EW's Top 20 Heroes List, And One Writer's Reaction To It

You know what? I don’t pretend to know a lot about golf. I know Tiger Woods is good at it and maybe Greg Norman was the best Australia got at it.

I know you play the “back nine” for something different and you have crazy lingo like birdies and eagles. This does not make me qualified to write a top 20 list of anything golf related.

So who in the hell handed over the keyboard at Entertainment Weekly to the work experience kid and let them go to town writing a list of the top 20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture?

Naturally Batman made the list. At least they got something right! Congratulations you get a gold star! No wait, hang on, Batman is immediately beaten by NANCY DREW? What? She can infiltrate a high school better? Is that what we are dealing with here?

“Here’s your homework Jenny, it fell behind your locker!”

“Wow! Thanks Nancy!  Let’s go watch the boys play soccer!”

This does not equate to “cool” people. Whoever wrote this list should have their computer taken off them and their film geek licence revoked.

Let’s get on with it aye? 

20. Sydney Bristow

Who the hell is Sydney Bristow? I had to go and look her up. Alias TV show. This is where the problems start. I know we are dealing with Pop Culture here but anything outside film is really subjective. You start including books and TV shows that no one has heard of. I’m sure someone likes watching Jennifer Garner run around in a different outfit every week but this is not enough to beat, say, Robocop, is it?

19. Atticus Finch

Ooh, nice work. I like Atticus. Greg Peck did a kick ass job playing Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird. As a classic film choice I would include him or even on a separate book hero list. If he is on here, why not Humphrey Bogart for Casablanca?

18. Batman

EW are starting to understand the concept now. What they fail to realise is how awesome Batman is and he should be at the top of this list. You can’t account for lack of vision though. Why should he be number 1? Because he’s the Goddamned Batman.

17. Nancy Drew

No, no, NO! Even the Hardy Boys were cooler than Nancy. Who didn’t like Frank and Joe? Franklin W Dixon even went hardcore later on in the series taking out a major character (Don’t wanna spoil it for those of you reading along at home) Yes, I know Nancy was made into a film but even that is wrong. It should have been the Hardy Boys on screen, or better yet, The Three Investigators.

16. Jack Bauer

The more I read this list, I’m thinking I may need to broaden my horizons into the area of TV shows. My workmate swears by 24 and has tried to get me to watch it on numerous occasions. It seems like a good premise, whether it deserves to be placed 16th on the list is another matter entirely.

15. Dirty Harry

Now we’re getting somewhere! You bring out The Enforcer and people sit up and listen. Callahan was a cop who got the job done, whatever it took, paving the way for the likes of Martin Riggs and John McClane years later.

14. Will Kane

Gary Cooper played the Town Marshall in the classic western High Noon. Yes it’s a great film but if we are including this, why not Clint’s The Man With No Name from A Fistful of Dollars?

13. Foxy Brown

I can sort of understand why Pam Grier was included here. You could say this is where the empowerment of women in lead roles really began. Pam took on a similar role in Jackie Brown before moving in with the girls on The L Word.

12. James T. Kirk

Ahh Kirk, the original bad boy of Star Trek. If there were more officers in the fleet like him, we would have been all action (all sorts of action) and less negotiations. Bring on the new film and lets see him even younger and more irrational!

11. Mad Max

This was the film that put George Miller, Mel Gibson and my country on the map.

What’s it about? Take a rouge cop from the near future, motorcycle gangs ruling the highways and a fuel shortage and that’s about it. Make it for $300,000 AUD and you have an instant classic. If you haven’t seen this you need to check it out ASAP.

10. Spider-Man

Raimi’s Spider-Man and the sequel showed that a decent comic book can be made a commercial success. Or maybe it’s because everyone thinks Bruce Campbell is so damn awesome they will go and see him in anything. Batman 89 launched the comic book film to the masses, Spider-Man made it a hit.

9. Robin Hood

Errol Flynn, another fellow countryman made this film a hit back in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood. Ask your Nana what she thought of Errol and I guarantee she’ll tell you how awesome he was. Quite a hit with the ladies and responsible for the phrase “In like Flynn”

8. Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I never really got in on the whole Buffy thing for reasons too numerous to mention here. I also missed Angel and Firefly and have no idea why people adore the man so much and love the Whedonverse (does that even make sense as a word?) I watched Dr Horrible though. Go Neil Patrick Harris! And Felicia Day? *swoon*

7. Han Solo

Before the 1997 Han was the single most bad-ass character committed to film.

He had the walk, the talk, the hair and the Millennium Falcon. Once he was edited into being a bit of a wuss, a thousand fanboys screamed out in terror. If EW saw him shoot first, he would have made number one AND the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

6. John McClane

Bruce took the clean cut Moonlighting image and threw it out the window with the Die Hard series. The last one lacked punch but in its heyday, nothing beat McClane getting down and dirty and giving the bad guys exactly what they deserved. This is a well earned spot in the top 20.

5. Ellen Ripley

If Pam Grier started showing us what the girls could do, then Sigourney firmly planted in our minds that you don’t mess with the girls. Ellen’s kick-assery peaked in Aliens while looking after Newt. Vasquez may have been the tough one (Hey Vasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man? No, have you?) but Ripley is the one that makes this franchise work so well.

4. Harry Potter

We were doing so well! How the boy wizard makes it so far up this list is pretty damn magical let me tell you. Yes, his exploits encouraged a generation of kids (and adults) to read but there’s a time and a place for that. I don’t think it’s in this list. Once again, kudos for a top effort, but one I ultimately feel belongs on a literary list.

3. Superman

Richard Donner assured us we would believe a man could fly and when the world saw the first Superman film they were convinced. Christopher Reeve brought humanity to the role of Clark that had not been seen before. One of my favourite character transitions of all time is when Clark is in Lois’ apartment and takes his glasses off to tell he is Superman. The way his body language, voice and mannerisms change is incredible.

No-one else could ever hope to play the Man of Steel quite as well as he did. Without him, this film and the entire comic book film genre would not be where it is today.

2. Indiana Jones

The only man to make this list twice, Harrison Ford captured lightning in a bottle with Lucas and Spielberg’s archaeologist. Adaptable to any situation, Indy fought Nazi’s, Thuggee Cults and Russians in four entries on the cinema screen. Raiders is my personal favourite action film of all time. The fedora that sits on my bookcase is a reminder to me about how great these films are and how much I wanted to be like Indy when I grew up.

1. James Bond

Many say that Ian Fleming’s 00 agent set the bar for the action films we get today. I’m not too sure about that but you can’t deny the girls gadgets and villains certainly paved the way for a few setups we take for granted nowadays. Sean Connery was the original and best. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

 

So that’s the EW list. You can see the ones I don’t agree with personally and I most definitely don’t agree with the order of them. What are your thoughts? Head over to the BK facebook page and list some of your favourites that have been left off the list.

Where’s Gandalf or Optimus Prime? And why the hell is Nancy Drew even in here?