Heroes and icons - possible or passé?

With the death of Betty Friedan and a few other iconic feminists in the last few weeks, this Alternet article asks what will happen now? Where are the future feminist icons?

That lament, along with this CFP for a book about superheroes, got me thinking about the whole nature of heroes and icons. Are they actually possible now? Given that most people understand that there is a small wizened cynical scared person behind the curtain of all the greater-than-life wizardry and wonder they see on screen, read about in the paper and consider buying in stores, can anyone emerge anymore with all the qualities expected of an icon or a superhero? Or are we destined to live in a world from herein where pop starlets and spoiled heiresses and jumping-on-couches movie stars act as second-rate substitutes?

I think through these things, too, in the context of my current Contemporary Cultural Theory course, which is setup as an ideological wrestling match between the great German moderns (Think Habermas, Luhmann, Adorno) and the great French post-moderns (think Foucault and Lyotard), all moderated and mediated by the Americans (Haraway and Jameson come to mind). It would seem to me that heroes and cultural icons belong to a world in which meta-narratives are alive and thrive and in which people are able to not only suspend disbelief, but to believe uncritically from the outset.

I don't see this world in existence around me today. Fractured consciousness, stunted attention spans and a deep cynicism for anything resembling Truth, Beauty and Freedom are what I see reigning instead. Short of the major prophets acting as heroes and icons in fundamentalist religious discourse, and the wanna-be hero that is US President George Bush, Western culture is no longer birthing great heroes.

In the feminist camp, young activist feminists are trying to nominate and raise up certain possible influential women to that status, through things like the Real Hot 100 list, but the sheer number of feminism-is-dying journal articles and newspaper pieces shows they have a long uphill battle ahead.

In a po-mo world, then, are heroes and icons possible or passé?