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From: eirik@tekchips.UUCP (Eirik Fuller)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Violence in movies
Message-ID: <227@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 12:45:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekchips.227
Posted: Mon Sep 23 12:45:15 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 07:34:17 EDT
References: <140@nvuxg.UUCP> <1902@reed.UUCP> <1512@hammer.UUCP> <1921@reed.UUCP>
Reply-To: eirik@tekchips.UUCP (Eirik Fuller)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 62
Summary: 

In article <1921@reed.UUCP> purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) writes:
>In article <1512@hammer.UUCP> seifert@hammer.UUCP (Snoopy) writes:
>>In article <1902@reed.UUCP> purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) writes:
>>
>>> Being frightened is great - seeing blood and gore just doesn't
>>> do a thing for me though. Anyone else make this distinction?
>>
>>A scary movie is fun once in awhile. (wouldn't want to see one
>>every day)  I agree with Lady Godiva, blood and gore are
>>usually unnecessary, and oftentimes unpleasant to sit through,
>>especially when they are used in extremes for effect.
>>(gratuitous gore)
>> ...
>
>	I agree. For instance, I love James Bond movies...
> ... you just can't take Bond movies seriously. 

In my worst of moods I can, but it's no fun.

>And there's one other thing that determines whether something
>violent makes me uneasy or not. It's strange - but someone getting shot
>doesn't make me cringe, whereas someone getting stabbed or cut does. In
>the beginning of "Witness" my skin crawled when the man's throat is cut.
>But when the other man gets shot in the end it didn't bother me...
>Anyone else feel this way? (About knives vs guns vs
>whatever.) Where do you draw the line, so to speak, on violence?
>

I feel the same way about knives vs guns vs whatever, and it
disturbs me (to the point that I can occasionally take a Bond
movie seriously). 

In order that my comments be appropriately misinterpreted (or
whatever), let me qualify what follows with the understanding
that I am a pacifist wimp, and that given a choice between killing
and dying, my intellect would choose dying. (My survival instinct,
if any, can only hope that my reflexes, if any, would take over).

What disturbs me about guns, and the qualitative difference in the
violence they invoke, is that I suspect that this difference is also
felt by those who use them (not having done so in this life, I cannot
vouch for this on the basis of personal experience). What this means, 
in essence, is that violence is more likely because it is easier, not
just technically but also emotionally. If you stab somebody, you feel
the resistance of the knife, and, in all likelihood, get blood on your
hand. If you shoot somebody, all you feel is the recoil. Depersonalized
violence; what a concept.

What is worse is that the gun is not a recent development, nor is it
the epitome of destructive technology. How many screams does the button-
pusher hear when an H-bomb lands?

I have long since given up on the disappearance of violence; it had too
many survival advantages to disappear from the human biological makeup.
I just wish effort directed at enhancing violent technology were seen for
what it is.

What violent movies do to me, when they are thought-provoking, is to
make me appreciate my relatively quiet existence; I am grateful that
I don't have to be more violent to survive.

Could this explain why I like kung foo movies?


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