt government of Alta California. Where “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. He also saw the price Don Diego de la Vega<\/strong> paid for his heroism. He lost everything he had, and was thrown in jail for 20 years. My son, at the age of four, knows that good people go to jail too.<\/p>\n

Just like his mommy.<\/p>\n

In the case of both Batman and Zorro, their heroism was born of great personal loss. Heroes are made, not born. Made out of a need by someone hurting to insure that what happened to them won’t happen to anyone else. I see it in my son’s eyes. I see it when he tries to protect his sisters (who happen to be three times his size).<\/p>\n

My son wants to be a hero.<\/p>\n

Where we came from (NYC), people with badges selflessly run into flaming buildings, return gunfire, and save lives without giving a second thought to how it may cost them their own. Not hound hard-working people who have fallen behind in their bills or down on their luck. Or because some joke of a roadside judge has nothing better to do than issue arrest warrants on a slow afternoon…<\/p>\n

I picked my son up in the sheriff’s office the day they took his mom away. They gave him coloring books, and candy and even stuck a deputy sticker on his chest in order to cheer him up from the sight of his hysterical mom, being escorted by “biiiiig touuuugh” sheriffs…. going into a courtroom, knowing what awaited her.<\/p>\n

Once we were out of the courthouse, he peeled off his “deputy” sticker, and threw it in the nearest trash can.<\/p>\n

He even knows who the bad guys are.<\/p>\n

Every day, when I have to do something I don’t want to do… call someone I don’t want to. When I lose all fight in me, and just want to curl up into a corner and give up. I just have to look into the eyes of that future superhero with the little plastic fireman’s hat, and red cape…
\nand I get just enough strength to keep going…<\/p>\n

The little guy is *already* my hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The origins of Enemy of the State, the strength of going on, the lesson that heroes are made, not born… as seen by Batman and Zorro. 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