Posted by
Shogrensus on Thursday, April 19, 2007 3:25:13 PM
Obviously the massacre at Virginia Tech is one of the most horrific tragedies that has occurred in the United States in our lifetimes.
Today the show started out with a discussion about why NBC, and every other news source, play the video this deranged young man made chronicling his view of why the carnage was necessary?
Barbara called the networks to find out what they were going to do and shared their answers which ranged from we won't show any more video (ABC) to we won't show it any more than 6 minutes per hour. This led them into a discussion of violence in our culture.
***
Elisabeth: We’re in a world now where people buy video games that are so violent. They love shows that are so violent. So after a while it becomes a twisted form of entertainment, like they said, almost pornography.
Rosie: We’ll watch it as entertainment, as fiction we will buy it. But the reality of it- no one wants to see. Like in terms of the war at least. You know these 33 kids- horrible. Everyone agrees. 3000 kids, don’t show us them.
***
We do live in a culture in which many people find violence entertaining. This has been increasingly true over the last several decades. It would be interesting to discuss whether all violent entertainment is equal in its effect on the viewer or participant.
If the violence in a movie, say Die Hard, is about the ultimate victory of good over evil, is that all bad? If the violence in a song or video glorifies killing police officers, is that morally equivalent?
Is there a difference between watching a James Bond movie and playing a video game in which the player pretends to be an FBI agent tracking serial killers? Is there a difference between passive observation of a movie or specific TV show and playing a game over and over and over again?
It is true that many people enjoy watching shows like CSI and 24. Reasonable people understand that when a counter-terrorist agent on 24 hurts a suspected (known) terrorist, it is fake. The viewers are often rooting for Jack to hurt the terrorist and they may even hope that there really is a Jack out there, hunting these people down to keep us all safe. These viewers do not leave their homes and kill people. Most of these people do not have some bloodlust that would lead them to voyeuristically watch actual violence.
Even if people watch the video of the shooter, most people do not want to see video of the victims of the shootings. Just like they don't want to see video of our soldiers being attacked. This does not make every viewer of violent entertainment an ostrich with his or her head in the sand.
It is inhuman to want to watch or inflict actual suffering as entertainment. The viewers of things like snuff films are deeply disturbed. People who enjoy hurting other people or watching other people be hurt have mental health problems.
People around the country have been offended by the incessant showing of this man's rants because he was obviously deeply disturbed. He was an irrational person who most likely should have been institutionalized. There is nothing pleasurable about watching this sort of tragedy.
Networks should be careful to show the tapes repeatedly because there is a fraction of our society that will be influenced by the footage and may consider copying his actions to get the same sort of attention.
This has nothing in common with showing footage of our soldiers, who are fighting against an enemy that ignores all rules of war in order to harm our soldiers, the legitimate Iraqi soldiers and police officers fighting on behalf of their country and the innocent civilians in Iraq.
I wonder if Rosie, who has repeated stated her desire to have footage shown of Americans soldiers who have been injured or killed, also wants to show footage of insurgents who have been wounded or killed. If our media would report on the positive things and the victories that do occur in Iraq, maybe there would be more support for our efforts there and maybe that increased support would help to undermine the confidence of the opposition.
Had the media shown these sorts of successes from the beginning of the war effort, maybe the war effort would have been more successful.
Rosie isn't interested in the truth about the war effort. She wants us to pull out of Iraq and anything that the media can do to undermine our continued involvement would be worth it to her. This includes showing whatever footage possible of wounded and dead soldiers.