Fanfare for the Common Man

With respect for the experience of the common man and for authenticity’s sake, there won’t actually be fanfare. Why, then, did I title this “Fanfare for the Common Man”? Well, why is the classical piece Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland so epic?

There is a theme in stories that sort of disappeared in modern times. It could be seen typically in Superman, and every now and then it came up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That theme, of course, is modesty. You could argue the theme persists, though I’d argue modern stories overshadow or opt out of the theme with gigachad skibidi-rizz aura instead (that is brain rot for looking cool). In exploring this theme, I’d like to look at some fictional characters that embody it, including Superman, Xander from Buffy, as well as Shinsuke Kita from Haikyuu!.

Superman is an ironic choice as he is anything but a common man, but his life (outside of the superhero part of it) is pretty modest. He grew up on a farm in a place called Smallville. That’s about as modest as you can get, minus his superpowers. His entire character is paradoxical yet admirable for both extremes in the way of his major achievements as well as his modesty. He can shoot lasers out of his eyes, fly, and lift whatever to save the world from devastation—and he can do none of that and simply talk to a suicidal girl on a roof.

Comic from All-Star Superman #10

There’s another comic strip where Superman talks with a suicidal woman that I think hits harder, personally because I love the honesty he displays (particularly when the officer informs him of the situation and asks Superman if he’d like to go talk to her and he says, “No.”), and, though they’re high-stakes, life-and-death situations, they resonate on a more basic, human level. It’s his awesomeness that is juxtaposed with ordinary people who are having their worst days, alongside his self-awareness and ability to still connect with ordinary people. Even in non-life-threatening situations where he simply has talks with kids, like recommending they wear seatbelts or taking a selfie, it’s endearing. He, among other superheroes nowadays, don’t really get these moments in stories. I guess I’d call it the Iron Man Effect, in which superheroes have pseudo-modesty that isn’t really believable due to rampant immodesty, wide-scale dangers being constantly referenced or just around every corner, and quips and general unseriousness happening frequently. It’s unfortunate because these moments of modesty and humility really ground such characters and give them depth. Anyway, Superman is pretty often praised for his larger achievements, yet these little ones deserve recognition as well.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another story that explores superhero powers alongside common people—namely the character of Xander. The main characters or “Scooby Gang” consists of Buffy who’s the titular vampire slayer, Willow who’s a witch, Giles who’s a Watcher (a parapsychologist), and Xander who’s a… high school student. Others temporarily join the gang who are also quite uncommon like vampires, a werewolf, and a demon, and it’s constantly Xander who is the tremendously common guy throughout the show. His necessity and usefulness is infrequently brought up, and the modesty of a common man juxtaposed with all sorts of uncommon things is pretty unique (due to most cases like the aforementioned one of Superman often having something distinctly special about them). Xander isn’t special at all. He is, as his fellow high school peer Cordelia calls him, a “Zeppo” (i.e., the most unexceptional member of the Marx Brothers).

The episode The Zeppo explores his character, particularly his sense of belonging and worthiness to be included in anything. It is quite a funny episode and one of my favorites, and it emphasizes his worth in being a common man who nonetheless proves himself useful where it counts. Most episodes follow Buffy as she deals with preventing one apocalypse or another, and this episode changes it up by focusing on Xander getting involved in shenanigans with zombies (while Buffy and the others go about preventing another apocalypse in the background). He doesn’t really do much of anything, really mostly bumbling around, acting meek, and even enabling the zombies to do bad things like build a bomb, until the end where he sticks up for himself and stops the bomb from going off which ultimately saves Buffy and the others (and in turn the world). That pretty much epitomizes his role as being crucial, albeit indirectly—stuff may often happen around him or to him, but he can and does have sway in the grand scheme of things. He has other moments in the show, such as when he stopped Willow from bringing about the end of the world due to her own despair, when he became the “Heart” for a spell that helped defeat the antagonist Adam, and when he gave a nice piece of dialogue to Dawn (another “common man”) and told her, “You’re not special; you’re extraordinary.”

Lastly, we have a character from Haikyuu! who, despite being a team captain for one of Karasuno’s toughest opponents, stands out the least. You could even ask fans of the show who their favorite characters are, and you’d likely never hear this guy’s name—more often, other than the main characters, you’d hear people say, “Tsukishima,” “Nishinoya,” “Oikawa,” or even “Bokuto.” Bokuto would be my personal favorite, but he embodies quite the opposite of the common man (him being the “Ace” of Fukurodani with Main Character Syndrome). Shinsuke Kita has a pretty distinct appearance, but his attitude and lifestyle is mundane. What stands out about him is he has a routine and he sticks to it whereas most anyone else would cut corners; he is the epitome of diligence. His simplicity is his extraordinariness, and when he gets recognized and is designated the team captain in his final year of high school after going his whole middle school life without being given a team jersey and only getting to play in an official match that same year, it’s a beautiful moment.

A character who exudes mundaneness is perfect for exploring the theme of modesty. He does what’s expected of him, no more and no less. And what he does is integral to how his team functions. He is also pretty self-aware and gives an insightful bit of dialogue about “geniuses” with regards to the idea of talented players like the Miya twins or Kageyama compared to less talented players like him:

"Everything I do every day, from a scale of one to ten, guys like Atsumu do on a scale of one to twenty, or it's a more effective ten, or a denser ten. And sometimes instead of one to ten, they try things from A to Z. Even if they mess up sometimes or they're hated by strangers or cast out, even if they completely ignore something we'd consider important, they just have to do it. Even if they start coughing up blood, they're the guys who just wanna keep running. There are plenty of guys in this world who we're no match for and it's natural to find people like that amazing. I think being able to dive headfirst into things is a talent in and of itself, and it doesn't matter what you call them and it's not like ‘genius’ is an insult. But, if you're thinking they're geniuses from the start, that just means you've lost before you even had a match with them and it's rude."

The contrast between the talented and untalented is a strong theme throughout Haikyuu! and crops up in other cases like Ushijima vs. Tsukishima, Kageyama vs. Oikawa, and Hinata vs. everyone taller than him. Tanaka is another “common man” character with a brief yet insightful bit of monologue that speaks to the common man’s experience:

“By the way, ordinary me… do you really have time to be looking down?”

As Tsukishima once thought, volleyball is “just” a sport. Likewise, characters are “just” people in a story. None of these characters or stories are real, so how could they really have meant anything? To pull another quote, this time from the game Superliminal, “Just like the power of perspective itself, it will have been as real as you believed it to be.” So, they may just be stories of modesty, but they have real meaning for real people. And the people who are “just” people, the ordinary, common people, are likewise as important as you believe them to be. To me, I believe they matter and are important enough to deserve recognition now and again. So, kudos to them, and, if you’re one of them, kudos to you. Now get back to it.