Intro + Components of a Superhero

I guess I should introduce myself first before getting down to business. My name is Janelle Takahata, I'm from Honolulu, Hi (lucky, I know), this is my second year here, and I'm currently majoring in business. The question I get asked a lot is, "Why did you leave Hawaii in the first place?" To that there are two reasons:

1. To live there costs a lot of money.

2. I took my teacher's advice to get off the rock and experience something different.

Since I grew up in Hawaii, the way I talk can be very different from the way other people talk. See, back home there's this unofficial/official language of the islands called Pidgin (not named after the type of bird), we even have a dictionary for it. It's difficult to really explain what Pidgin is, it's a combination of words from different languages and cutting long sentences into shorter ones... forget I can't explain what Pidgin is, if you want to hear what it sounds like than just let me know I guess.

Anyhow, on to business:

In class we discussed the traits/components of a superhero and throughout the discussion I couldn't help but keep thinking that there are many of those traits that individuals in today's society have. The only difference being they can't fly, they don't have invisible jets, a secret lair that has dozens of t.v. screens displaying everything that's going on in the city, they don't run around in tights with their goods getting suffocated, etc. To me the big difference between a superhero and a hero is the fact that superheroes have certain traits or physical abilities that as real people we may never have.

Isn't that what makes them super? Let's take Superman for example. I learned about Superman when I was around five or six years old and to be honest, I had no clue what he looked like. All I knew was that he could fly because of that phrase people said, "Look... Up in the sky... It's a bird... It's a plane... It's Superman!" I mean honestly the fact that a guy good fly without using a rocket or anything of the sorts makes him special in my book, and on top of that he fights crime and saves the world on a daily (well maybe not daily) basis, he is super.

In my opinion superheroes are people who make us want to push "normal" human boundaries, to believe the unbelievable, and they use the "gifts" they were given for good rather than selfish reasons.

To me heroes are people we look up to that have certain traits that we wish we had, and sometimes we can have. Example, my cousin told me he wanted to become a firefighter and I asked him why, he said, "Because they save people who need help, they aren't afraid to go into a burning building, and they're strong." The traits that he described are traits that he can obtain over the years, they're not completely out of reach.

I hope this made sense, it was difficult for me to really illustrate my point without feeling like it'd take people 5+ minutes to read. Anyhow, what's your take one a superhero and/or a hero?

Image from: http://ohmyshoot.blogspot.com/2010/11/hello-kitty-superheroes-version.html