Is it any wonder this guys a big fatass? All he does is sit around eating vegetables all day. Everything is bad for you in too large a quantity. Fatass.
I’m green with envy
The Macarena
“The Macarena was originally designed by conservative parents to convince their gay children to not grow up to be dancers. Later, it was used by the military to see if it was possible to weaponize a wedding DJ’s quiet rage. It’s a combination of waving and rotating so easy to do that nearby people in wheelchairs will ask you to stop patronizing them. Gorillas use it as the sign language word for urinary tract infections. As for learning it, it’s actually harder to not know how to do the Macarena because it involves going back in time and convincing your mother it’s okay to drink hi-yield insecticide.”
This sort of thing is why Monica Lewkinski and Casey Anthony are the top stories of their times. So the public will be distracted from what is really going on in the country.
Violence in Entertainment
Author’s Note: In 2010, I was sitting in the west Sahara desert in a 2 man pup tent thinking, alot. I wrote a long journal entry called Violence and Killing in our Modern Society. I adapted that and wrote this for school.
Violence in Entertainment: Films and Television
Daniel Ray Birchett
University of Phoenix
Violence in Entertainment: Films and Television
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” This is the oft repeated mantra of a fresh Marine Corps recruit, designed to loosen the pre-conceived notions of moral right and wrong in one who will become a fighting man. I ask myself: “What does it really mean? And what do I, as a human being that always tries to stay on the moral high ground when dealing with my fellow man, believe and think about it?”
I went to a formal military school to learn some of these concepts, yet I see all around me, the informal training and indoctrination that children are subject to by the media and visual entertainment of today. This paper attempts to be purely subjective and contains my own opinions and observations, right or wrong, regarding this national phenomenon.
The Trend and the Right
The path I have chosen in life has put me in the position in which I will most likely have to kill someone in the course of my duty. Both careers I am pursuing, as a SWAT operator/law enforcement officer and as a Marine Corps infantryman, have taught and will continue to teach in their blunt and brutally efficient way to kill people, in effect saying: “End the situation through superior violence of action. Achieve our Nation’s goals by destroying the enemy. Put down the violent criminal, so he can no longer pose a threat. KILL.”
Some would say every man has the right to take his enemy’s life under certain circumstances, and in doing so to take on any burden of stress and doubt that may come after such a traumatic and life altering event. I am not a complete stranger to this concept. I have experienced the feeling of sending rounds downrange at a perceived enemy. So I know the mental disconnect from reality. I know how surreal it can be. This is something that I believe goes unnoticed in today’s violent media. This sort of violent action was intensely personal, television is not. This being true can lead to desensitization, a lessened appreciation of the magnitude or responsibility that needs to be in place when violence is used as the means to an end.
A harsh truth I have come to be intimately familiar with, not as of yet through direct personal experience, is that: “some people just need killing.” In this culture, in this country the before mentioned line of thought flies in the face of what would be a consideration of normal thinking. It nearly contradicts what one would call “normal morals,” and “normal values.”
No one is born a killer. No one raises their children to kill others, at least, not in our society. In our “safe,” pocket of reality, killing one another is not the social norm. In point of fact, most of us are brought up with beliefs to the contrary, living our lives being taught that killing is wrong.
Looking around, I sometimes wonder if that is true. Play video games, or watch television, or go to the movies. Pay attention to what sort of “entertainment media” society is producing and indoctrinating our youth with. Ultimately it seems as if the agenda is to say that violence is good. Kill orcs, kill criminals, kill monsters, or aliens, or those who wrong you, kill the guy that comes onto “your” turf, kill. Kill those who “look at you wrong,” or don’t believe the same way. Kill those who are different. Kill a school full of students. Stop.
I ask: “Where is the line?” We see such moral outrage when someone kills our children. We are so quick to point fingers and assign blame, even though we are just as quick, and far better at flooding those same children with images of extraordinary violence and slaughter. In effect, we seem to raise them to believe that violence is the ultimate answer to our problems. Do not misinterpret me. I love action and violent war movies, etc. I merely raise the point that we cannot blame our problems on someone else, or on the media (though in my humble opinion, most are blood thirsty, self interested mongrels that would sell their fellow man out in an instant, caring only about money and the sensationalism of his or her own “oh-so precious 5 o’clock News” story).
I do find it interesting that if I were to change the word “action” in the description of the action movie genre to “violence,” it may well be a more accurate description of the genre. Violence Movies! I wonder if that sort of change would make them appeal to a smaller audience of viewers, or a greater one. We have only to look to ourselves to figure out what is wrong with our society. We need to take responsibility for our actions, and our inactions. I pose the question: “When does killing leave the realm of what is morally acceptable by societal standards and become wrong, unjust, or evil?” There may be no clear answer. The trend is ever more prevalent in film and on television to depict violence, gore, and vigilantism as normal, acceptable, and unavoidable.
Killers Killing Killers
The State or governing body of the people reserves the right to enforce capital punishment. That is, to KILL, if deemed necessary, anyone who has transgressed in such a manner that the punishment would be appropriate in accordance with the current laws and articles governing said establishment. The average citizen, barring imminent danger requiring legitimate self defense, does not share that same right per se. A citizen cannot in our society, perceive a wrong to be done and take it upon him or herself to seek out the perpetrators and execute them, in effect administering capital punishment. This because he or she is not who we as a societal whole, have given that specific trust to. In essence, he (or she), is not who we have trained and set guidelines for. He is not the person we have given permission to kill others.
Please consider the following: A thug or gangbanger, caught up in a vicious turf war, kills a rival gangbanger. In the process, several innocent bystanders are also killed by his actions. This is fundamentally, morally, and ethically wrong to us (though it would make a good news story or a side plot in a drama on television). A soldier in a combat zone is in an intense firefight. A strong and determined enemy is intent on murdering him by any means necessary. Through measured tactical response the soldier repels the enemy assault and kills several enemy combatants in the process.
Unfortunately, several innocent bystanders become casualties or also die in the battle, this is what we call “collateral damage” and although involving the deaths of innocents, a certain amount of collateral damage is considered “acceptable” by government standards. Again it is an uncomfortable situation, and though it can be very real with far reaching and lasting effect, it does not stop some from exploiting these stories for next summer’s “blockbuster action extravaganza.”
Looking at these stories, I wonder what the difference is, if there is even one to be found. In both scenarios, innocents suffer harm or become casualties, yet it is acceptable in one scenario but not in the other. I realize that this is a black and white interpretation, life is stark in its reality.
I believe that the difference has somewhat to do with the intent or reason behind the act of violence. For the gangbanger, let us assume his intent was to protect his “honor.” He does this by acting to illicit fear, terror, pain, etc. in his perceived enemy to garner what he believes is respect, notoriety, and glory for himself. This all serves to further his own attempts to create control in his environment and in doing so give him power. Ultimately what his reasoning boils down to is that he killed another purely to exert his will upon others and to put himself in a position of power over him or her. His goal is to take away the freedom and life of the other because he believes he has been recipient of some slight or insult. This is despotism of a sort on a miniature scale and is abhorrently wrong.
For the soldier, enlisted in his nation’s defense and trained to kill by that same governing body that on the home front tells the rest of us killing is wrong-and yet will still kill anyone who transgresses our laws in a sufficiently devious or terrible way-the soldier trains not just to kill, but to be completely proficient and to do so without hesitation. The beginning of the movie Jarhead starring Jake Gyllenhal as a Marine, and further expanded upon in the boot camp scenes in Full Metal Jacket, illustrate to a varying degree the sort of mental reconditioning that a warrior must go through to make these choices. This begins with breaking down the old conceptions of right and wrong, and instilling new.
We send our youth, and they stand up, arm to the square because the myriad herds of people, the majority of our populace, live their daily lives as sheep. The masses are completely oblivious to the dangers of the real world. That is not to say that most people are stupid, not at all. But they are ignorant. The majority of our society has lived in its own safe bubble of perceived reality. Only on rare occasion and infrequently does it stray to the darker side of reality. Most are content to flirt with it by way of their favorite television drama, or movie, and are indeed caught off guard or traumatized when they face real danger.
A scene in the movie Rambo highlights this concept very well. In the film, several members of a religious mission hire John Rambo to escort them up a river so they can perform humanitarian work. On the journey upriver, they are waylaid by pirates who imminently threaten to kill them. The pirates try to take a woman from the ship, and Rambo quickly and with intense violence of action kills the pirates. The missionaries aboard his ship panic and exhibit extreme outrage toward Rambo for killing the pirates. Rambo explains that the missionaries do not understand the world they are in, as the pirates would have murdered every one of them.
Sheep to the Slaughter
Most people never experience the truth of the rest of the world, the pain, and suffering, and death. They live on, ignorant that true evil exists on a dauntingly massive scale. One might ask: “Is it acceptable for so many to live in ignorance?” I would respond, “Is this not the point of the American Dream? Do we not want our children to grow up in an environment in which they feel safe, and can be happy without need to worry about such things?”
Of course we do, and this is why we have policemen, firefighters, soldiers, and Marines. This concept is why our nation wages war and fights crime. Indeed we not only enlist our brave men and women for these very purposes, we somewhat mystify and idolize them. The vast majority of television shows these days are about cops or the law. Reality television shows follow police and soldiers around wherever they go. We even have battlefield reporters stationed with our troops so the masses can have their frontline experience.
Again we are quick to look to others to care for us, to tell us what to do when times are tough. We watched the news and as a nation, blamed the government for Hurricane Katrina. As a nation, we blamed the government for those that died in this natural disaster, when all a concerned individual had to do was use good sense and evacuate on his or her own. But no, the sheep sit at home and watch their televisions and think: “Well, this sort of thing only happens on TV! It doesn’t happen to me! It doesn’t happen in real life!”
But remember that ultimately the government cannot fight all of a man’s battles for him. There may come a time when a person really needs assistance, and it will happen that the only person who can come to his or her assistance is him or herself. I am a firm believer that individual members of society owe it to themselves, those around them, their children and their children’s children, NOT to live in complete ignorance as blind sheep that have no choice but to die before the butcher at the slaughter house.
Many people in the world do not share our same convictions about the virtue of life. They do not value what we value. They would, without a moment’s hesitation, kill a man, and anyone he loves, for no reason at all. This harsh truth is the reality of the world. In 2006, the film Blood Diamond was made; it depicts a very accurate rendition of just how cruel humanity can be to itself. Images ofslavery, of murder in the thousands, of millions of people homeless fill the screen. This is an entertaining action film for us, but it is also a small window into the world of reality that a vast host of humanity lives with every day.
The Need for Violence
I would argue that our people as a race have a deep seated fascination with killing, death, and destruction. We find something invigorating in seeing good guys kill bad guys, in watching evil founder and die, smitten from the face of the earth. People want to understand death… They want to experience it, without the need to shoulder responsibility or culpability for performing any such act. So we have dramatic news stories, action movies, and televisions shows so we can study those who kill others so we can fulfill the needs of our dark passenger and do just that.
Returning to the case of the soldier, we see that our government trains those few who are willing to put aside their lives, their own freedoms, and self serving needs to do just what the rest of us are terrified of. Off we send these young men and women, many at the risk of loss of their own lives. Yet, still they volunteer. Some because they need money, some because they believe in justice and helping others, or even that they thought the uniform looked good. Some because of what they saw on television, or in a movie.
They join because of the sense of adventure a well written story or a well made movie gave them. Others join to give them training and understanding, and there are those who join for the wrong reasons, who join merely because it is the means to an end. Some wish to use their skills not to improve the world around them, but to glorify themselves in the spoils of destruction. I understand that there are those who innately attract to the thug lifestyle they see on TV.
Whether intentional or not, television is our nation’s greatest most widespread, and most influential propagandist. We flood ourselves with violence, yet maintain the double standard that violence is not the answer, and still we send our soldiers to kill those who would kill us. We “kill them before they kill you.” We send our youth to protect our wives, our children, our elderly, our hale and our infirm, our fat and our thin, our wealthy, and our poor. We send them, so that we ourselves will not have to do it. We send them so that we ourselves will not have to shoulder the pack and carry the burden of protecting our way of life.
I ask myself: “Who has the right to decide that their way of life is more important, more correct than another? Is it ours?” I say absolutely. At least, it is absolute in the context presented by our own Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson, 1776, 1).
Thus we bear the burden of responsibility to protect that which is ours from the ravening wolves that would for spite, or money, power or lust, or any reason imaginable, and yes, even for no reason at all- deprive us. Of this I am sure, no one has the right to threaten my family, be it by slavery, or death, or false imprisonment. I believe it is our God given right -or our natural state, for those not into God- that all men should be free. Free to choose. Free to go their way and live life as they would. Free to believe what they want to believe, and to act as they like, unless and until, of course, such actions, beliefs and behaviors threaten to harm or cause injustice to befall others. I call this inalienable right a cause, and it is why, occasionally, we must allow ourselves to break the boundaries of what normal everyday life would have us believe is wrong.
Entertainment Value of Evil
This is what calls us to take it upon ourselves to stop evil cold. Because as I have said, there is true evil in the world and it cares for nothing save its own gluttonous desires and lusts. A viewer needs only to turn on the television and peruse through the various news media available to see the dark hand of tragedy throughout the land. One need only go to the theater or pick up a popular video game to find what may be part of what is causing our societies sense of callousness toward others. I see a markedly noticeable lack of trust within our communities, which seems to be growing two steps forward for every one step back to harmony we take.
Evil has many faces, each more seductively innocent than the last. Each face more terrible and frightening than we might imagine. The greatest of these evils prevail when the good people of a community refuse to act. When they sit in their homes, riveted by the fear of what might be lurking outside their doors, or slithering through the shadows. Consumed by the thought that even if they did act, they may be hurt, or die, or worse, they could be sued. We must never allow ourselves to wear the face of Evil, to allow that mask to become our own.
Far too many of the masses digest what the television and movies have to offer with little or no thought regarding the quality, or veracity of the material. Very few people question what information is fed them by they who we perceive to be authority figures.
This view seems stark, and in no way do I presume to say that all television is bad, nor do I intend to insinuate all movies and news media are corrupt, or evil. Not so. In fact, violence itself is not necessarily bad, depending on what the motivation behind the violence is.
Think of the soldier. Urgency and duty to act force him to act violently, and innocents suffer, true. But in the instance I am referring to, the actions of the soldier prevent a greater harm, which would have come to fruition had the terrorist been able to detonate their suicide devices. Violence, to protect others from greater violence or destruction… it sounds almost paradoxical, but I believe it is true, and necessary, and acceptable. At least until such a time that peace comes upon the whole of the land, and no further violence is done upon one man by another. Unfortunately, as is so eloquently stated in The Lord of the Rings by the lady Galadriel that the race of Men: “…Above all else desire power.” I find it almost ironic that for the human race, power most often comes through intolerance, hate, and violence. Just watch the news.
Conclusion
I suppose that the only real point of this is that violence is very prevalent in our daily lives. However, there is nothing inherently wrong with violent films and television and indeed, to blame our problems, and our troubled youth on our media would be grossly inappropriate and completely irresponsible. Parents need to stop finger pointing, and to take responsibility to teach a better way. They must teach understanding, the consequences of inappropriate use of violence and must show their young that although it is sometimes justifiable and often necessary, it is not always the answer. It must be used wisely, with informed judgment regarding the need and the repercussions, whenever possible. In the film Spiderman, a wise elderly gentleman named Ben Parker has a line of dialogue that I found to be decidedly powerful in relation to this topic: “Just because you can beat him up, doesn’t give you the right to.” (Internet Movies Database, 2009).
References
Internet Movies Database. (2009). Memorable quotes for Spider-Man. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145487/quotes
Thomas Jefferson, United States Congress. (1776). Declaration of Independence. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
