Earlier in the history of Western movies, there were stereotypes which helped identify the hero from the villain. The good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats is some of those early flicks. In real life, it is less easy to identify the good ones from the bad ones. It is still pretty easy in cartoons, but not even in the live movies are the clues so obvious. We even have years of anti-hero characters who fuzzy the sense of who the good guys are. I am a bit troubled by these changes. I know that some of the old movies were massively unrealistic. Roy Rogers disabling the crooks with one punch wasn’t a true picture of how easily evil can be defeated. Admittedly, the world around us has always been complicated and the motives of many may be suspicious at best, but there are still good guys and bad guys. With enough personal charisma, evil intent can be hidden for a time, but in the end, true character will reveal itself. Among us ordinary folk, it can be pretty obvious who are the good people. We are fortunate if we are surrounded by good people, because that seems to call out the goodness in ourselves. Just as evil can spawn evil, so goodness can give birth to goodness. It was said of Jesus that “he went about doing good.” You can’t tell by the color of the hat who the good ones are, but life behavior will always reveal it in the end.