Heroine with a Thousand Faces

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lighting Thief came out last Friday, February 12th and film critic, Kenneth Turan, reviewed it on NPR's Morning Edition saying, "Here we go again. A boy goes to a prep school, and a teacher tells him he has magical powers... [it's] about a young hero with parental issues, who is marked as the chosen one by his peers." 

Another Harry Potter knock-off?  Or yet one more movie about the male's heroic journey?  Admittedly, my favorite movies include The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and - the latest - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Then there are the stories of mythology and classic literature with their emphasis on heroes recognized by Joseph Campbell in, "Hero with a Thousand Faces." 

I can curse Campbell (and Hollywood) for his rejection of the feminine journey, but as he noted toward the end of his life, "It was the men who got involved in spinning most of the great myths... [because] the women were too busy; they had too damn much to do to sit around thinking about stories."

So where do we turn for our inspiration?  Sex and the City, Bridget Jones or Titanic?  Or worse, soap operas?  Are our adventures boiled down to sex, drama and romance (both rompy and melancholy) because we're too busy building families while balancing households with careers?  Sex and romance - requirements for a feminine future but also the cornerstones to our transformation?  Do they net us the discovery of important self-knowledge?

Valentine's Night 2010 ends with a repeat viewing of Sex and the City.  Carrie Bradshaw (Candace Bushnell) sets up the movie with a 30-second review of each character's life over the past three years.  Her own review comparmentalizes her lovers into chapters.  Is there a modern woman alive who can watch that without reflecting on her own biography of lovers?  Is the seductive allure of someone new our call to adventure?  Will we reach enlightenment if we survive love's trials in his "unusual world of strange powers and events?"

It sounds a bit pathetic.  I mean, I'd like to think there's more to life than, "pursuing and getting a man," but my track record says otherwise.  My life is a study in sex, drama and romance.  Can I pass my lessons along to my daughters without sending them down the same watershed path?  I am waiting for an inspiring heroine to show all of us the way but the promise of a phophet is an empty one.  I -- we -- must carve out and share our own heroine journeys be they grounded in love or other more worldly pursuits.