Myth-Information Movies (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:00 pmNB: I was going to post this at FB, for a less informed crowd, but I didn't want FB to own it, so I'm posting it here instead. As a result, it might seem a bit ... obvious ... to all you Rig-Inties, but so be it.
Anyone see the movie, We Need to Talk About Kevin? (trailer here) It's extremely well-done and superficially convincing, and taken as a psychological horror movie, it's way above average. Unfortunately the film (funded by the UK Film Council and based on a successful novel that won the prestigious Orange Prize in 2005) both aspires to and was received as a serious psychological study, primarily of the relationship between a mother and her teenage boy who murders several of his classmates for no ostensible reason.
Two things bothered me about the film. Firstly, the whole narrative of "alienated-teenage-boy-kills-classmates-wholesale-without-motive" - which has been used as the basis for several recent movies (last year's Beautiful Boy also focused on the parents). As y'all know, this increasingly familiar storyline has been inspired by literally dozens of incidents worldwide, the most famous being the Columbine massacre (reinterpreted in the stupendously boring Gus van Sant film Elephant). As you also all know, there's plenty of room to doubt the official story around Columbine and no doubt many of the other incidents also. There's also all the (non-mainstream-endorsed) evidence of army & intelligence programs psychologically manipulating children and turning them into programmed killers, meaning that even if the events are being accurately reported, there's still a hidden back story that isn't. Point being, there's every reason to suspect that some - if not most - of these seemingly random incidents were created and/or misreported to generate widespread belief that alienated teenagers are growing more and more likely to turn into psychopathic killers.
After watching the movie, I had to admit that maybe they are - only with less and less need for black budget government interventions. 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. The assumption is always that "works of art" are only reflecting a reality, but never that they are helping to create it, because if movies are ever accused of inciting acts of violence, it's never the "socially conscientious" kind like Kevin or Elephant.
The more precedents that are created for forms of behavior, the more acceptable it becomes. (Trend-setting.) So if the modern "myth" (or myth-information) about teenage shooters (perpetuated by books and movies like Kevin) is slowly creating a reality, the better these works are, the more real the myth becomes. I would assume that these products are made by well-intended, sensitive, creative people and not just shills, since shills aren't known for their creativity or sensitivity. That means a lot of artists are now doing the work for the intelligence community without knowing it. They would genuinely believe they are addressing a social problem, but since they're ignoring, or just plain missing, essential facts (which of course are dismissed as mere "theories"), they are propagating lies under guise of (socially conscious) "art." This means more and more intelligent, sensitive people are being suckered.
The second objection I had to the movie was the obviously "autistic" traits of the teenage psycho. The character isn't presented as autistic (the word is only mentioned once, and dismissed by the doctor), but then he isn't presented as a fully fleshed-out character either. He's just kind of evil, a more creatively and "sensitively" conceived Damian from the Omen films.
But since he's non-verbal in the first few years and he wears a nappy till about five, that obviously links the character to autistic behavior. As if parents weren't already freaked out enough by the incomprehensible behavior of their autistic children! A movie like Kevin can only reinforce the idea that an autistic, or even just alienated child is a hostile child, and that much more likely to turn out as a psychopath. That's probably about as far from the truth as you can get.
Anyone see the movie, We Need to Talk About Kevin? (trailer here) It's extremely well-done and superficially convincing, and taken as a psychological horror movie, it's way above average. Unfortunately the film (funded by the UK Film Council and based on a successful novel that won the prestigious Orange Prize in 2005) both aspires to and was received as a serious psychological study, primarily of the relationship between a mother and her teenage boy who murders several of his classmates for no ostensible reason.
Two things bothered me about the film. Firstly, the whole narrative of "alienated-teenage-boy-kills-classmates-wholesale-without-motive" - which has been used as the basis for several recent movies (last year's Beautiful Boy also focused on the parents). As y'all know, this increasingly familiar storyline has been inspired by literally dozens of incidents worldwide, the most famous being the Columbine massacre (reinterpreted in the stupendously boring Gus van Sant film Elephant). As you also all know, there's plenty of room to doubt the official story around Columbine and no doubt many of the other incidents also. There's also all the (non-mainstream-endorsed) evidence of army & intelligence programs psychologically manipulating children and turning them into programmed killers, meaning that even if the events are being accurately reported, there's still a hidden back story that isn't. Point being, there's every reason to suspect that some - if not most - of these seemingly random incidents were created and/or misreported to generate widespread belief that alienated teenagers are growing more and more likely to turn into psychopathic killers.
After watching the movie, I had to admit that maybe they are - only with less and less need for black budget government interventions. 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. The assumption is always that "works of art" are only reflecting a reality, but never that they are helping to create it, because if movies are ever accused of inciting acts of violence, it's never the "socially conscientious" kind like Kevin or Elephant.
The more precedents that are created for forms of behavior, the more acceptable it becomes. (Trend-setting.) So if the modern "myth" (or myth-information) about teenage shooters (perpetuated by books and movies like Kevin) is slowly creating a reality, the better these works are, the more real the myth becomes. I would assume that these products are made by well-intended, sensitive, creative people and not just shills, since shills aren't known for their creativity or sensitivity. That means a lot of artists are now doing the work for the intelligence community without knowing it. They would genuinely believe they are addressing a social problem, but since they're ignoring, or just plain missing, essential facts (which of course are dismissed as mere "theories"), they are propagating lies under guise of (socially conscious) "art." This means more and more intelligent, sensitive people are being suckered.
The second objection I had to the movie was the obviously "autistic" traits of the teenage psycho. The character isn't presented as autistic (the word is only mentioned once, and dismissed by the doctor), but then he isn't presented as a fully fleshed-out character either. He's just kind of evil, a more creatively and "sensitively" conceived Damian from the Omen films.
But since he's non-verbal in the first few years and he wears a nappy till about five, that obviously links the character to autistic behavior. As if parents weren't already freaked out enough by the incomprehensible behavior of their autistic children! A movie like Kevin can only reinforce the idea that an autistic, or even just alienated child is a hostile child, and that much more likely to turn out as a psychopath. That's probably about as far from the truth as you can get.
