HERO FETISHISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICAN POP CULTURE AND LOHAS.   HOLLYWOOD HAS GRASPED THE FORMULAIC TALE OF THE HERO AND WON’T LET GO.  THE PARTY STARTED IN 1978 WITH SUPERMAN.  AND MORE RECENTLY, HOLLYWOOD HAS HAD TO GO DEEP INTO FRINGE HEROES LIKE THE WATCHMEN AND KICK-ASS TO SATISFY OUR LARGE APPETITE

Even our political system has adopted the mythologies, visuals and narratives of the hero’s tale. Obama was portrayed as an everyman, turned champion.  And even the graffiti artists picked up on it the narrative.

Look at Al Gore’s personal narrative as it follows the classic hero’s journey (HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth"the monomyth) as defined by Joseph Campbell and others.  Here's an over-simplified version:

An everyman is born: the robotic vice president.
The hero goes on a journey: Gore disappears into the forest (of Deep Sustainability) (and returns with a beard no less).
The hero battles evil:  Gore and Bush43 lock horns to battle for the kingdom.
The hero returns to his community and is bestowed with treasure:  Nobel and Oscar.
 
This narrative pattern, to more rich and complex degrees than I can go into here, is equally prevalent in Star Wars as it is in Harry Potter.  Once you see it, it is everywhere.

Culturally, we love heroes.  Can’t get enough of them in fact.  And LOHAS is no different.  From Hirshberg and Hollander, we look to these heroes for leadership and, perhaps even, salvation.
 
As has been the case for centuries, heroic icons remain potent social influencers. Often motivated by duty, heroes not only bring positive change to the society in which they reside, but they provide a physical manifestation of hope (sound familiar?) for what is to come.  

To better understand sustainability through the lens of our cultural hero worship, we completed the My Green Hero project, a primary consumer research study which looked at patterns and preferences of consumer’s Green Hero.

[to read the complete Cultural Lens Study, download the full PDF for Free]