Perspectives are magical. They can determine love or war, health or starvation. Yet, there are some perspectives that can go one step further and critically analyze (criticize) any piece of work. It is an occupation - to tell people your opinion, whether they like it or not.

            Getting back to what I am here for, let’s take a look at Episode 1 of Heroes through the lenses of race, class and gender. As the episode is long and has many storylines to it, I will be providing you readers with a background analysis.

Firstly, why is the narrator of the story male? Why is he the geneticist that brings all these special people together? It could even have been a lady, so why was this man cast? Also, the ratio of male to female who are special in this one episode is 2:1. So does this mean that males are more special than females? Looking at this in an opposite point of view, why does Claire get to regenerate? This ability makes her nearly invincible. How come the others didn’t have that power? Claire makes Zach tape her fall. She does not treat him very kindly, seeing as he made the effort to actually tape her trying to kill herself several times. Does this show sexism? The male being ill-treated by the female?

In a racial point of view, I feel that the writers of this marvelous series have tried to include every race. There are Americans, Indians, Japanese, and Africans. However, are the writers trying to say that these are the only important races? Are they implying that if you are not part of any of these races, you are not special? Even the distribution of these abilities could be questioned. Mohinder, the geneticist, is not possessed with any power. He is a man trying to share his father’s theories to the world, but is he getting any reward? No. He is struggling in USA, driving a taxi and trying to pursue his dream at the same time. What if this work was done by someone else..let’s say..an American. Would he have the same troubles convincing people to believe him if he goes to a foreign country? Maybe, maybe not. We shall never really know.

In this first episode, there are no poor people who have special abilities. All those that have abilities are well-settled and have everything they need. Why aren’t there people of lower classes that have special abilities? Are the writers trying to say that if you are poor, you cannot be special? Does the genetic code differ when it comes to a being in lower classes?

Overall, I have noticed several things while attempting this critical entry. It is extremely difficult to write criticizing a piece of work that you truly enjoy. Everything has several ways to look at. What really matters is how you look at it, and how your perspective can change based on whatever you see.