An action hero (sometimes action heroine for women) is the protagonist of an

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

or other form of entertainment which portrays action, adventure, and often violence. Action heroes are depicted in exciting or perilous chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. Other media in which such heroes appear include

swashbuckler film A swashbuckler film is characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often, but not always, follow a code of honor. Some swashbuckle ...

Western film The Western is a film genre defined by the American Film Institute as films which are "set in the American West that mbodythe spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier." Generally set in the American frontier between the Calif ...

old-time radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...

adventure novel Adventure fiction is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the literary definition of romance fiction. History In the introduction to the ''Encycloped ...

dime novel The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century American popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related form ...

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their ...

s, and

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

History

The origin of the action hero is rooted in the history of

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

with adventure stories being primarily written for boys, to imagine being men on travels and experiencing exciting action. Shawn Shimpach wrote, "The young, white men who were (or became) the aggrandized subjects of these stories motivated the narratives through their penchant for action and resolved conflict through violence informed by grit, wits, and innate skill, securing, in each story, the future of the world for which they were responsible and in the process confirming their masculine identity." In the early twentieth century, this storytelling was commercialized, and the stories were "readily adapted" to film. One of the earliest action-hero actors was

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...

. In the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'', Donald Liebenson wrote, "Douglas Fairbanks was Hollywood's first major action hero, best known for the costume epics that established him as the screen's most dashing swashbuckler." One of the defining action-hero characters played by Fairbanks was

Zorro Zorro ( or , Spanish for "fox") is a fictional character created in 1919 by American Pulp magazine, pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashin ...

, which Michael Sragow called "the most influential action figure in film history and the happiest movie warrior of all time". Fairbanks was followed by

Errol Flynn Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian and American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Oliv ...

, who achieved fame as

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

in the 1938 film ''

The Adventures of Robin Hood ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a 1938 American Epic film, epic swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and written by Norman Reilly Ra ...

''. In the middle of the twentieth century, "...the action genre was predictably populated by suave, attractive heroes living adventures of thrilling, exotic excitement, unimpeded by (if clearly aligned to) national, cultural, or state borders." When television became commonplace, shows that featured action heroes included '' Adventures of Superman'' (1952–1958), '' The Avengers'' (1961–1969), '' The Saint'' (1962–1969), '' The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' (1964–1968), ''

Batman Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

'' (1966–1968), and '' Mission: Impossible'' (1966–1973). Shimpach said they "offered up extraordinary (if not always completely serious) white men who resolved conflict through direct action and violence while displaying their effortless mastery of urban spaces, new technologies, fashion, and their own bodies."

References

External links

* {{Stock characters Heroes

Hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...

Stock characters

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links