Last year Russell Crowe discovered a governmental cover-up of the death of Congressman Ben Affleck’s girlfriend. This year, Crowe travels back in time to green tights and a funny hat in his new film, “Robin Hood.” The story of Robin Hood has drastically changed over the ages to fit modern theories, and Crowe’s story is no different.

Gloria Betcher, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of English, teaches Studies in British Literature: The Renaissance, where she uses the story of Robin Hood as examples in Renaissance literature. But the story of Robin Hood is different than most of us would believe.

“Robin Hood steals money for his own needs and the needs of his men, but his victims are authority figures who abuse their powers. So, Robin is, in a way, subverting and resisting authority — or at least abused authority — and exhibiting his own sense of principles through his choice of victims. This resistance to abused authority provides the foundation for all the later Robin Hood legends that are more familiar to most of us,” said Betcher.

But what is it about Robin Hood that keeps the story going?

“Because Robin Hood has both mythic and human characteristics and has not yet been identified as any single real man with a true life story, Robin’s story can still be flexibly adapted to meet the needs of various audiences,” Betcher explained. So as our society adapts to worldly and governmental changes, so can the story of Robin Hood.

But our fascination with modern vigilantes doesn’t end with Russell Crowe, and it doesn’t begin there, either. All movies based on super heroes are about citizens who follow their own laws and punishments, not that of our governments, no matter how great the U.S. Justice system might be.

Human life characters have also been taking the law into their own hands. For example, in the recently released sequel “Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day,” in which two strongly Catholic Irish-American brothers band together to rid the world of Italian and Russian mafia members.

And there’s Gerard Butler, who plays a man getting physical revenge on the men who killed his family in 2009’s “Law Abiding Citizen.”

Even the ongoing “Saw” movies are solely based on a man (and his accomplices) who “rehabilitate” individuals whom the mastermind Jigsaw did not see as having been sufficiently punished by the government. An end to vigilante movies doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon.

But all of this observation begs the question, in a country with a superior justice system, why do Americans thrive on the story of the vigilante? Sure, you could argue that perhaps it’s the thrill of new special effects. Perhaps it’s the look into a world where we could all succumb to our baser emotional wants. Or maybe it’s because we now live in a world covered in liability waivers, bubble-wrapped playgrounds and censored television that sometimes the suspension of belief is exactly the release you need.

Is it possible that all of the caution tape has led us to satisfy certain needs through media? After all, take a look at some of the most popular films from the past decade: “Watchmen,” “300” and “The Dark Knight.” And then there are the classic movies of film noir, the hard-boiled detective mysteries.

It seems that, for some time now, the cinema has been a safe place to both engage in revengeful bloodlust and acknowledge our human limitations. We may cheer for the Robin Hood, but boo at the Jigsaw. It helps us place ourselves and our culture.

But in any case, it doesn’t look like the story of the vigilante is going anywhere. So sit back, grab some popcorn and enjoy the story.