Walking the Wall

As per the end of yesterday’s post, I have not eaten any meat today and I deleted The Closer episode I had waiting on my Tivo because I just couldn’t stomach eating much or watching a show about yet another murderer–now, I’m aware that this all sounds extremely over dramatic, but I don’t *feel* like I’m over dramatizing it. The "lovely" movie from last night had very little to do with cannibalism in the literal sense, so it wasn’t that part that was sickening really–it was the Quentin Tarentino type over the top excessive violence and cruelty and…excess–excess of rage, excess of pleasure, excess of food, excess of waste, excess of violence that was so nauseating. I understand, barely, watching this to make an educational point–but I can’t conceive of watching this for entertainment. However, many of the reviews that I read of this film are lauding the movie as a masterpiece, more or less, and I find that disturbing on some deeper level. As I’ve written before, I love a good scare now and then, I love to watch vampire movies, some more gory than others, good thriller/scary movies like Gothika, for example–and I wonder why that is, and more importantly, whether it’s really healthy. "Because we can" doesn’t seem to be the best answer for everything–we can make movies that are so realistic it is like standing over people’s shoulder and watching, but at some point should we be saying "maybe we shouldn’t be watching" even though we can? I am not talking about censorship here, to be completely honest I could care less what any director produces if he can get the money and the backing and the audience to watch it–I’m talking about self censorship and whether we, as a society, are loosing the ability to curb excess as if somehow the screen between ourselves and the violence, or whatever other excess it may be, makes it all okay. If a man goes out and horrifyingly, and cruelly, and coldly murders a person for pleasure–we consider him twisted, perverted, and unacceptable to have in society; but to make a realistic movie capturing his horrific, cruel, and cold murder and to sit in a darkened room and gain entertainment (even if that entertainment is in being horrified and/or frightened)–does that not, in some fashion, place us on a level with a person we consider unfit for society?

Obviously I am talking about extreme cases here, movies such as such as this one and others of its caliber aren’t normal movie going fare, but look at the success of movies like Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2 (neither of which I have any desire to see)–it is looking at the extremes that make the issue obvious, but the issue remains even on smaller levels. While I can’t change society, I am responsible for my own choices. Why do I need to watch television shows that deal with murderers graphically, like CSI, what is the point of it, I don’t learn anything from it, and I don’t know that the content is something I want to consider entertainment (I do think entertainment has value in and of itself, not everything has to be a lesson in some higher moral level–but more, what do I want to consider as entertainment, perhaps). I don’t know, I am just thinking that the life that we have to live is awfully precious and I am questioning wasting my time on things destructive and negative–of course finding the line that shifts through this particular sand could be difficult but I feel the need to at least examine the line.