Heroes

You might remember me blogging about a documentary about Buffy Sainte-Marie a couple of years ago, a documentary called 'A Multi-Media Life' that for some obscure reason is only available in North America. Luckily a good friend over there has sent me a copy and I had a viewing over the weekend.

It's great to see and hear Buffy across the decades with a great collection of photos and video clips throughout her life (which confirms my view that there's a lot of video about Buffy in the vaults - we need to get it out of the vaults). That's not what I'm blogging about today, though. How and why do we choose our heroes?

I first came across Buffy in 1975 or 1976 through a half-hour programme on BBC2 about singer-songwriters. For some reason I taped it on my cassette player. Another in the series was Dory Previn. It was a collection of videos accompanying each song, short films of people acting out the songs and I don't think Buffy featured in any of them. But for some reason they lodged in my head. I can't remember if 'Native North American Child' or 'Sweet America' was my first Buffy album, followed by the double Vanguard 'greatest hits'. The odd thing is that, in the '70s, that was around the end of Buffy's recording career and it wasn't relaunched until 1992's 'Coincidence And Likely Stories'.

But for some reason, Buffy said 'listen to me', 'hear me', 'think about my message' to my teenage self. And I did. And I still do.

What did Buffy have to say to me, a teenager in a small mining village outside Newcastle in the coalfields of the North East of England. I'd never met an "indian" and I only knew one black girl. Buffy spoke about individuality, about respect, about difference and history. She also spoke about reconciliation, a powerful message from someone who's people have suffered genocide.

Why is Buffy a hero? I don't know but I'll argue the toss till the cows come home.

Why are your heroes heroes?