I don't think you know, what it's like to be alone.
As the world just goes on spinning, you stand alone and just get dizzy
Ice skates fly across the ice, tracing lines into the night
and I just stand here watching time go by...
Waiting to go home
Waiting to not be alone
Waiting for your arms around me
A warm embrace to hold me tightly
Give me your hand, tell me you love me
Kiss me hard, tell me you need me
'Cause I don't think you know, how I feel when I'm alone
As the world catches fire and ignites, you stand aside and die a bit inside
The trumpet man plays his blues so softly, and I think I feel your touch caress me
And I just stand here watching time go by...
Waiting to go home
Waiting to not be alone
Waiting for your arms around me
A warm embrace to hold me tightly
Give me your hand, tell me you love me
Kiss me hard, tell me you need me
No, I don't think you know, the chill of being alone
Everybody else so lovely, you drift along just feeling lonely
There's no stars the night is dark, empty, silent, like your heart
And I still stand here watching time go by...
Waiting to go home,
Waiting to not feel alone
Waiting for your arms around me
A warm embrace to hold me tightly
Give me your hand, tell me you love me
Kiss me hard, tell me you need me
Say that you're mine, say that you love me
Touch your cheek to mine and say that you can't breathe
Oh just say to me, just say to me, just say that you love me.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Boys and Girls
We live in a time that tells us we should have a boy/girlfriend, a companion at all times. It's in every movie, every television show, every popular novel, every magazine. It's everywhere. There's this rumor someone started awhile back that you're really only half a person and your other half is out there somewhere and you'll be incomplete until you can find them. Honestly, what a stupid idea.
But boys and girls everywhere buy it!
Realize that you don't need to believe the rumor. You don't need someone else to complete you. You are an individual, a person already, you just refuse to realize it. Know who you are as an individual. That might sound silly, because how could you not know? But do you truly know you, or just who someone else wants you to be? If you're viewing yourself as incomplete, your perception is skewed and you don't know yourself.
You can't have a successful relationship with someone if you don't even know yourself. So hold off looking for love for awhile and focus on yourself. It sounds selfish, but you can't spend your life searching for someone to complete you when you're not even sure of your own identity.
Be the hero of your own life who doesn't need a love interest to complete you.
But boys and girls everywhere buy it!
Realize that you don't need to believe the rumor. You don't need someone else to complete you. You are an individual, a person already, you just refuse to realize it. Know who you are as an individual. That might sound silly, because how could you not know? But do you truly know you, or just who someone else wants you to be? If you're viewing yourself as incomplete, your perception is skewed and you don't know yourself.
You can't have a successful relationship with someone if you don't even know yourself. So hold off looking for love for awhile and focus on yourself. It sounds selfish, but you can't spend your life searching for someone to complete you when you're not even sure of your own identity.
Be the hero of your own life who doesn't need a love interest to complete you.
If You're Paranoid and Think Danger Might Find You, Read These Tips.
1. If your friends suggest that you all go check out a very dark, or very scary looking building, say no. Or at least turn on the lights when you explore.
2. If you enter a dark room and the light switch doesn’t work, leave immediately. Someone is trying to kill you.
3. If you absolutely must explore a dark creepy building, and your friend suggests splitting up, you should leave right away because a monster is about to start picking you off one by one
4. Everyone always drops their keys when trying to get in their car to run away from the villain. Just attach them to your wrist or neck with a lanyard and your death could be averted.
5. Just shell out the extra cash for bulletproof glass windows for your car and house and a nuclear bunker/panic room under your house. You’ll be much safer in times of danger when someone is trying to kill you.
6. When you pass through a deserted town on your road trip, keep going and do not stop. It’s deserted for a reason because someone/thing wants to kill anyone there.
7. When the power mysteriously goes out in your house, shut yourself in your nuclear bunker, someone is trying to kill you.
8. If you find that your house is built upon or near a cemetery, had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, move away immediately. This is one of the only situations in which your nuclear bunker will not keep you safe.
9. There might be someone lurking in the backseat of your car, so just check it out before you even get in the car. Use a flashlight to look through the windows, and keep your car clean, so you don’t mistake a scary person trying to kill you for a rumpled up blanket.
10. If your window mysteriously bangs open, be immediately on guard. It’s not just the wind, someone is trying to kill you.
11. If you find out you’re a descendent of someone who killed lots of people, rounded up vampires, burned witches at the stake, etc, lock yourself in your nuclear bunker and plan to live there the rest of your life because someone might try to kill you.
12. If your friend is bitten by a zombie, or hiding something during a zombie attack that might be a bite, don’t hold out hope for your friend. They’re already becoming a zombie and they will try to eat you just when you’ve barricaded yourself in a semi-safe spot.
13. If anyone suggests you split up, tell them to shut up. Splitting up will definitely get you killed. Faster than staying together anyways.
14. Be nice to everyone. Being mean to someone may incur wrath and vengeance, and they will try to kill you.
15. The danger is definitely not over if the sun hasn’t risen yet. If it’s night time, the bad guy is still around. And trying to kill you.
16. If you must explore deserted, creepy buildings do so in the day time. Horror strikes at night.
17. If you think the villain/monster chasing you will not give up after one night of terrorizing you, move to Alaska, there’s more daytime there.
18. If someone is chasing you, do not run up the stairs, and do not head for the top of the building. There is no escape from someone trying to kill you. Duh.
19. Remember that even though it looks like you’ve killed the monster, you probably haven’t. Don’t make sure by going up to it and poking it, or sticking your face into its face. This often leads to death. Instead, stand back and kill it several more times in various ways.
20. Standing on a grave, will make a hand come out of the ground that will grab your ankle.
21. If you’re seeing dead people, do not approach anyone’s bed. A hand will shoot out and grab your ankle.
22. If you see a stranger with a chainsaw, an ax, a knife, or any other weapon, do not let him anywhere near you. Even if he has Bud Light. He’s trying to kill you.
23. If it feels like you’re in a horror movie, think of yourself as the audience. Did you lock the front door? What would the audience be telling you right now? That you didn’t lock the windows or the back door and someone’s trying to kill you, that’s right. So go do that.
24. In fact, if you feel like you’re in a horror movie, skip locking the doors or windows and head straight for your nuclear bunker because someone’s trying to kill you.
25. If you’re not sure something’s dead, you’re not sure how to kill something/one, or you’re fighting zombies/vampires, behead them. It usually works.
26. If you’re in a situation where you’re not sure something’s dead, you’re not sure how to kill something/one, or you’re fighting zombies/vampires, don’t bother with fighting them, just hide in your nuclear bunker.
27. If you yell “hello” or “who’s there” into the darkness, something will answer you. By grabbing you and leaving your flashlight behind to fall on the ground.
28. Taking a shower at home, alone, in the dark, is always always a bad idea. This isn't a difficult concept. Unless you're in a nuclear bunker. Then it's fine.
29. If you really want to be safe, lock yourself in your nuclear bunker and live there. It’s not practical, and it’s anti-social, but so long as you have cable you’ll probably be mentally stable. Besides, someone could try to kill you, so it's safer to just stay there.Think about it. You'll survive zombie attacks, alien invasions, mysterious viruses that kill the entire population, rabid dogs, rabid people, monsters, a resurgence of the Black Death, the Happening, nuclear fallout, lepers, killer meteors, swine flue, and robots gone rogue, along with almost everything else.
PS. A friend just reviewed this list and reminded me that a normal nuclear bunker is not sufficient, as the earth's core could blow up, or you might have earthquake trouble. Keep in mind that this nuclear bunker should not be your average run of the mill nuclear bunker. It probably needs to be a buried spaceship with a drill attached to the nose so you can escape the earth's core blowing up. For the best protection bury it under the ocean floor. The pressure down there will hopefully crush anyone coming to kill you, and you'll have the added bonus of being very safe from just about everything. Except possibly Decepticons. And don't forget that you really do need cable so you'll know if scientists declare that the earth's core is going to blow up or if Decepticons are roaming the planet.
2. If you enter a dark room and the light switch doesn’t work, leave immediately. Someone is trying to kill you.
3. If you absolutely must explore a dark creepy building, and your friend suggests splitting up, you should leave right away because a monster is about to start picking you off one by one
4. Everyone always drops their keys when trying to get in their car to run away from the villain. Just attach them to your wrist or neck with a lanyard and your death could be averted.
5. Just shell out the extra cash for bulletproof glass windows for your car and house and a nuclear bunker/panic room under your house. You’ll be much safer in times of danger when someone is trying to kill you.
6. When you pass through a deserted town on your road trip, keep going and do not stop. It’s deserted for a reason because someone/thing wants to kill anyone there.
7. When the power mysteriously goes out in your house, shut yourself in your nuclear bunker, someone is trying to kill you.
8. If you find that your house is built upon or near a cemetery, had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, move away immediately. This is one of the only situations in which your nuclear bunker will not keep you safe.
9. There might be someone lurking in the backseat of your car, so just check it out before you even get in the car. Use a flashlight to look through the windows, and keep your car clean, so you don’t mistake a scary person trying to kill you for a rumpled up blanket.
10. If your window mysteriously bangs open, be immediately on guard. It’s not just the wind, someone is trying to kill you.
11. If you find out you’re a descendent of someone who killed lots of people, rounded up vampires, burned witches at the stake, etc, lock yourself in your nuclear bunker and plan to live there the rest of your life because someone might try to kill you.
12. If your friend is bitten by a zombie, or hiding something during a zombie attack that might be a bite, don’t hold out hope for your friend. They’re already becoming a zombie and they will try to eat you just when you’ve barricaded yourself in a semi-safe spot.
13. If anyone suggests you split up, tell them to shut up. Splitting up will definitely get you killed. Faster than staying together anyways.
14. Be nice to everyone. Being mean to someone may incur wrath and vengeance, and they will try to kill you.
15. The danger is definitely not over if the sun hasn’t risen yet. If it’s night time, the bad guy is still around. And trying to kill you.
16. If you must explore deserted, creepy buildings do so in the day time. Horror strikes at night.
17. If you think the villain/monster chasing you will not give up after one night of terrorizing you, move to Alaska, there’s more daytime there.
18. If someone is chasing you, do not run up the stairs, and do not head for the top of the building. There is no escape from someone trying to kill you. Duh.
19. Remember that even though it looks like you’ve killed the monster, you probably haven’t. Don’t make sure by going up to it and poking it, or sticking your face into its face. This often leads to death. Instead, stand back and kill it several more times in various ways.
20. Standing on a grave, will make a hand come out of the ground that will grab your ankle.
21. If you’re seeing dead people, do not approach anyone’s bed. A hand will shoot out and grab your ankle.
22. If you see a stranger with a chainsaw, an ax, a knife, or any other weapon, do not let him anywhere near you. Even if he has Bud Light. He’s trying to kill you.
23. If it feels like you’re in a horror movie, think of yourself as the audience. Did you lock the front door? What would the audience be telling you right now? That you didn’t lock the windows or the back door and someone’s trying to kill you, that’s right. So go do that.
24. In fact, if you feel like you’re in a horror movie, skip locking the doors or windows and head straight for your nuclear bunker because someone’s trying to kill you.
25. If you’re not sure something’s dead, you’re not sure how to kill something/one, or you’re fighting zombies/vampires, behead them. It usually works.
26. If you’re in a situation where you’re not sure something’s dead, you’re not sure how to kill something/one, or you’re fighting zombies/vampires, don’t bother with fighting them, just hide in your nuclear bunker.
27. If you yell “hello” or “who’s there” into the darkness, something will answer you. By grabbing you and leaving your flashlight behind to fall on the ground.
28. Taking a shower at home, alone, in the dark, is always always a bad idea. This isn't a difficult concept. Unless you're in a nuclear bunker. Then it's fine.
29. If you really want to be safe, lock yourself in your nuclear bunker and live there. It’s not practical, and it’s anti-social, but so long as you have cable you’ll probably be mentally stable. Besides, someone could try to kill you, so it's safer to just stay there.Think about it. You'll survive zombie attacks, alien invasions, mysterious viruses that kill the entire population, rabid dogs, rabid people, monsters, a resurgence of the Black Death, the Happening, nuclear fallout, lepers, killer meteors, swine flue, and robots gone rogue, along with almost everything else.
PS. A friend just reviewed this list and reminded me that a normal nuclear bunker is not sufficient, as the earth's core could blow up, or you might have earthquake trouble. Keep in mind that this nuclear bunker should not be your average run of the mill nuclear bunker. It probably needs to be a buried spaceship with a drill attached to the nose so you can escape the earth's core blowing up. For the best protection bury it under the ocean floor. The pressure down there will hopefully crush anyone coming to kill you, and you'll have the added bonus of being very safe from just about everything. Except possibly Decepticons. And don't forget that you really do need cable so you'll know if scientists declare that the earth's core is going to blow up or if Decepticons are roaming the planet.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
What's an Angel?
I've been working at an elementary school in Seattle with the Children's Literacy Project (CLP), which sends tutors to schools to work with kids. I'm a tutor, and I'll be posting exerpts from my CLP journal.
After lunch the kids came back and I worked on lists of vocabulary with them. Most of them could read the words pretty well, although I had to remind them to sound out a word here or there. I drilled a few kids on these lists before discovering that some of them didn’t know what the words they were reading actually meant. After that I had them read the list and then define each word. I explained words to every kid save one. She was a tiny thing with beautiful brown eyes and a haircut that reminded me of Ramona, a character in a book by Beverly Cleary I’d read over and over when I was this girl’s age. Her dark bangs looked to have been recently cut jaggedly across her forehead. She sat down and read each of the words precisely, and then gave me a series of detailed definitions and examples for each word on the list. She told me the word "moist" meant "a type of of weather, like precipitation" and pronounced each syllable of precipitation so matter-of-factly that I had to grin.The list had both “angle” and “angel” in it, which every child thus far had confused. She breezed right through it. When we reached “angel” again for definitions, she had to think for a moment.
“An angel is… it’s…” she faltered, then continued. “An angel is someone with spirit.”
Just before a correction jumped out of my mouth I stopped myself, unable to say anything. Finally I said,
“Right, that’s right. Next one?” and we continued on. Her words stuck with me for the rest of the day. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anyone I know whom I would describe as an Angel without saying that they have spirit as well.
After lunch the kids came back and I worked on lists of vocabulary with them. Most of them could read the words pretty well, although I had to remind them to sound out a word here or there. I drilled a few kids on these lists before discovering that some of them didn’t know what the words they were reading actually meant. After that I had them read the list and then define each word. I explained words to every kid save one. She was a tiny thing with beautiful brown eyes and a haircut that reminded me of Ramona, a character in a book by Beverly Cleary I’d read over and over when I was this girl’s age. Her dark bangs looked to have been recently cut jaggedly across her forehead. She sat down and read each of the words precisely, and then gave me a series of detailed definitions and examples for each word on the list. She told me the word "moist" meant "a type of of weather, like precipitation" and pronounced each syllable of precipitation so matter-of-factly that I had to grin.The list had both “angle” and “angel” in it, which every child thus far had confused. She breezed right through it. When we reached “angel” again for definitions, she had to think for a moment.
“An angel is… it’s…” she faltered, then continued. “An angel is someone with spirit.”
Just before a correction jumped out of my mouth I stopped myself, unable to say anything. Finally I said,
“Right, that’s right. Next one?” and we continued on. Her words stuck with me for the rest of the day. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anyone I know whom I would describe as an Angel without saying that they have spirit as well.
Justin Bieber isn't for Second Graders
I've been working at an elementary school in Seattle with the Children's Literacy Project (CLP), which sends tutors to schools to work with kids. I'm a tutor, and I'll be posting exerpts from my CLP journal.
One girl I worked with couldn't have cared less about the vocabulary words we were reviewing. The second-grader had a larger-than-life crush on teen sensation Justin Bieber, a YouTube star turned musical protégé. I’m not sure how it came up, but she said something about one of the words and related it to Justin Bieber in some obscure way. As she said his name she leapt out of her chair, clutching her heart and wailed “Oh Justin Bieber, I’m going to marry you!” I was so surprised I wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to convince her to move on to the next word, but she would have none of it. She continued carrying on about Justin Bieber for some time before she settled down. I fought to keep a straight face all the while. The next word was “cattle”. I asked her what it meant, but she ignored me.
“You don’t know what it means, do you?” I asked, in an effort to get her to speak. She crossed her arms and looked at me.
“Sure I do. Like Justin Bieber is a cattle.” I tried to contain myself, but failed. I laughed and said,
“I think the only thing they have in common is brown eyes”. Then I explained that cattle meant a bunch of cows, and she laughed too. When we got to the word “single” she again jumped out of her chair and pointed her finger high to the sky and began to sway back and forth singing Beyonce’s hit song, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”. She’d even memorized the choreography from the music video. I was really beginning to like this girl until one of her classmates sat down at the table next to her. She immediately made a face and said,
“Jenna is so fat, I don’t want her sitting next to me.” My mouth dropped open, and I was once again struck dumb by a second-grader. While the other little girl isn’t skinny, she certainly isn’t morbidly obese.
“We don’t talk like that to other people,” I said to her, but she ignored me and continued to mutter under her breath about Jenna. Jenna was distracting her, she couldn’t concentrate with Jenna there, and Jenna was dumb. All the while little Jenna said nothing, just concentrated on her work. When she said Jenna was dumb, I was done listening.
“Knock it off, quit being so nasty,” I snapped. “That’s rude.” She looked me right in the eyes with a condescending sneer. I hadn’t expected this previously bubbly girl to display such nastiness. “What did she do to you?” I asked.
“We were best friends,” she said, and indeed I’d seen them playing together inseparably just last week, “until she said I was cuckoo, and so now I’m going to be mean to her.”
The bell rang and every kid leapt to the door. The bell always seems to intercede at important moments. I walked home with a furrowed brow, thinking about what she said. It made me think about the influence media has on kids. She listened religiously to Justin Bieber songs, which are rife with messages to girls about having boyfriends. Beyonce’s music is lovely, but she doesn’t perform in 2nd grade classrooms for a reason. She’d hadn’t mentioned the TV shows she watched, but I was reminded of the statistic I’d read recently that ABC’s show Desperate Housewives is the most popular broadcast-network television show for kids ages 9-12. I wondered if this girl’s animosity toward Jenna could be due in part to negative media influencing her behavior.
The topic for my Psych term paper was born. I will be exploring the negative effects of media on children for my big final Psych paper.
One girl I worked with couldn't have cared less about the vocabulary words we were reviewing. The second-grader had a larger-than-life crush on teen sensation Justin Bieber, a YouTube star turned musical protégé. I’m not sure how it came up, but she said something about one of the words and related it to Justin Bieber in some obscure way. As she said his name she leapt out of her chair, clutching her heart and wailed “Oh Justin Bieber, I’m going to marry you!” I was so surprised I wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to convince her to move on to the next word, but she would have none of it. She continued carrying on about Justin Bieber for some time before she settled down. I fought to keep a straight face all the while. The next word was “cattle”. I asked her what it meant, but she ignored me.
“You don’t know what it means, do you?” I asked, in an effort to get her to speak. She crossed her arms and looked at me.
“Sure I do. Like Justin Bieber is a cattle.” I tried to contain myself, but failed. I laughed and said,
“I think the only thing they have in common is brown eyes”. Then I explained that cattle meant a bunch of cows, and she laughed too. When we got to the word “single” she again jumped out of her chair and pointed her finger high to the sky and began to sway back and forth singing Beyonce’s hit song, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”. She’d even memorized the choreography from the music video. I was really beginning to like this girl until one of her classmates sat down at the table next to her. She immediately made a face and said,
“Jenna is so fat, I don’t want her sitting next to me.” My mouth dropped open, and I was once again struck dumb by a second-grader. While the other little girl isn’t skinny, she certainly isn’t morbidly obese.
“We don’t talk like that to other people,” I said to her, but she ignored me and continued to mutter under her breath about Jenna. Jenna was distracting her, she couldn’t concentrate with Jenna there, and Jenna was dumb. All the while little Jenna said nothing, just concentrated on her work. When she said Jenna was dumb, I was done listening.
“Knock it off, quit being so nasty,” I snapped. “That’s rude.” She looked me right in the eyes with a condescending sneer. I hadn’t expected this previously bubbly girl to display such nastiness. “What did she do to you?” I asked.
“We were best friends,” she said, and indeed I’d seen them playing together inseparably just last week, “until she said I was cuckoo, and so now I’m going to be mean to her.”
The bell rang and every kid leapt to the door. The bell always seems to intercede at important moments. I walked home with a furrowed brow, thinking about what she said. It made me think about the influence media has on kids. She listened religiously to Justin Bieber songs, which are rife with messages to girls about having boyfriends. Beyonce’s music is lovely, but she doesn’t perform in 2nd grade classrooms for a reason. She’d hadn’t mentioned the TV shows she watched, but I was reminded of the statistic I’d read recently that ABC’s show Desperate Housewives is the most popular broadcast-network television show for kids ages 9-12. I wondered if this girl’s animosity toward Jenna could be due in part to negative media influencing her behavior.
The topic for my Psych term paper was born. I will be exploring the negative effects of media on children for my big final Psych paper.
Our Culture Calls Screaming Men Dancing Bears
In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon quotes Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to My Native Land: “And above all, beware, my body and my soul too, beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear (164).” There is an idiocy that our society adheres to today, one I cannot escape the shame of knowing personally, one which it is difficult to exempt any one of us from it is so pervasive. Césaire’s warning has not reached our ears; we have crossed our arms, and we no longer see screaming men all around us, because we confuse them for the dancing bears. We use pain, and blood, and violence as entertainment, and consequently the sterile attitude of the spectator is too easy to assume, inevitable even. I will explore here the taste for violence we have cultivated and the effects of such a culture on society.
We have made life into a spectacle. The accusation is incontrovertible. Cameras follow “real families” around, record their drama, and broadcast it on television; we have an entire city in southern Nevada dedicated to providing spectacular shows to tourists; tabloids jump off the shelves if they include juicy details of someone’s life. The list goes on, but perhaps the best indicator of our addiction to spectacles is the level of violence our culture devours. We have a film industry that thrives on bringing spectacles to every major city in the world. Industries do not exist unless they sell a product the market wants to consume, and this one is feeding a ravenous crowd- it made a record-breaking 10.6 billion dollars last year in ticket sales alone (Briggs, 2010). The film industry exists to make a proscenium out of a sea of sorrows, but Hollywood’s obsession with carnage is particularly ghastly. Action films ablaze with gunfire baptize us in gore; horror films portray our worst nightmares, turn pain into a form of entertainment, and are incomplete without some form of human dismemberment.
Take the Saw series for example. The Saw movies exhibit some of the most gruesome scenes to ever grace a theater screen. Its horror may not be unprecedented, but its market appeal is. Audience infatuation has prompted not one, not two, but five sequels of what one critic reviewed as an exhibition of endless creative evil. In one scene, “Spread-eagled on a rack of sorts, Jeff's primary ‘opponent’ in his game screams and writhes as his arms and legs and finally his head are slowly twisted off his body (Isaac, 2006).” The camera doesn’t politely turn away, but shoots forward to let the audience have a better look. Our lack of protestation to horror of this kind is nothing short of disturbing. We not only neglect to object to the spectacle nature of the violence we have just watched, but it is our patronage that clamors for more with an unquenchable appetite. The intensity and the quantity of vicious brutality currently available for public consumption is mind-boggling.
We have become so used to bloodshed that we have difficulty recognizing our own passive acceptance of it as part of our culture. If the twisted bodies and bloodied limbs of Hollywood films have not yet moved you, compare this form of entertainment to that of the Romans’ Colosseum. Picture the spectators of Ancient Rome; they sit on the edge of their seats as the gladiators circle and jab at each other. The warriors cross blades, one trips the other, he draws blood, and the crowd gives a deafening roar as it takes to its feet in excitement. Blood sprays, a head rolls, and the show is over. Today we look at the Colosseum and say to each other, “Ah, it was a different time. They killed people for entertainment, can you imagine? How savage!” and pat each other on the back for having greatly advanced society. Yet even the Romans cannot match our unique affection for violence. The spectators of the Colosseum, who paid nothing for their show, could be seated almost an entire football field from the action (Hopkins, 2009). We sit in a theater seat we have paid to sit in and stare at a larger-than-life screen as the camera rushes closer to a man whose head is being crushed by a slab of concrete as he screams. The entire audience is staring into his eyes as brain matter and skull fragments spurt toward the camera and the life fades from him. In the real world this experience might cause post-traumatic stress disorder, but not in the dark safety of the cinema. We leave satisfied and we buy a ticket to the exhibition next month. What’s that you say? “It’s just a movie with actors, it’s not real”? Actors do not diminish the problem, they exacerbate it. How could we possibly belittle death any more, make it any more of a spectacle, than by saying it’s not real?
Our society has not advanced compared to the Ancient Romans when it comes to our bloodlust. In fact if anything, our demand for gore has been recognized on a level possibly never seen before in recorded history. Although classic literature is sopping with violence, and wars and executions and bloody deaths have been a way of life for thousands of years, no society has ever made murder an up-close-and-personal event before. Our society has so long been immersed in violence, we have forgotten it was once unnatural to be so blood-soaked, and so we raise our children in this culture without thought to the consequences. In our society the average child will have witnessed at least 16,000 murders and 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18 (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2009). We teach them death is actors on a screen, not reality. Death is a silly Wile E. Coyote dropping dynamite on a Road Runner. The violence of 200,000 murders, hate crimes, gory brawls, dismemberments, and shootings isn’t traumatizing for our children; after all, we have taught them to view death with the sterile attitude of the spectator.
The massive quantities of blood in 300 should make us nauseous; the war crimes depicted in Tears of the Sun should make us close our eyes and leave the theater; the body count of Kill Bill should have us protesting. Instead we call for more. Instead we sit bewitched, begging for more dancing bears. Now that we have examined the culture of violence we have fostered, let us explore the consequences of such a society. What is the disease that infects a society which pays to be made to cry, made to fear, made to laugh, made to feel? A society that inundates its members with carnage creates a society of spectators. Our spectator status relegates us to a life on the sidelines, so anesthetized to the plight of a world of screaming men that we pay an industry to inject us with the catharsis we have difficulty achieving on our own.
Our culture puts humans in a spectator state, it creates emotionally ambivalent people desensitized to the pain and suffering of other human beings. We have trouble seeing hatred in violence, or fear in war crimes, or horror in the body count of an earthquake that drowns thousands dead in rubble. To us the news is just movement on a screen, it’s not real. Not only are we emotionally unattached, but we see life from the perspective of spectators, unable to join the activity of the world at large. We can cheer from the sidelines for our favorite team, and we can boo at an umpire who makes a poor judgment call, but we see ourselves as entirely inactive members of global society. We are virtually powerless in this cycle that makes us spectators; we must consume violence to make us feel less numb, while it further desensitizes us to the true violence of the world around us.
It may seem as though there is no escape from our dismal destiny of desensitization, but there may yet be hope. Although we seem trapped in a vicious cycle, we are not yet beyond saving. We must throw off the guise of the spectator and take up the mantle of the man of action. My father once told me that a man cannot steer a parked car, and I wondered what he meant. In light of our spectatorship it becomes clear. All too often we are content to park our cars at the drive-in movie theater and remain complacent with our status as immobile spectators, but it is crucial that we put the key in the ignition and choose action over stationary passivity. Will we allow our humanity to be pulled from our own hands without a fight, or will we cling to its last shred, and can we still reclaim it as our own? We must claim our emotionality, our humanity, in our reality instead of searching for catharsis in film. We must be men and women of action instead of inaction. We must fight with tooth and nail the tremendous power society holds over us, and break free of the indoctrination we receive from it.
I sit at my desk and examine the final prayer of Fanon, “O my body, always make me a man who questions!” and I frown. I know there is a spectator in us all, and “a man who questions” sounds like a spectator. A spectator can question a referee’s call, he can inquire as to why genocide happens, he can ask how he can help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, but he cannot actually involve himself- it’s not his place, he’s a spectator. Fanon suggests we should question, but I say we must take action. Go ahead and ask your questions politely, “Excuse me, pardon me, but why have you chained up that dancing bear?” I shall stride into the arena and cut the chains of the screaming man.
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