I suppose I picked this one because I felt it was an issue that Christians don’t often address, and it’s something that has always deeply bothered me about the series.

The Danes last blog post..20081006.WhichAuthor

I couldn’t agree with you more that since the first season Heroes has dropped the ball. But I was wondering, out of all the subjects you could have dealt with in this show, and there are countless, why did you pick this one?

Thanks for putting this discussion in perspective. I sometimes hesitate to make cultural observations like this because it might seem like I am singling out one creation while ignoring all the other examples, but culturally criticism has to start somewhere! And in some ways it is very helpful to work with one example of an issue so that we can deal with concrete examples. Anyway, that was my thinking.

Kris,

Quite possibly.

Leah,

I’m glad you brought up Angela and Mrs. Bennet. I had originally planned on discussing each of the female characters, but in the interest of space I left some out. I agree with your analysis completely. I have some hope for Mrs. Bennet in this season, but for the first two she was a painful caricature of a middle-class stay at home mom. As you point out, the show suggests that mothers are either middle-class/age airheads or diabolical manipulators.

Petrelli is proud that she is the mother of such “special” sons and occasionally has jewels of wisdom to present them. For example in the third season when her son Peter has traveled back in time to “fix” the future she explains that he cannot do so in a sterile environment. Peter finally realizes the truth of her words and the possibility of a “butterfly effect” and goes back to his own time.
But her motherly “wisdom” is almost completely voided by her caressing of Gabrielle/Sylar’s face and motherly affection possibly even pride at his abilities not to mention the questions such affection raises about her true motives.

Maybe, being a Christian mother myself gives me particular disdain for Angela Petrelli’s conniving manipulation of her children but I find her as the “matriarchal” character in the show, one of the most disappointing women in Heroes because though she has birthed some amazing children she has absolutely no mother’s heart for them.

In fact, the other main example of a mother, besides Nicki Sanders, whom the commentator has already addressed is Claire Bennet’s mother who has been a bumbling idiot for most of Claire’s life and is just now starting to come out of the fog. Even though she has mothered Claire for her 16 or 17 years of life she still has no idea how to interact with her gift and no empathy for Claire’s desire to make good decisions.

It is disappointing as a Christian woman and mother to see the role of mothering and women in general demeaned in popular television. With such low expectations of women and specifically mothers constantly set before our society how do we expect to see mom’s maturing into women who raise responsible, intelligent, independent-thinking children capable of making rational decisions such as to whom they ought to vote?

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