Back when I was a child, television pushed firefighters, police officers, nurses and teachers as the kind of heroes we should aspire to be. And even though I'm sure there are honorable people in all of those professions, I know they are not all heroes. Throughout my life I have met nurses who hustled prescription pills on the block, racist firefighters, teachers who hated the students they served. And let's not even talk about the cops.
On the other side of the spectrum, I've had contact with dope dealers who clothed and fed the hungry, gangsters who funded tuition for poor kids and sex workers who did more to educate us than our teachers. The concept of profession not equaling hero has taken a long time for television to grasp. Katori Hall, creator of the hit Starz series "P-Valley," is doing everything in her power to change that and to redefine our ideas of who can be a hero.
