The Magic of Hollywood Is Identifying -- And Identifying With -- The Right Hero

Our cultural biases often make it difficult to see the prevailing side of an argument, especially when it's political in nature.

Most of us inherit our politics from parents, peers, and social structures. When disagreement ensues, we tend to dig in our heels instead of trying to see the other person's point of view.

But the magic of movies allows us to do just that.

Film is a universal language that moves us in ways reason and rhetoric cannot. Film makes us feel. But most importantly, film makes us feel for others who are not like us. Film makes us empathetic.

And in doing so, it helps us see who the true heroes of a story are, as well as the antagonists.

Let's take a look at some of the year's biggest news stories to see this empathy in action.

If you heard these two film pitches, whose journey sounds more heroic?

1. A strong-willed county clerk's faith is challenged when two gay men apply for a marriage license. These heathens will burn in hell for their sin of holy matrimony, but not on her watch! With her religious conviction weighing heavier than the scales of justice, this mother of two will defy court orders, face incarceration, and refuse to fulfill her job requirements -- all to preserve the sanctity of marriage, which she's demonstrated in the only acceptable way -- with the opposite sex, on four separate occasions, in only 15 years.

Whose quest is nobler?

1. When countless school shootings incite the faintest talk of gun control, a brave band of threatened citizens fear the government may encroach on their right to bear arms. These activists refuse to allow the growing number of college coeds, office mates, and school children who lay down their lives in the name of the second amendment to be appropriated for an unwarranted attack on their God-given freedoms.

Who would you root for in Act III?

1. A vigilant police officer with a sixth sense for suspicious activity patrols the rural Carolina streets. When he stops a dilapidated automobile with a broken taillight, he finds an unarmed black man, who makes a guilty dash for the woods. The heroic officer pursues him with a taser, but when it doesn't prohibit his escape, he has no choice but to fire eight rounds of his handgun into the suspect's back. No one's getting away with unpaid child support and a busted taillight on Officer Slager's watch.

I'm guessing some of the pitches above resonated more than others.

Chances are, it's the one where a marginalized underdog challenges an oppressive power structure -- a pattern repeated in myths and legends, observed long ago by Aristotle, and popularized by everyone from Carl Jung to Joseph Campbell.

These stories move us because they speak life's truths.

That's why movies resonate - and become timeless classics, like Dorothy discovering there's no place like home in The Wizard of Oz, or Luke Skywalker giving a galaxy hope that good will triumph over evil in Star Wars.

That's why when it comes to today's headlines, sometimes a simple shift in context is all it takes to more clearly see the subtext.

And that's the magic of a real Hollywood ending.