BS: Virginia Tech Mass Murderer Learned How To Kill By Watching Movies
Oh no, the press have found a photo of Virginia Tech Mass Murderer Cho Seung-Hui mimicking a movie.
No disrespect to the families involved in the horrible tragedy that occurred earlier this week, but please don't let this be Columbine all over again. For those of you who don't remember, this is what happened. People decided that it couldn't have been their fault, that ignoring all the signs from the messed up Columbine kids was not the issue at hand. The issue was instead the mass media the kids consumed.
American media compared the massacre to a fantasy sequence from the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries in which Leonardo DiCaprio wears a black trench coat and shoots six classmates in his school's hallways. Some eyewitnesses at the school compared the events to scenes from the 1999 film The Matrix. Several unsuccessful lawsuits against video game manufacturers were filed as a result by parents of some of the victims. Harris and Klebold were reported as fans of the movie Natural Born Killers, using the film's acronym as a code in their home videos and journals. The rants in Eric Harris' journal entries bear many similarities to character Mickey's philosophy that he is only human, and humans are animals that rely on their animalistic instincts.
We were then treated to a crucifixion of music, movies and video games that may have caused the kids to go on their insane rampage. Because it's Marilyn Manson's fault. It's the fault of DOOM and other first person videogames. It's the fault of The Matrix because the kids wore trenchcoats. It's not our fault for ignoring the escalating problem we refused to notice.
Anyway, years have passed, and now we are presented with an even worse massacre. The New York Times has discovered a photo, shown right, of Cho posing in a self-shot photo, imitating a scene from Oldboy, a 2003 South Korean film which won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. In the film, an average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that not only his kidnapper has still plans for him, but that those plans will serve as the even worse finale to 15 years of imprisonment. Park Chan-wook's film is based on a Japanese manga of the same name.
The media has already begun to tear apart the film for it's extensive body count and "sadistic violence." It must be the reason why Cho killed 32 people this week. He saw that movie, and then THIS happened. We should ban violent movies to prevent future massacres. Let's turn this tragedy into a motive to push a political agenda (because nothing less would be as insulting to the families involved).
Can we please just skip this whole ridiculous step and instead focus on the lives that have been lost? Let's spend the time teaching everyone how wto recognize the signs of a disturbed individual so we can may-be prevent another one of these? Or would that be too logical? You're right, we should ban Grand Theft Auto 4 and Hostel 2 instead.