Warning: There are some movie spoilers for the Watchmen movie below.

In most movies, books, and video games there usually are two opposing sides, one usually good and the other bad. In Star War there was ‘the Force’ accompanied by the Jedi Knights paired against the Emperor’s Galactic Empire. In the Wizard OZ, Dorothy went up against the Wicked Witch of the West. You would have had to live in a bubble to not have grown up hearing stories with similar dynamics.

In these stories, the title of villain and hero are obvious. You know who your rooting for and you know why.

You know that by the end of (at least one of the movies) Luke Skywalker will win out over the Emperor and the universe will be at peace, right?

But in more cynical hero-based story arcs the role of the hero can mean more than just being the ‘good guy’. In fact, in the comic book Watchmen – the concept of the ‘good/bad guy’ forces readers to looks beyond the standard hero façade and ask the question: How good can a good guy really be?

SPOILER ALERT
In the movie, when Veidt executes his master plan to bring peace and unity to the world by destroying the main cities around the world, the majority of the Watchmen realize that in order to sustain the world wide unity that is about to take place, they must keep silent and in their own right have become accomplices in Veidt’s bloody deed.

After seeing the movie, I was waiting outside the bathroom for my friends when I group of young men standing a few feet away from me started discussing the deeper meaning what Watchmen meant.

“You know, the messed up thing is that even though you know what he (Veidt) did was wrong, you know he’s right. Even though he comes off as being the bad guy, you know there was no other way – so, he’s still a good guy.”

I hated the movie, but that theme resonated deep within my bones.

For the past eight years of my life, the designated ‘bad guy’ was the Bush Administration. And in their own way, they embodied certain aspects of that last scene in the movie. It seems to be an all-encompassing notion that as long as you think you’re doing the right thing, then whatever anyone else says is hogwash.

The problem with the Bush Administration was that there was no one there to hold George Bush, Dick Cheney, and whole gang accountable for their actions. It wasn’t till the very end of his Presidency that the media actually started to hold Bush accountable for the things he did during his eight years in office. Too little too late!

The election of President Obama seemed to usher in what some might be see as the heroic knight, riding in on a horse and undoing what the last eight years had done to America.

That’s the image that came to my mind when I heard that Barack Obama was being featured in the latest Spider Man comic not too long ago: the ray of light, the hero of the hour, and if our world was the Matrix, we as a nation, had named him ‘The One’.

But as the Watchmen illustrates, though we as humans are flawed, even the most powerful of us falter and fall into the routines and mistakes of our predecessors.

Can we love and support our heroes and still hold them to our critical judgment? Easier said than done I think. Can we keep our President in-check long enough to prevent horrific events similar to 9/11, or the events that took place during Hurricane Katrina?

Who was watching the watchmen then? And are we watching them now?
—Eming Piansay