Myth-Information Movies (We Need to Talk About Kevin)

[barracuda]

If alienated and/or "weird" teenagers are being regarded more and more by their parents and teachers, and even their peers, as "potential sociopaths," time-bombs just waiting to go off, this creates a psychic atmosphere - dreamspace in which, even against their will, those kids may find themselves picking up the (spoken or unspoken) fears of those around them, and acting them out. That seems to be the nature of the beast - of transference, projection, and all the rest.

Guruilla, you seem to be saying that wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true. For example, if enough people within a society think negro men all want to rape white women, eventually this will create a dreamspace in which the fears of those around them will be acted out.

Okay, that's an extreme example, but you see what I mean.

If I didn't know better I'd think your extreme example seems calculated to make further discussion impossible.

.

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

[Simulist]

If alienated and/or "weird" teenagers are being regarded more and more by their parents and teachers, and even their peers, as "potential sociopaths," time-bombs just waiting to go off, this creates a psychic atmosphere - dreamspace in which, even against their will, those kids may find themselves picking up the (spoken or unspoken) fears of those around them, and acting them out. That seems to be the nature of the beast - of transference, projection, and all the rest.

Guruilla, you seem to be saying that wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true. For example, if enough people within a society think negro men all want to rape white women, eventually this will create a dreamspace in which the fears of those around them will be acted out.

Okay, that's an extreme example, but you see what I mean.

If I didn't know better I'd think your extreme example seems calculated to make further discussion impossible.

.

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

I don't see how Barracuda's extreme example was "calculated" to do anything but to try and illustrate his point.

[guruilla]

Guruilla, you seem to be saying that wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true. For example, if enough people within a society think negro men all want to rape white women, eventually this will create a dreamspace in which the fears of those around them will be acted out.

Okay, that's an extreme example, but you see what I mean.

Yep, and yes, that's what I seem to be saying. But then your example isn't mine, and I feel like I would be falling into a trap by accepting it too easily. But sure. Why not? Don't we all sometimes feel tempted to do something we are wrongly suspected or accused of doing? If you're gonna do the time, might as well enjoy the crime.

Your example simplifies a complex subject a little too much however, and as Jack says, it could be (unintentionally) designed to sidetrack or hijack the discussion. The example I used was sufficient, I think, and it needn't offend anyone since it comes from direct experience. I am also, or once was, one of those same misfit kids. I'd guess half the posters here once were weirdos too.

[JackRiddler]

.

What was so simplistic in your example, barracuda, was if enough people "think" something, then it's likelier to happen. However, it matters how they act on it and that's what g. was saying in his example.

I wonder by the way what the author of this book would have had to say:

[kenoma]

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

Try the example of Lindsay England etc. and you get different results. "Wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true": you find that odd, but it's basically a neat description of US military training.

[compared2what?]

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

Try the example of Lindsay England etc. and you get different results. "Wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true": you find that odd, but it's basically a neat description of US military training.

Yes. But not of movies about US military training. Platoon, for example. Not likely to increase he number of Marines who snap during basic and shoot their drill sergeants. Right?

[compared2what?]

.

I think my friends barracuda and c2w? are making strawmen out of guruilla's post, which hardly suggested that media depictions of behaviors drive others to commit the same behaviors in any kind of mechanistic causality.

That you say so is what makes me think I may have misunderstood the OP. So:

Help me, JackRiddler! I understood these sentences...

Since humans, like the other mammals, are imitative creatures, where once upon a time alienated teenagers (the non-MK-ULTRA kind) only fantasized about mowing down their classmates, there's more and more "space" - social license - for disenchanted and disenfranchised youths to make their morbid fantasies come true. It's a bit like a kind of dreamspace is being created and then slowly filled by actual events.

...to be saying that the reason fictional depictions of murder by alienated teenagers create more socially licensed figurative space for the nurturance of real sociopathic teen killers is that humans are imitative.

SNIP

What am I missing?

Nothing. You're just making it seem more exotic than it is to me. It's not mechanistic in that seeing it once does not compel imitation. Seeing it many times doesn't compel, either, but makes it seem normal and might provide ideas. I think media coverage and effective glorification of mass murders is more important than movies in this.

But now let g speak for himself. Henceforth I'd prefer you'd read my own take on it (above) and respond to that.

I did. Your take on it was prefaced by some remarks about my having misrepresented the OP as suggesting that media depictions of behaviors drive others to commit the same behaviors with some kind of mechanistic causality, about which I was inquiring. So be fair.

Apart from that: Point taken.

[kenoma]

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

Try the example of Lindsay England etc. and you get different results. "Wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true": you find that odd, but it's basically a neat description of US military training.

Yes. But not of movies about US military training. Platoon, for example. Not likely to increase he number of Marines who snap during basic and shoot their drill sergeants. Right?

Who's talking about drill sergeants? Who gives a fuck about drill sergeants?

American movies tell Americans that Americans naturally enjoy/feel profound feelings about/see the necessity of killing various non-Americans. I submit that many of those Americans are 'wrongly sterotyped' but that 'enough reinforcement of the stereotypes make them come true'.

[compared2what?]

Is there really some evidence that your target demographic of potential seed-tweeners is shelling out their allowance to sit through a Tilda Swinton dramafest in the first place in order to eventually be lovingly nurtured into the committing of a teenage murder spree?

I think my friends barracuda and c2w? are making strawmen out of guruilla's post

I may be partly responsible for barra's confusion at least, if not C2W's, with my last post comment:

Satire is an attempt at meme-busting, though I suppose it could backfire, since potential sociopaths might tend to miss the irony?

Afterward, I realized this phrase implies the same cause-and-effect dynamic between violent movies and violent real-world acts that the rest of my post was busy refuting. This only underscores how blurry this whole subject is, in my mind at least. A more on-point point might be that the so-called "moral majority" (if the phrase isn't too passe) aren't especially good at recognizing satire, or more specifically, the difference (in both intention and effect) between satire and non-satire The phrase "potential sociopaths" is also a bit meaningless as a term, and what's worse, it reinforces the idea that society has to watch out for certain types, while movies provide false clues to (mis)identify them. My bad, but perhaps a handy example of how deep the meme-deception goes? That we're all potential sociopaths is important point to remember.

OK, now that I've set my head straight about that....

The bit I marked in red is where I disbelieve what g implies (and writers like MacGowan have come out and said) that there are intel programs devoted to creating mass murderer sprees on civilians.

Ironically this was a point of view I assumed was more or less de rigeur at RI. I read McGowan's book and found it persuasive, if not conclusive. To my mind, there's enough smoke to indicate some kind of fire, but not how large or how it's being used. I don't want to get lured into a discussion about intel-created killers, however, so I'll just keep to the facts, the ones I consider relevant, anyway:

1) School shootings have occurred repeatedly over the past 15 years, beginning in 1996, and seem to be on the rise. [I've corrected the error of year in original edit - '96 was the famous Dunblane shooting]

2) At the very least, the "meme" of "teenagers-senselessly-kill-classmates" has taken root in our culture over the past 10 years.

3) The proof is the increased popularity of the subject in movies, not just as a primary narrative but also as a peripheral plot element, to the point that it no longer needs much "establishing" or explaining for audiences. It has become a stereotype.

4) The characteristics of the stereotypical "school shooter," besides male and teenage, include alienation, introversion, nonverbal, hostile to parents and to general social values, underachiever ("slacker"), weird often "Goth" style clothing, unusually high intelligence, possibly sexual inhibition or dysfunction. (These guys aren't "jocks," A-students, or party-goers.)

5) These characteristics overlap with those of autistics, Aspergerians, geeks, high school drop-outs, artistic-types, and generally sensitive (even "psychic") individuals: in others words, probably the lowest demographic for homicidal behaviors. This raises the question: where does the stereotype come from, if not statistics?

6) Neither news reports nor movies faithfully represent the facts but instead keep to the accepted stereotypical narrative, by deliberately or unwittingly omitting details that could open up the "meme" to reevaluation: such as for example, how much proscribed medications or TV commercials (to cite just two factors) might have to do with a teenager who "snaps" and goes ballistic. (Kevin does mention that Kevin was on Prozac, but only as part of his cunning defense.)

7) Present company notwithstanding, the majority of intelligent people in today's society, based on my experience at least, are not questioning this stereotypical narrative, particularly when the "psychology" is seemingly well-presented, as in Kevin. Instead, like barracuda, they lay blame at the door of "mental illness combined with childhood bullying" (and does "mental illness" explain anything?!) or, as in Kevin, attribute it to maternal neglect/mistreatment. Put bluntly, these intelligent people (not you, barracuda!) aren't ever talking about faulty press coverage, fact distortion, psy-ops, social-engineering, or mind control, which at the very least ought to be allowed on the table when it comes to such a "hot" topic.

Barracuda's reading of my posts is far from accurate - at least to my intentions - and what seems to be happening is what so often happens in a conversation between differing points of view: my words are being misheard and/or misinterpreted in order to make them better fit with the listener's previous convictions. That's not to blame barracuda, because I may be arguing poorly. I'll try and lay it out more flatly (hopefully this will help C2W also, who posted while I was writing this).

Thanks!

I certainly don't think blaming movies for people's acts is anything but simplistic, nor would I ever argue that less of any particular kind of movie would make for less of a particular kind of social behavior. (I'm sure this could be argued in plenty of superficial cases, however, such as when the sale of undershirts allegedly plummeted after It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable was seen to not wear one; snopes might challenge even this meme).

They might. But it's a real phenomenon. A lot of women got their hair cut like Jennifer Aniston's character during the first series of Friends, for example. However, that's not really imitative social behavior in the sense that we're discussing here, anyway. As you note.

That was never meant to be part of my argument, even if it was apparently inferred by it.

Guruilla is explicitly asserting not only an imitative sequence but the opening of some kind of psychological, socially approving space in which the more films there are about mass-murdering teens, the more mass-murdering teens we will have in society. "The more precedents that are created for forms of behavior, the more acceptable it becomes." Sounds fairly mechanistic to me.

Taken out of context I'd agree, that does sound overly mechanistic. But what about the context? What I was trying to describe was subtler and more nuanced.

First off, I did not mean socially acceptable, but acceptable to/for the perpetrator: i.e., this must be an appropriate way to express my rage, because so many others are doing it.

Well. Okay. How is that any different than saying that movies that depict spree-killing teens in themselves create socially licensed space in the real world for teen spree-killers because humans are imitative animals? I mean, obviously what a character in a movie does is (in some sense) acceptable to the character. But, you know. Movies routinely depict evil characters doing violent things, and movie-goers routinely perceive their actions to be wrong, extreme and frightening rather than appropriate modes of self-expression.

If events and/or reports are manipulated to create a more or less standardized narrative (in this case, alienated schoolboy(s) shoot classmates for no good reason); and if intelligent writers and filmmakers, et al., swallow this narrative whole and incorporate it into their own works, adding extra nuance and depth with an awareness of psychology, and so forth; this then further establishes the narrative - now a meme - in the collective awareness.

Sure. That happens a lot, and there are many, many precedents for it. For example, Hollywood started making gangster movies -- Little Caesar, the original Scarface, etcetera -- in the early '30s based on the more-or-less standardized narrative created by news coverage of real gangsters such as Al Capone. The basic gangster meme then created has been a part of the collective awareness ever since.

And those movies did have a real world socio-cultural impact on the behavior of kids (and, ftm, gangsters), in that they were -- and still are -- aesthetically and stylistically influential. IOW: They created a new model for being an American tough-guy/bad-guy, complete with its own argot, and style of dressing, and attitude, and mannerisms, etcetera. But what they didn't create was: More gangsters than the conditions that created Al Capone were already producing. It was more or less the same kind of phenomenon as one sees today with kids who talk, dress and act like gangsta rappers because they want to be seen as bad-ass, although they have absolutely no interest in actually becoming Crips.

The next step of my argument is harder to establish, but it has to do with the "expanded dreamspace" which Jack R (!) likes so much. I'll use a personal example: as a boy and teenager, I had a propensity to steal. By and large, I stole only from businesses, and never from people (i.e., never personal items, though my parents were not protected by this 'code'). However, if I noticed, for whatever reason, that someone suspected that I might steal from them, even though it had never crossed my mind, and based on no actual evidence, there was suddenly a much higher possibility that I would do so. Their fear/suspicion created an environment that reinforced the tendency in myself. To a degree, their reaction to me provoked the very behavior in me which I was being subtly accused of. (Suspicion is a kind of accusation.)

I know exactly what you mean. But you didn't develop the propensity to steal in response to the suspicion. The suspicion developed in response to your propensity to steal. So it's not an a apt example. And insofar as the hypothetical under discussion represents a very dramatic escalation of behavior from plain-old alienated teen to mass-murderer, it's kind of a counter-example. IOW: You perceived the distrust of others (who might privately have been harboring all kinds of suspicions of you, who knows?) as related to your real actions.

And very naturally so, because your real actions presumably reflected your real feelings about yourself, others, and the world, which -- in turn -- informed your perception of all three. If you'd seen or felt that someone suspected you might steal from them and responded to it by setting their cars on fire because there happened to be a lot of stories going around about kids responding to suspicion with arson at the time, that would have been an apt example.

But you didn't. And I'd maintain that was in large part because people don't just randomly do very extreme things they've seen or heard about other people/characters who are broadly similar to themselves doing under analogous circumstances.

If alienated and/or "weird" teenagers are being regarded more and more by their parents and teachers, and even their peers, as "potential sociopaths," time-bombs just waiting to go off, this creates a psychic atmosphere - dreamspace in which, even against their will,

Wait. What? Against their will, how? In a fugue state, triggered by having been regarded more and more as potential sociopaths? Which, btw, how do they know that they are?

those kids may find themselves picking up the (spoken or unspoken) fears of those around them, and acting them out. That seems to be the nature of the beast - of transference, projection, and all the rest.

Neither transference nor projection can make somebody do something they don't already want to do. I mean, a kid who grew up understanding himself to be violent and dangerous because that was the message he got from his parents would be a lot more likely to be violent and dangerous than a kid who understood himself to be just an ordinary kid, obviously. But it would have to be a pretty strong and heavily reinforced message to get those results. Edmund Kemper had a little bit of that in his background, for example, although there were other factors, too.

So then: the school shooter stereotype I described above happens to coincide with a certain real type, the autist/artist/introvert/dreamer type - in a word, the social misfit or outcast. This type is already feared and distrusted by society, simply because it's unlike it. Consequently (though it's a chicken or egg thing), the misfit does feel hostility towards his or her parents, authority figures and peers. The dreamspace in question widens the gulf between "outcast" and "society" and slowly reinforces the specific roles set: that of "self" and "other" and the necessity of competition, and finally war, between the two "poles." The strangeness, alienation, fear, distrust, and all the rest, instead of being reduced through understanding and communication, becomes intensified and magnified through misunderstanding and miscommunication, and eventually what is unjustly feared becomes real (thereby justifying the fear).

In a word, it's fucked up, dude.

It is. But murder is a very extreme and rare response to those feelings, although both misfits and misfits-who-murder memes have been around for a long, long time.

A movie like Kevin attempts to address this psychic situation (which is the real time bomb), but my sense is that it only compounds it because it's not playing with a full deck. The mother's incomprehension and fear of her (autist-outcast) child is shared by the filmmakers and so it is transferred to the audience. Kevin isn't blamed for his behavior (it's not a reactionary film), but at the same time, he's not human (understandable) enough for audiences to empathize or identify with him either. He's the "other."

The reason "we need to talk about Kevin" is simple: because no one is talking to Kevin. He is "beyond the pale."

I don't know, g. I'm still not getting it. But that doesn't mean it isn't there. And I want you to continue pursuing it unimpeded. If the above is helpful to you in some way, use it for what it's worth. But otherwise, ignore it. I just wanted to say what I had to say, that being a natural human impulse. But you're exploring a complex idea, and that's just not the kind of thing about which someone's right or wrong, in a simple sense. So I'll bow out.

Thanks for posting.

[compared2what?]

Well, I'm trying to come up with an example of the process described in action. My alternative example had to do with the pervasive stereotype of the angry american muslim extremists we see in about every third film, and looking for evidence that this characterisation might have a similar causal effect. I suppose that one's just as much of a thought stopper, though, so my apologies.

Try the example of Lindsay England etc. and you get different results. "Wrongly stereotyped characterisations of groups in a society can actually cause enough reinforcement of the stereotypes to make them come true": you find that odd, but it's basically a neat description of US military training.

Yes. But not of movies about US military training. Platoon, for example. Not likely to increase he number of Marines who snap during basic and shoot their drill sergeants. Right?

Who's talking about drill sergeants? Who gives a fuck about drill sergeants?

American movies tell Americans that Americans naturally enjoy/feel profound feelings about/see the necessity of killing various non-Americans. I submit that many of those Americans are 'wrongly sterotyped' but that 'enough reinforcement of the stereotypes make them come true'.

We're talking at cross-purposes. And I'm bowing out, anyway.

But fwiw, I agree that stereotypes come true with enough reinforcement, and also that US military training qualifies as a process that has more than enough reinforcement uniformly to produce behavior that then becomes stereotyped in the media. If you're suggesting that the media stereotypes cause the behavior, I don't agree. But that's fine. I respect your position and dissent from it.

Okay?

I'm sorry to have inadvertently gotten on your nerves, as I seem to have done.

[JackRiddler]

Not so fast, you.

Yes. But not of movies about US military training. Platoon, for example. Not likely to increase he number of Marines who snap during basic and shoot their drill sergeants. Right?

You're right, it's not. In no small part because Platoon does not include such a scene. You may be thinking of a much better movie, Full Metal Jacket.

American movies tell Americans that Americans naturally enjoy/feel profound feelings about/see the necessity of killing various non-Americans. I submit that many of those Americans are 'wrongly sterotyped' but that 'enough reinforcement of the stereotypes make them come true'.

If this thread had started with the idea that the media encourage (do not cause, but reinforce and inform) hateful views of certain "others," e.g. Muslims the world over as angry fanatics who luckily can be exterminated 200 at a time by Arnold Schwarzenegger... and that this likely contributed on a statistical scale to the frequency and intensity of many incidents like the massacre at Haditha or the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib... would it have been controversial here? We usually have no trouble agreeing that, e.g., hate speech exists and has some kind of impact on a mass scale.

We're talking at cross-purposes. And I'm bowing out, anyway.

I'd wish you wouldn't, and instead stop refuting simple causation (no need) and instead consider the idea of media depictions (news and entertainment) as factors within a complex field of causation that can provide lubrication/friction or reinforcement/discouragement for personal characteristics and behaviors in a way that won't usually be seen as direct causation in any one case but adds up in the statistics. (May even add up as a negative, in the case of violence, since an escalation of media violence has correlated with a fall in personal violence as measured in crime statistics.)

At the very least, media depictions can keep something in mind. Would you really dispute that people think about sex all the time, but they think about it even more and don't get a choice about the stimuli that they are exposed to when billboards in their towns constantly remind them of it? (On edit: What am I even saying? Are we going to argue, for example, about the influence of advertising? Advertisers see every quarter that when they invest a certain way in an effective campaign for a product, there is a move, sometimes small, sometimes large, in that product's sales and market share.)

At the second least, media depictions can and often do inform one's existing tendencies and thoughts about something and thus affect (not simply "cause") behavior, including, I would hypothesize: the action, weapon, costume and manifesto that the likes of a Cho chooses -- chooses freely, I believe, or otherwise while in a psychotic state; either of which means that the media is not primarily responsible. But a huge motivator for a Cho is surely the idea that if he sends his manifesto to a network, it ends up being broadcast, which he has seen in prior cases. So the network is wittingly participating in (not causing, not criminally responsible for, but participating and morally responsible for) a chain of steps that is likely to help produce (lubricate the way, give pointers to) the next Cho. Am I calling for censorship? Hell no! I'm observing what I see as a reality.

But fwiw, I agree that stereotypes come true with enough reinforcement, and also that US military training qualifies as a process that has more than enough reinforcement uniformly to produce behavior that then becomes stereotyped in the media. If you're suggesting that the media stereotypes cause the behavior, I don't agree. But that's fine. I respect your position and dissent from it.

Again, you shouldn't agree with any simple monocausal statement in that regard. Which I don't believe anyone here has made. Which is probably why kenoma flew off the handle, but shouldn't have. Let's all be friends.

.

[barracuda]

Yep, and yes, that's what I seem to be saying. But then your example isn't mine, and I feel like I would be falling into a trap by accepting it too easily. But sure. Why not? Don't we all sometimes feel tempted to do something we are wrongly suspected or accused of doing? If you're gonna do the time, might as well enjoy the crime.

I don't disagree, though the process through which mere temptation or the desirous fantasy of a thought experiment is lured into the reality of action can be highly convoluted. Most people have a variety of safeguards in place to help them detour such impulses into relatively hamless outlets for frustration in that regard, whether that be channelling towards emotional states shy of action, or other actions which displace the temptation, or god forbid, a resort to personal morality. "Everyone thinks I'm guilty so I might as well really be guilty" strikes me as a rather unsophisticated and petulant route to take given all the choices.

While I agree that "mental illness" is essentially nondescriptive as a motivational unit, in our society it's sort of understood that spree killers and school shooters are either insane by virtue of their actions, or they snapped, i.e. experienced a psychotic break.

Your example simplifies a complex subject a little too much however, and as Jack says, it could be (unintentionally) designed to sidetrack or hijack the discussion.

I was trying to force the thesis to its logical conclusion, or maybe to its breaking point to see what would happen, and from that perspective you might agree there may be limitations to the applicability of the mechanism. Or, you might not. But that's how it appears to me.

It's easy to sell a story about violent goth artist kids because the goth artist kids take on a variety of affectations derived from stereotypes of brooding dangerousness. Trying to create such a meme with the stereotype of shoegazers or blogging hipsters may be less than possible. Actually, I'd like to see a movie about a machine-gun wielding blogging hipster, but mostly because it goes against type - a rampaging nerd scenario. That's why the saga of McLovin is so epic, and why Christopher Mintz-Plasse functions so well as a bad guy in the Fright Night remake.

The example I used was sufficient, I think, and it needn't offend anyone since it comes from direct experience. I am also, or once was, one of those same misfit kids. I'd guess half the posters here once were weirdos too.

Would you be able to identify a film or a character-type that created a dreamspace which opened the door for your misbefitting behaviors? Myself, while I consciously emulated the dress and poses of, say, James Dean, I'm not sure I can say that the stereoype of the artist is what lead me to a life of crime. I think I just enjoyed the company of transgressors because that's where the paradigm might be fractured into something more beautiful, more in tune with my idea of what made art, art. And it was downhilll from there. But then, by the time my childhood rolled around, "weirdos" had already been coopted, refined, molded and bastardised too completely for me to successfully solopsize the concept into a picture of myself.

[compared2what?]

Not so fast, you.

Yes. But not of movies about US military training. Platoon, for example. Not likely to increase he number of Marines who snap during basic and shoot their drill sergeants. Right?

You're right, it's not. In no small part because Platoon does not include such a scene. You may be thinking of a much better movie, Full Metal Jacket.

Thanks. I totally REGRET THE ERROR.



Also, That's the second time in two days (maybe one?) that I've done that. And, although god knows I commit sloppy errors all the time, that's usually not one of them.

From this, I conclude that I'm in the early stages of Corticobasal Ganglionic Degeneration, and therefore expect to be bedridden in about five years and dead in ten.

So sad.

[annie aronburg]

From this, I conclude that I'm in the early stages of Corticobasal Ganglionic Degeneration, and therefore expect to be bedridden in about five years and dead in ten.

So sad.

As if five years in bed were a bad thing....

[guruilla]

In response to c2W's question about the difference between movies inciting behavior and movies making behavior seem acceptable and/or normal... I think it's one of those things that can seem much more complex and obscure than it is when described with words, because words are especially good at complicating and obscuring stuff. To me, the difference is pretty clear, which doesn't mean I'm right, or that I can communicate my perceptions even if I am. But I'll try.

Social behaviors are learned, and they are learned, IMO, primarily by imitation - even if imitation entails doing what we are told or taught to do rather than what we observe others doing. (I'm not sure what the counter argument is to learning by imitation, unless it's argued that we have an innate and/or genetic sense of behaviors, both moral and practical. If so, a look at cases of feral children might be instructive.) Logically speaking, we don't need to learn how to feel rage, sorrow, or happiness - those feelings arise in us naturally as a response to our environment. What we do have to learn is the appropriate ways to express those emotions, as well as our desires, and so forth. We express through language, if we understand that language is far more than merely verbal; in fact, since verbal communication is the last thing to develop, we can assume that it is probably the least of it.

Communication has perhaps less to do with what's being expressed than with what's being received: there are two sides to communication, not just one. So learning to communicate isn't just about finding the most "natural" forms of expression for ourselves, but also learning what's going to be understood by others so as to get the desired result from them. There are two drives behind communication: expressing the self, and impressing the other.

For a baby, expression of self and impressing the other are inseparable - it's one impulse, one instinct, and both are necessary to its survival. This single function gradually separates into two, opposing desires or "agendas," as the ego identity comes into form, which presumably happens when the infant's expressing of its needs fails to impress the other, again and again. Getting back to the topic at hand, in a (stereotypical) Jewish family (and at the risk of offending with the glibness of my example), emotions are expressed in a loud, exaggerated fashion, relative that is to a WASP-y environment, where more contained, restrained, and subdued emotional expressions are favored. Take a WASP baby out of its home and insert it into a Jewish family environment and it's going to have to learn more "histrionic" modes of expression simply in order to be heard (and vice versa, of course).

So when disenchanted, disenfranchised, and alienated youths grow up surrounded by images and stories of other disenchanted, disenfranchised, and alienated youths expressing their disenchantment by doing drugs, having sex at 13, performing satanic rituals, or shooting up their classmates - doesn't it seem likely they would "deduce" (though it wouldn't be a conscious process) that such expressions were an appropriate and necessary form of communication? Like the WASP baby in the Jewish household, their own "natural" forms of expression might begin to seem inadequate for communicating what they are actually feeling, because all the "noise" going on around them is going to drown out any kind of "softer" signal.

Behaviors communicate, and behaviors make up a kind of social language. That what I mean by saying that kids might act in ways that are "against their will." The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful social drives there is, and we all try desperately to find some niche that seems to match and convey our inner state - some way to express who we are in a way that will impress the other, i.e., communicate. If the only glove that fits is one of sociopathic schoolyard shooter, that might be the one we end up wearing rather than feeling totally alienated.

I'm over-simplifying, but you have to admit there's a persuasive irony to it: choosing the role of outcast is at least a role, and allows for some kind of relationship to "the tribe", even if it defines one in opposition to it. Maybe this is how and why killers become celebrity figures, and even cult heroes - an element which is usually included in the "Hollywood" narrative too (Kevin gives a little speech about it in the film) - because they strengthen the solidarity of the group by volunteering themselves as the sacrificial other, or scapegoat? Yet underneath that, they are acting out the deepest, most disowned (unsafe) desires of everyone, which is to reject the safety of the group and forego the need to belong so as to individuate from it, even if by violence.

Another way of putting this is that, since no one is talking to "Kevin" (the autist-outcast), since no one is even trying to learn his language, Kevin is going to talk to "us." To do so, he adopts "our" (society's) language, in the process magnifying and distorting it into a monstrous howl of incomprehension that, at the very least, makes an impression.

I'm not saying that movies cause this or that. I'm saying that society's refusal/inability to identify and understand its own monstrous/dis-eased nature, and to open up a real, honest dialogue with its sickly-monstrous children, is perpetuating both the incomprehension and the resulting violence, making it not only necessary but appropriate as a response - the only remaining way to create a dialogue between self and other.

Intel. programs, mind control, media deception, and irresponsible/uninformed movies are all part of the wall of defense that prevents an honest dialogue from happening. To my mind, they represent the visible, organized vanguard of a collective "conspiracy" to suppress, control, demonize, and disown the dreaded "other" - represented in this case by the children that we sire - who are now becoming the killers that we create.

There are other arguments above that I'm not sure I can really respond to, because they seem to be predicated on the premise that we are all separate, discreet individuals who are largely responsible for our own decisions, or at least capable of making them and of knowing our reasons for doing so. This is somewhat different from how I perceive things, which is that, as individuals, our actions and decisions are almost entirely determined by unconscious factors, making our conscious 'reasons' merely after-the-fact rationalizations, meant to give ourselves the comfortable illusion of being in control of our actions and decisions.


I'd also say that the "unconscious" that actually rules our lives is a collective unconscious, which means that we are as, or possibly more, likely to be acting out other people's unconscious drives as our own - there being finally no difference save to the conscious mind anyway. And since the conscious mind only has about 1% of the information needed to judge any given situation, we are like kids trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle when we only only have a dozen pieces, forcing them to fit and saying, "Look ma, it's a rabbit!"

It ain't a rabbit, folks.