Chapter 5

Superheroes, war heroes, health care heroes

In times of crisis, you can rely on a hero to save you. At least, that’s what English-language would like you to think. The word hero is on an upward trend in English-language publications across the globe, tipping us into its discursive world at its every use. This paper proposes that hero is an Anglo cultural keyword which comes laden with its own discourses regarding courage, sacrifice, and saving lives. The 21st century has seen unprecedented media communication, at the same time as political, humanitarian, and health crises, changing our priorities and the ideals we look to (Porpora 1996; Schlenker et al. 2008). By examining the media use of hero narratives, we can see how this keyword is reflective of the current cultural landscape in different Anglo countries: whose lives we value, what actions are worthy, and who our ideal person is (Butler 2009). We use discourse analysis of written and recorded media, corpus data, and cultural semantics (Levisen and Waters 2017) to show the depth of meaning in the word hero and untangle the distinct public narratives between unsung heroes, war heroes, healthcare heroes, local heroes and sporting heroes.