Harmony

[trikotomy]

"Let's talk about violence, shall we? Violence in the media is an easy target. 'If we get rid of all the violent movies, television shows and comic books, the world will be Utopian!' An easily believable answer. Just ask your mom

Comments

[the_answer_is]

Interesting. I don't know if I agree with it 100% though.

I used to love reading JTHM, and violent movies, and stuff. Then I got this job at an international aid organization. My task for a few months (at the end of my stay there) was to catalogue all of the field-photography that hadn't been filed since 1984. They were mostly pictures of little kids waiting in line with their mothers at feeding stations, or women taking classes in health care, etc. But there were a few choice series... one being of severed limbs in Rawanda and the insides of peoples hands... the other worst one was from Burundi. There was some woman without skin on one of her tits, and it showed the doctor's process for cleaning such a terrible wound. There was another one of a newborn infant with lesions all over its body, too weak to even cling to his mother.

Now, I'm a huge wimp. I almost puked when I saw Reservoir Dogs, and even the news makes me shakey. Personally, I can't realistically imagine physically harming someone. I get pissed off and think "I wish they would get hit by a truck" but if I actually visualize their car getting slammed into by a truck I feel much much worse.

I don't know. Maybe its because I'm a girl or because of the job or because of any number of things. Doesn't mean I don't fantasize about harm coming to someone. Maybe I just wish it on them emotionally. Which could be worse.

[trikotomy]

Actually, I can relate to that somewhat. A couple years back I decided to go through all of rotten.com and ogrish.com, specifically to enhance my desensitization. As you might expect, there was a wide array of mutilation, the most memorable of which to me was this one guy lying in an ER with an exploded face, breathing through a tube inserted into the hole above his tongue. Today extreme violence doesn't really shock me... it just makes me feel really shitty, including some of the more elaborate fake violence. Before, it was simply too fantastic to empathize with. I would've felt more sympathy hearing about a guy cut his knee on a coffee table than hearing about a guy get cut in half. We know that kind of stuff happens, but it doesn't really happen, as far as we're concerned.

There is some media violence I think is in very bad taste, such as depictions of real-life current events that some suit is milking to make a buck. For example, take the made-for-local-network-tv movie about the BTK killer last year. Behold the frustrated scowls of the detectives, powerless against the wry, triumphant grin of the killer and his dramatic theme music! In reality he was just some redneck turd that typed like a 13-year old and looked exactly like Buford Furrow, whose sole claim to fame is that he ambushed helpless women (with a gun) and jerked off over it. What a guy! This brave Adonis, this Cadillac of men. Maybe I should turn into drunken trailer trash and go bludgeon a 6-year old to death with a brick and brag about it to the media. Then I can get a movie immortalizing my criminal genius. Perhaps one day there will be a film entitled "World's Most Extreme Child Molesters". That would rock. And then I would kill myself.