Heroes Falling Like Flies

There are countless heroes that got consumed by obscurity and many who have fallen in the modern times. One of my favourite people and personal hero was Anant Kushwaha, the editor of children's magazine Balhans. Every once in a while Balhans released a Chitrakatha issue in which all the strips were written and drawn by Anant Kushwaha himself. Just like him, a personal hero is Genndy Tartakovsky, the man responsible for a lot of cartoons that were run on Cartoon Network back in the day. These were the real great people and not the ones who are now considered great. Neil Gaiman, one of my favourite authors, is facing cases of sexual misconduct these days. To be factual, I never liked the content of Neil Gaiman's writing but I loved his writing style and the depth in it. I'm an old Tumblr user and he was a hero on Tumblr, and now all of a sudden he is a villain for obvious reasons. I, with all that I have seen in the past decade, understand what actually happened with Gaiman, but then grown men are responsible for what they do, especially when we live in a world where even young kids are held responsible for what they didn't do. Gaiman did, and I would never, give validation to LGBTQ crowd on Tumblr. Of course LGBTQ crowd is oppressed, but sex is not oxygen and it can be given up altogether instead of seeking validation for your sexual preferences by others, or it can be kept a secret, well, as secret as it is possible in the present world. I had realised that Neil Gaiman is a propagandist long before the sexual misconduct allegations surfaced, but that doesn't mean I'm still not a fan of his writing style, though I never liked him actively promoting LGBTQ narrative on Tumblr when instead he could have said all humans are equal no matter their sexual orientation and that they shouldn't be discriminated for that. You live for long enough and you see your heroes fall, and thankfully Neil Gaiman was never my hero, Anant Kushwaha and Genndy Tartakovsky still are. I loved Harry Potter as a child and see J K Rowing campaigning against the trans individuals, which I personally don't think is wrong, I get where she is coming from but I also know that it is not going to make any difference, still, working for a cause is great whether it makes a difference or not. I like Chris Columbus's Harry Potter, the first two movies, and I liked Prisoner of Azkaban too, for the absolute visual treat that movie was, Goblet of Fire too was good but all the movies after that were, in my opinion, trash. I like the warmth that Chris Columbus infuses his movies with. But then we live in times where we have come very far from books and movies. People, now, are their own entertainment. They are producing and consuming entertainment themselves. I, back in late 2000s and early 2010s, was exploring noir and transgressive fiction. Noir graphic novels and movies were present, but for transgressive fiction there wasn't much except Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis. I don't really follow Bret Easton Ellis but I have read Chuck. It is later I realised that the standard setting of this country itself is noir and transgressive and whatever noir and transgressive I write is going to fade in front of what actually happens. Still, I incorporate noir and transgressive elements in my writing, just as homage for my inclination towards those genres, in the sense that even in a different genre I don't shy away from graphic presentation of events. Kids today do not have role models, and it's anyway better to have role models who are long dead as they have left an image and a legacy, which although might not be true, no one can contend against.