Our culture of violence

Video games awash in violence. Quentin Tarantino movies. Slasher films. Blood. Gore. Carnage.

The coarsening and dumbing down of our daily life. Lack of courtesy and respect everywhere. Filthy language everywhere, on tv, in movies, on the street, in the subway. Slovenliness in appearance. Tawdriness, loudness, vulgarity everywhere you turn. Notions of right and wrong, propriety, decency cast aside.

This is what our young people see every day, what they have seen increasingly now for decades. This is the culture we have presented to our children. This is how we have cared for them.

Updated On: 12/16/12 at 10:43 PM

You and I both grew up in the same society. I know that I was exposed to strong violence in entertainment from a young age. I was allowed to see PG-13 rated movies in elementary school. Yet I am the most non-agressive person you'll meet. I've never been in a fight, don't own any weapons, and haven't ever thrown a punch. The only acts of violence I have conducted in my lifetime has been verbal (except for minor physical violence with a sibling, just the normal amount).

Exposure to violence doesn't mean you will be violent. What it does is provides you with a visual example of how to act out a violent act. That doesn't mean you will go out an conduct that violent act.

Nature versus nurture is forever up for debate. And it is at times like these when we tend to blame nurture rather than nature.

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a more salient question is, what is with america's fetishization of guns? why are we so in love with guns? what need is addressed by having more efficient means of ending sentient life forms?

Just the sight of a gun, even if it's unloaded and not aimed at anything, can instill fear, because guns were invented specifically as weapons to be used against people. Fear tends to create power and control. Our culture of violence is related pretty much to ego.

Updated On: 12/17/12 at 04:49 AM

it's the combination of the person with a gun to be feared.

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This is what our young people see every day, what they have seen increasingly now for decades.

Well, centuries, actually. Milennia, perhaps.

It's become a facile trope to decry the "culture of violence" as if it's something new, which usually goes hand-in-hand with an attitude of helplessness.

Children a few hundred years ago used to see much more violence--actual violence, not simulated: public executions, people pilloried and put in stocks and tarred-and-feathered. Beatings were common, both for the children themselves and for criminals. Parents used corporal punishment: slapping and belts and paddles. "Torture until confession" was an accepted legal proceeding. All this was common, part of the accepted culture.

Certainly the level of violence during the Industrial Revolution was greater than it is today, if Dickens can be believed. Not to mention during medieval times.

Violence in pop culture goes back at least to late-Shakespeare, with an old man's eyeballs gouged out, hands cut off to bloody stumps, tongues ripped out of a young girl's mouth before raping her.

Which is not to say that violence is good. Just keep in mind that it's not new.

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Updated On: 12/17/12 at 09:59 AM

Do critics condemn Tarantino for gore?

Why yes they do. Look at review of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and see if you can find one review written by a professional who doesn't have a snide comment about the obsessive blood shed in the battle with the Crazy 88's through the end of the film. Look at reviews of Jackie Brown that say the violence is too brutal and distracts from an otherwise sold crime thriller.

Just because the fanboys LOVE the gore doesn't mean the critics have taken kindly to it. They like his work in spite of the violence. Of course, context takes away the power of your argument so you won't acknowledge that. A 90% on Rotten Tomatoes where 95% of critics had serious reservations about the violence is not a glowing endorsement of violent filmmaking.

And I'm sorry, but the "violence in films causes violence" argument doesn't work when you choose a film director who actually shows that shooting some results in a lot of blood, pain, and suffering versus a Hollywood shoot'em up by Michael Bay where people fall down with no sign of injury. Doesn't the latter, with no repercussions for the violence, do more to encourage violence than the former, that actually shows how bad violence is?

Updated On: 12/17/12 at 11:39 AM

"...I was in elementary school, which was the early 90's."

As if I weren't depressed enough already.

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""Diversity" and "Multiculturalism" continue to unravel America. In a society where people love their dogs and hate their neighbors"

So JC, you only love your neighbors if they're white?

"They like his work in spite of the violence. "

You see, that's what you just don't get. What they just don't get.

With violence like his, it's of no importance whatsoever if he has directed a "solid crime thriller," or anything else. The violence makes any other considerations irrelevent--- offensive, actually. 90% approval on Rotten Tomatoes? It should be 0% approval.

I wish Jimmy the red-necked racist would drop dead.

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Why was QT brought up again? Did this killer, or any killer specifically say, "I did this because I saw it on film? I'm recreating a scene from [whatever]."

Its stupid to blame film/video games/tv because rational people know it isn't real. Rational people know that those people are actors, and those guns are props, and that is fake blood.

Just because I played Silent Hill and Resident Evil as a child and Grand Theft Auto into my twenties doesn't mean I'm going to go out and find a job in organized crime.

My goal in life isn't to recreate the big shooting scene from Boondock Saints. Or to blow up Hitler in a movie theater.

In other words, After Eight, you want any scapegoat for gun violence except for guns themselves and refuse to listen to anyone else. The violence is condemned by critics. But that's not good enough for you.

Let me explore another example using your logic about the entertainment industry.

I find it offensive that OCD is used in typical entertainment as a source of comic relief. I believe it is damaging to people with the condition to live in a society where characters like Monk are laughable because they're labeled with it. Therefore, Silver Linings Playbook has no redeeming qualities as a film--not art direction, not editing, not incredible performances from the cast--because they make jokes about OCD. The film should not be available and anyone who finds any redeeming quality in the film misses the point and will always miss the point.

Therefore, no film that mentions OCD should be allowed to be made or discussed with any positive words whatsoever because they're damaging to people actually living with OCD.

Because the only way to inform the public about reality is through entertainment, obviously. No amount of funding into research and education or actually helping people with problems caused by the influence of OCD on their life will do anything. People will always have OCD. The key is to stop it from being discussed or shown at all in any venue if change is going to happen.