Heroes and antiheroes

Judging from the discussion at The Blog That Time Forgot(several posts, just scroll down), this post at the right-wing Big Hollywood has generated a fair amount of debate. So I figured I’d weigh in (normally I don’t post this much on one day, but I woke up much too early and the Lara Logan thing was royally pissing me off).
The gist: Blogger Leo Grin (who I gather from TBTTF is fairly well read in fantasy) loathes “virtually everything written under the banner of fantasy today.” He doesn’t like the heavy soap opera he finds in the Wheel of Time and he hates what he considered the nihilism of assorted modern “realistic” or grim-and-gritty fantasists. He much prefers stories that capture the power and heroism of Tolkien or Howard to “cheap purveyors of civilizational graffiti … postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage.”
As a statement of personal taste, well fine, even though I disagree (in general—I haven’t read the specific works he cites, except Stephen Erikson). I don’t object to antiheroic fantasy. I like Howard. And Charles Saunders’ Imaro and CL Moore’s Jirel. I love Harry Dresden and Jim Butcher’s Calderon series. I also like Stephen Erikson and Stephen Donaldson. While I agree that grim and gritty gets more credit for being Serious and Deep than it deserves, I think our mythic heritage will survive just fine.
I don’t like soap opera, but I consider that (even when I use it myself) just short-hand for “I didn’t like all the fuss about characters and relationships.” Without knowing what he considers sudsy beyond Wheel of Time, I don’t know if I’d agree (I gather he listed some fantasies he likes in the comments, but wading through Big Hollywood commenters babbling about how liberals corrupt fantasy and all modern civilization and isn’t it wonderful that Sword of Truth is so objectivist is more effort than it’s worth).
That being said, if he’s trying to say anything deeper than “I don’t like cynical antiheroic books,” I’m unimpressed. To the best of my knowledge, the books he condemns as nihilistic aren’t sweeping the alternatives off the shelves; heck, there’s more Howard out these days than I’ve seen in years. And there are newer authors who fit the mold. Cynicism no more kills off heroism than 1970s cynicism made it impossible for someone to write a sweeping swashbuckling space opera.
And while I gather Grin is quite an expert on Howard, the piece here strikes me as rather cliched. I’ve seen this thing from a lot of right-wingers (including other Big Hollywood posters): Modern art/movies/comics/SF/TV/Westerns are all negative and dark and cynical and reject heroism! Moral values are lost! It’s all liberals fault because all great art is conservative! Sometimes accompanied by the complaint that said genres are all too cissy and feminized and have heroes babbling about feelings and relationships instead of doing cool manly things.
That may not be a fair perspective to read Grin, I admit, but it’s hard not to feel this is just #776 in an endless conservative litany of whine.
I shall now go and do penance for linking to a site run by right-wing hack Andrew Breitbart. Forgive me, oh lord.