Fictional Rebels

The most heroic characteristic a human being can have, I believe, is the complete unwillingness to submit his/her will to anyone or anything. My heroes in fiction and film tend to be the ones who don't do what they're told, who kick constantly against the pricks and refuse to bow. Is this slightly infantile of me? Yeah, probably. But I don't care. It's what I respond to.


In real life, all of us submit in one way or another. We sorta have to, sorry to say. Whether it’s to an employer, a relationship, a personal god, the government, whatever. Partial submission is part of that social contract we have with the world. And that’s probably why some of us balk and fidget when we feel constrained by other things, things that we feel we can actually control.

Even in the movies and in literature, the heroes who don’t back down usually meet tragic ends. They die, or even worse, become part of the machine. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I choose to think that the lesson is this: death is the trade-off. The hero lived life free.

It’s why I like that Tom Petty song “I Won’t Back Down”, or even John Mellancamp’s “Authority Song”. It’s why I was drawn to punk when I was a kid.

Here are some of my heroes who refused to submit:

Cool Hand Luke. 

What drove our boy Luke to struggle against his restraints when everyone else gave up? What made him attempt escape over and over again, when he knew it would eventually end in tragedy? He was the very embodiment of the slogan, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Huck Finn. 

Huck wasn’t even aware that he was kicking against authority. He wasn’t a conscious rebel. And his mind was still enslaved, in some ways, by the bigotry of his time. But in his gut, Huck knew that THEY were wrong and HE was right.

Steve McQueen in “The Great Escape”. 

Another prisoner, like Cool Hand Luke, who valued his freedom above all else, even life. He attempted escape from the concentration camp so many times, and was re-captured and sent to solitary confinement that he became known as The Cooler King.

Tom Horn.

McQueen again, playing the real life role of a man who valued personal freedom and integrity so much that he was willing to go to his death for it.


Marlon Brando in “The Wild One”. 

What are you rebelling against? What do you got?

Zorro. 

Don Diego de la Vega dons a disguise to fight the oppression of the peasants by cruel Spanish rulers in colonial era California.

And then, of course, there’s the “real people fictionalized” category—historical rebels like Pancho Villa, Spartacus, William Wallace.

I’m sure there are tons more I’m not thinking of, iconoclasts and fighters who value independence and free will more than life itself. Who are some of your favorite rebels?