Just a thought...
I just read this in an article concerning the recent VA tech school shooting:
"Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department.
In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of." "
I'm not really going anywhere with this. I was just struck by thinking about the fact that you can walk into any movie rental place or theater and see stories of the same type, viciously and gruesomely carried out on the screen, and no one really seems disturbed by that. I mean, someone had to think of these stories. Someone had to write the screenplays. And lots of someones had to think it was good enough/would sell enough that they made movies out of it. And again, lots and lots of someones were entertained enough by these sick and twisted films that these movies have made millions upon millions of dollars.
I wonder if classmates ever talked about Eli Roth the same way they talked about Cho.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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2 comments:
I've been thinking a lot about the media attention to this seriously mentally ill person's writings. While I'm as horrified as the next person by what happened (who on earth wouldn't be?), I find it terrifying in the extreme to focus on "disturbing" themes and images in any artistic medium as a possible predictor of mental instability.
Putting aside America's penchant for horror and ugliness in all sorts of venues, lots of amazing art and literature is specifically designed to provoke and even outrage. What about Picasso's Guernica for instance? Hieronymus Bosch anyone? Bram Stoker? Stephen King?
This seems so utterly typical to me of a country that is unwilling to stop and *truly* analyze what it is about America and Americans that makes this an acceptable way to deal with rage. We're so damn proud of our "cowboy" image. Our "we're sure as hell not going to let you kick us around" bull (Toby Keith, anyone?) that we're unable to see what horrors *we* are perpetuating.
I wish the media would not use art and literature as a scapegoat and instead actually focus on the problem.
Us. Pure and simple.
As with any other tragedy, the more quickly we find a 'cause' for some mad person's behavior, the more quickly we can all quit looking at ourselves and our nation for fear that we might find lots and lots of things we don't like . . .
And then there are people like you who refuse to buy the crap being peddled : )
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