As I watched the latest Hercules movie starring Dwayne Johnson, I was reminded of a quote from my favorite western, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. The quote was "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Hercules is, of course, a legend or a myth (depending upon how you want to look at it), and it's full of fanciful elements that couldn't possibly be real...hydras, three-headed wolves, lions with impenetrable hides, etc. But to ancient people, the stories of Hercules served an important purpose. They gave people a role model to look up to, a hero to try to emulate. And everyone needs a good role model. Society demands it. Without a do-gooder for people to emulate, the people become lost and follow their own innately selfish desires. We've seen that play out many times throughout history.
What I liked about the new Hercules movie was that it didn't try to make us believe in Olympian gods that were jealous of men or fanciful creatures like hydras and centaurs. Rather, it addressed those parts of the Hercules story and let the viewer decide if they were fictional or real. Was there really a half-god/half-human strongman who performed 12 superhuman labors? According to this movie, it doesn't matter.
What matters is what the people believe because belief is what inspires people. An army that thinks it will lose usually does and the same goes for any individual fighter. But if a combatant or an entire army believes it's invincible, it often is. Again, history has played that out for us many times.
The filmmakers who brought us the latest Hercules film did an excellent job of showing us how important belief is. And in so doing, they didn't take themselves or their story too seriously. Hercules is a fun, action-packed film with a message that's as relevant today as it was 2,500 years ago: It's not what the truth is, it's what people believe the truth is.
Truer words have never been spoken...at least I believe they haven't.
