Inglorious Bastards.

Inglorious. How have I not made the connection before? How have I not made the connection between the present day child in care, parentless, institutionalised or fostered, and Superheroes when throughout 20th and 21st century they are featured as the heroes and heroines of so many major commercial blockbuster films and books?

Superman the all American hero was a foster child. Pippa longstocking, the Swedish rebel girl, was parentless. Bronte’s Jane Eyre was orphaned and Dicken’s Oliver Twist so too Moses who probably holds the most famous story of a foster child. The list is endless. For contemporary examples you needn’t look far either: Harry Potter was a foster child, Lisbeth Salander from Steig Larsson’s phenomenal millennium series was institutionalised and fostered.

In the face of the evidence how have we not made the connection between present day children in care, those who need to know it the most, and their illustrious past? Taking into consideration, the success of the aforementioned books and films - including The Bible - and that the latter are mere children can you tell me how and why the connection has not been made and then celebrated, studied, written about? Whether instinctive, academic, political or personal I would love to know.