modern myths

[wamdue]

ive been thinking about this for far to long now and ive decided I would like some input into the discussion.

are there any characters or works of fiction from say the past 100 years who will become mythical?

best examples I can give are

1) Superman, everyone knows the story of Superman a story that has been retold again & again, about a hero who helps people and fights evil.

2) more of a British myth but Doctor Who, granted not quite the same as Superman but even when I was young and Doctor Who wasnt on air I knew of the Doctor, his TARDIS & his battles with the Daleks. He is a big part of British culture, always has been and with this new series maybe always will be.

opinions, disagree, other suggestions.

Star Wars & Star Trek are both possibility's

 

[propita]

I thought myths were more extreme than legends, which were at least remotely based on the truth.

These examples are only characters. They'd be more like Don Quixote than myth.

Lots of quasi-mythic stuff about Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. and JFK. None were as good as the idealized versions that go around.

Hitler's evilness has become mythic, as in evil to almost a melodramatic level. I don't mean anything bad there, but more a comparison to--who was 'mythically evil' (as in, "based in truth")? Nero? Caligula? Vlad the Impaler?



Am I mis-interpreting, going in the wrong direction with this?

 

[wamdue]

maybe im using the wrong word, but I was watching the Legion episode of Smallville, and they talk about Clark/Superman being a legend and inspiring the galaxy for thousands of years to come, which got me wondering will Superman do that in the real world? maybe not thousands of years, but could the Superman story be as well known as say Robin Hood.

but you are right in what you say about real people, and how time will forever remeber them, I was thinking about fictional characters and there stories.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

One way to measure if something has reached mythic status is when people start taking it over and spinning their own myths from it. So by that measure, Superman, Batman, Star Trek and Star Wars are all enduring myths, but so is a lot of other stuff: B5, Buffy, various anime. Too much to list, by far. Just check out internet fanfic sometime to see what has made it to mythic status.

Which also means that there are plenty of non-sci-fi/fantasy myths such as the various incarnations of CSI.

The real acid test is whether something continues after the corporate media creating it has largely ceased - Star Trek continued via its mythic status for the 1970s, for instance. There was the animated series and some novels, but it was largely fan-propelled, which couldn't happen unless it were mythic.

A lot of the stuff I mentioned would coast along forever too. But how many other things would do the same? B5 appears to be doing so, with little corporate support behind it (and even then I assume there are novels, right?) The original BSG crowd doesn't seem to be letting go of their myth, which they defend pretty ferociously from what I've seen. How about the X-Files? How long will Buffy endure? Firefly? Farscape? And what about the mythic properties of the past? Do people still care about Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon? Has Lost in Space died for good?

 

[Christopher]

These examples are only characters. They'd be more like Don Quixote than myth.

That may just be a difference of time. It's probably a mistake to assume that mythology and fiction are incompatible categories. I'm sure that fiction existed thousands of years ago; it's not like people were incapable of telling stories about people they didn't believe had really existed. A lot of mythical figures may have been literary creations. At the time, maybe people knew the difference between those figures that were based in history and those that were pure invention, but as the generations passed and knowledge of the past faded, only the tales survived, and as they became increasingly blended together, the distinction was lost.

Who knows? Maybe thousands of years from now, people will have no way of knowing that Sherlock Holmes didn't really exist or that Harry Houdini did. They might both be considered part of the same mythology.

Approaching the question differently, in modern times, fiction serves a lot of the functions that mythology did in earlier times. We draw a sharper distinction between fact and fiction than people did in the past, when virtually all history was oral and the past was remembered differently each time it was told. So mythology has evolved into fiction, become more specialized. (Although we have plenty of mythology based in fact as well, such as our cultural myths about Christopher Columbus and George Washington.) Mythology is a means by which cultures define and assert their values and seek to make sense of the world. We do that with fiction today. Look at what just happened at the UN -- they held a forum on Battlestar Galactica, using it as a basis for a discussion of real-world issues such as nuclear proliferation, torture, refugee crises, etc. That was using a work of fiction as a vehicle for examining our values and understanding the world we live in. If that's not mythology, then nothing is.

 

[wamdue]

Sherlock Holmes is a good example, and possible Romeo & Juliet as well

One way to measure if something has reached mythic status is when people start taking it over and spinning their own myths from it. So by that measure, Superman, Batman, Star Trek and Star Wars are all enduring myths, but so is a lot of other stuff: B5, Buffy, various anime. Too much to list, by far. Just check out internet fanfic sometime to see what has made it to mythic status.

Which also means that there are plenty of non-sci-fi/fantasy myths such as the various incarnations of CSI.

but will the likes of CSI, Buffy & B5 last as long as Superman?

 

[Bishbot]

Sherlock Holmes is a good example, and possible Romeo & Juliet as well

One way to measure if something has reached mythic status is when people start taking it over and spinning their own myths from it. So by that measure, Superman, Batman, Star Trek and Star Wars are all enduring myths, but so is a lot of other stuff: B5, Buffy, various anime. Too much to list, by far. Just check out internet fanfic sometime to see what has made it to mythic status.

Which also means that there are plenty of non-sci-fi/fantasy myths such as the various incarnations of CSI.

but will the likes of CSI, Buffy & B5 last as long as Superman?

I don't know if something as inherently rooted in the here and now as CSI will continue in the same way, but I think Buffy and Angel have a pretty good chance. I think the difference is I can totally see someone "rebooting" (sorry for that word) Buffy and Angel 10, 15, even 50 years down the line, in the same way they do with Superman, because they have a unique core concept, whereas they won't remake CSI, they'll just make another show about forensics.

 

[Mistral]

In ancient times the Greeks told tales of heroes that strode across the landscape, mighty beings that performed mighty deeds. They were revered and loved by the general populace. Their stories were told and re-told from one generation to the next. We still speak of Hercules and Perseus today. I have long advocated the idea that our technological society has thrown up icons that will become/have become modern myths.
In The People's Almanac(1978) there is a chapter called: People Who Never Were-Yet Live Today. In it they give biographies of several very famous, "mythic" people. People like Tarzan, Lord Greystroke and Superman. Scrooge McDuck and Sherlock Holmes. I do believe the seeds of mythology are taking root, as certain long-running media characters survive beyond their creators' lifespans. With the repetitious forced-loop feedback of our mass media society hammering the basic concepts into the forebrain of our children world-wide, you can rest assured that if society collapsed today, tomorrow over some campfire amidst the ruins a father would tell his children of the great Kal-El, the mysterious Batman, the clever and observant Sherlock Holmes and the trickster Bugs. Our modern myths live amongst us today-and they sure as hell aren't CSI.

 

[wamdue]

another difference between the likes of CSI & Buffy, is that CSI has no real stand out characters, Buffy does, I certinaly think the idea that the idea of a young female slayer will survive, even if its not Buffy herself.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'd call Superman a quintessential piece of modern American mythology. I'm not sure that anything else invented in America in modern times is on the same level, including Trek.

 

[captcalhoun]

Batman is also a modern myth. look at how he's been reinvented over just the last 40-odd years from camp crusader to grim avenger to camp-styled avenger back to grim urban avenger again.

 

[wamdue]

I'd call Superman a quintessential piece of modern American mythology. I'm not sure that anything else invented in America in modern times is on the same level, including Trek.

the problem with Trek as a modern myth, is that its set in the future, that kinda applys to Doctor Who as well but not in the same way.

at least with Superman he is nearly always set in either the present day or the past.

 

[shapeshifter]

The Coon.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

but will the likes of CSI, Buffy & B5 last as long as Superman?

No - Superman, Star Trek and Star Wars are in their own "supermythic" category. But B5 might have some legs. New BSG probably does, too (tho that one is still "alive" with the Caprica spinoff).

The X-Files is an interesting case; since the movie tanked, we've probably seen the last of high-profile corporate output (movies, TV) for the franchise. To the extent it survives, it will have to do so off its mythic status. I think it could make it.

OTOH, much as I love Lost, I don't see that one making the leap.

the problem with Trek as a modern myth, is that its set in the future

Why is that a problem?

 

[wamdue]

well lets say its the year 2200, and the myth of Superman is alive & well despite society having fallen, and the myth of Star Trek comes around, are people not going to be confused how a person of myth can be in the future? there is no way you can mistake Kirk for a real person since he hasnt been born yet.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

They can keep moving Star Trek "outwards," just like we've been doing all along. The Eugenics Wars were supposed to happen in the 1990s.

 

[diankra]

Potentially - in the sense of real people who might be remembered as archetypes of good, evil, etc, long after the actual facts about their lives are lost (in some cases, that's already the case in the popular conception of some of these)...

Churchill
Hitler
Stalin
Kennedy

A good starting point might be that you can already refer to them by one name and people'll know who you mean, even though they've been dead for close on 50 years...

 

[CommodoreKong]

The Coon.

Who's this Coon guy? I've never heard of him.

I've heard some really good things about Mysterion though. Now that's a super hero.

 

[Holdfast]

Who knows? Maybe thousands of years from now, people will have no way of knowing that Sherlock Holmes didn't really exist or that Harry Houdini did.

Sadly, there are already many people who would struggle to tell you which of them was real and which was fictional.

 

[wamdue]

Who knows? Maybe thousands of years from now, people will have no way of knowing that Sherlock Holmes didn't really exist or that Harry Houdini did.

Sadly, there are already many people who would struggle to tell you which of them was real and which was fictional.

as sad as that is, that is part of the character becoming a myth.