Is violence dead?

[N. E. Moses]

With everything going on after the imfamous 9/11/01 tragady, and after a post I just read, it got me wondering (and I know all of you are wondering): Is violence dead?  I know, I know, it sounds childish but , I was channel surfing, and I ended up watching ET (Entertainmen Tonight), in the middle of an interview with Valerie Harper.  And the question was raised about will movies change and "downsize" the level of violence.  And Ms. Harper says she hopes so.  Now this doesn't mean just the movies, this can easily snowball to affect cartoons,  TV shows, music, and video games.  Now, I'm a sane, reasonable guy and I don't have a record or anything but, I have Metal Gear and Syphon Filter at home and when the time comes, I turn them on so I can put a computer animated bullet in the head of a computer animated thug.  Has it affected me?  No.  Has it warped my brain to go get a real gun and put a bullet in the head of an innocent bystandard?  No.  I even have a Notorious B.I.G.  CD "Life after Death".  One of his song's titled the "10 Crack Commandments".  Does this make me want to go out on the corner to start selling the s**t?  No.  All I'm saying is that all I want is entertainment.  I don't want to go to my local electronics store, get the next Duke Nukem, or go get Desporado 2, to have the people around me and the cashier look me down like I'm some kind of ingrate.  And not to make some big wig campain (damn spelling) about it.  That's all.

But that's my opinion.  What's yours?

Eugene

[Law Dog]

I predict just the opposite. Violence can be cathartic and directed at the proper outlet, even healthy. In time, you are going to see a lot more direct to videos where the good guys kick the crap out of terrorists. I predict that the violence will be focused at those who deserve it to happen to them, although this will also affect those not responsible, but who remind us of the enemy.


"We are number 1. All others are number 2 or less" ---- Sphinx in Mystery Men

[AndyC]

The coming war on terrorism reminds me a great deal of the cold war of the 80s. While the spies, soldiers and other active participants are working on the problem, many of them out of sight, the people at home will need something to keep up their enthusiasm, ease their fears a little and make them feel good about themselves. The cold war 80s brought us cartoons like G.I. Joe and movies like Firefox and Red Dawn. I think we might see something similar again. On the other hand, a heightened respect for human life and sensitivity toward the victims might make filmmakers approach this new generation of action films a bit differently, and the MPAA might be stricter in rating them. That's fine with me.

People are still going to have the same appetite for excitement they always had, and there will always be a market for action, therefore, there will always be action. It's a highly lucrative genre. I sure haven't lot my appetite for it. I can honestly say that even last week, I was not happy to see action movies pulled from TV schedules. I fully understood and supported the move, but I hated the neutral, mindless s**t they put on instead. There are plenty of good, non-violent movies out there.

[The Bard]

Eh, I get all of my violence out of my ECW/FMW DVDs. Seeing men rip the flesh off of each other with barb wire kind of fufills my quotent. Action movies have been really weak the last few years anyway, outside of Braveheart, The Patriot and The Gladiator.

of course though, we'll have Lieberman figuring out a way to blame everything on TV and the Entertainment industry. I blame Lieberman for costing Gore the election.

[Squishy]

It was mentioned over at MonsterZero that some Godzilla fans will never enjoy many of them the same way again. Most of the Heisei series have key scenes in which a particular building is "targeted" for destruction and dropped on a human or monster character; Godzilla vs King Ghidorah in particular, with its climax set among the "Tokyo Tax Towers," and a scene in which a militant industrialist proclaims that he deserves his fate as Godzilla brings his corporate headquarters down, are pretty uncomfortable to watch right now.

But life does go on, eventually. Japan turned the devestation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a chilling monster movie; the monster eventually became a franchise, a superhero, a bad joke, and ultimately a national symbol and treasure. You never know what the future holds.

Right now, overreaction is silly but understandable given the charged political situation, where one "wrong" step brands you a traitor; on September 11th, the bus stop outside my apartment had a poster for The Last Castle, with an image of an upside-down Stars and Stripes (a signal of distress) and the tagline "no castle can have two kings." Today, a new poster has a painting of headshots of the cast and the tagline "a castle can only have one king," removing the buzzword "two." One can only imagine Rosey Grier and Ray Milland starring in The Thing With More Than One Head.

It'll pass. Oh, hell, in a year, September 11th will be a crappy TV movie or eight. The books were announced today--and that plural is not a typo.

[Squishy]

Yikes, of all the MST3K episodes to run this week, Sci-Fi kept on their schedule with Invasion of the Neptune Men. Its depiction of humanity awaiting attack after attack by the invaders, while utterly silly, is nonetheless disturbing under the circumstances--especially with its climax in the destruction of several buildings by bombing (with surprisingly realistic effects for an old Japanese TV series, plus WWII stock footage of real bombings). There are also a large number of references to warfare in the added MST dialogue and sketches which are difficult to find amusing at the moment. (And then, of course, there's the "Hitler Building," which I have always found disturbing. What the hell?)

We've been slapping around the overreaction of Hollywood to any reminders of the September 11th nightmare, but watching the flip side of the situation, I can see why they're doing what they're doing. Was Sci-Fi being insensitive, brave, or just asleep at the switch? Does anybody care, or will everyone overreact?

[AndyC]

I can fully appreciate the need to be sensitive, and I'm impressed with the respect that has been shown, but I just saw an afternoon of relatively benign action movies replaced by a Matlock marathon. That's just cruel and unusual.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - changing the television schedules is good, but there's no need to replace fun and excitement with insipid crap.

I'll be glad when things get back to normal, but not too soon. As terrible as this has been, a part of me is glad that something has gotten people's minds off of trivial things and forced them to focus on what is really important. People are watching the news, reading the paper, and taking an interest in politics and in other people. I'd like to see that part continue. I hope that when we look back in a year, we'll have gotten more out of the experience than a crappy movie of the week or eight.

[Lester1/2jr.]

On Howard Stern this morning, he decried the lack of violence on tv and blamed this for our lack of a counterattack.  He advocates toy guns for boys and wants more violence on TV because he thinks men are being wussified.  He spoke negatively of Mister Roger's neighborhood and Sesame Street.  (fun fact: Lester 1/2jr. is an obscure nickname of Beetlejuice, a Stern regular)

[mugwump]

every human being has a killer instinct, how they harbour and treat it is up to them. i don't care if there's a crackdown on violent art, i'll allways make it. also i think there are many action filmmakers who've touch on moral themes, like Sam Peckinpah, and John Woo. Besides in a Woo film the bastards who allways "get it," truly deserve it.