In Idomeneo, rè di Creta Mozart depicted serious, heroic emotion with a richness unparalleled elsewhere in his operas.
They played serious, heroic figures in films that, like them, are now mostly forgotten: "Aflame in the Sky," "Courage of the North," "The Silent Code," "Avenging Fangs," "Fangs of Destiny," "Wild Justice".
They often speak and act in a hyper-racialised way and provide the comedy which is a break from all of the serious heroic stuff the main character does.
But by the force of its marketing campaign (backed by General Motors), and also by the force of its storytelling and handling of images, "Jazz" will fix in the minds of millions of Americans a particular set of notions when the word jazz is uttered: A serious and heroic undertaking.
The classic modern art of the 20th century now seems overbearingly high, heroic, serious, messianic.
"This is a serious, risky and heroic mission," Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Institute, said.
It meant that in my head there was something heroic, serious and noble to this music, which made its joyfulness more appealing.
A far-reaching, temperate biography of the overreaching, intemperate man who conceived and gave birth to the most serious and most heroic music ever written but trotted out trash on demand if the money was good.
Bodyline bowling, it was seriously agreed, was not cricket.The heroic yearsLess serious people said it had been jolly exciting and welcomed home the victorious Jardine.
This in turn leads to commentary on the "heroic and serious parts of" Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and, finally, to more general reflections on Shakespeare's genius.
The debate was a great exercise in British self-delusion, running for three hours, as one politician after another put on their most serious statesman face, burping up heroic soundbites on fighting racism or free expression in the hope of being turned into a viral gif.
