In the past some of my girlfriends, who didn't share my propensities, were bothered by my enjoyment of violence in movies. (I initially misspelled girlfriends as girlfiends. Freudian slip?) I could never seem to get them to understand my classification of different types of violence and that I liked some types and not others. It was all just violence to them. Recently I saw illustrated the contrast between two of my main categories of violence in two movies. Iceman is the imagined part of a life of the man who died 5,400 years ago and whose body was discovered in a remarkable state of preservation in a thawing pass in the Alps. Xtreme is a story of revenge by one man against the head of an international drug cartel. What could the two have in common? Not much, and that's the point. I could only watch about the first half hour of Iceman. When Iceman's village is attacked by free ranging marauders, people you are just getting to know are brutally killed in ways all too realistic for the age. I balked at the burning of children and the gleeful sadism of the predatory men as they killed everyone in sight in the peaceful village. I had to go on to something else. I'd have liked to have enjoyed the artful filming of the wonderful landscapes, at least, but I couldn't watch anymore. Xtreme was a movie I enjoyed. It is nearly non-stop brutality and violence but with a, to me, crucial difference. Anyone versed in the ways of war or martial arts cannot believe that what is happening onscreen could happen. The hero, who is a former member of the cartel and so not that much of a hero, is in scenes where he is being shot at by 20 thugs with automatic weapons, all of whom are black belt level fighters. All of the hundreds of rounds miss him while every one of his own shots strike their target. Some of his opponents fire about a hundred rounds at him from semi-auto pistols whose clips would, in real life, carry no more than sixteen rounds. The martial art combat is extremely well choreographed but no more realistic than the gunplay. Here's my nutshell; I was raised by the TV more than my parents and I loved cartoons. This movie and many others like it are merely cartoons for adults and I like to watch them. I might add that in any movie there is a level of gore and guts I find disgusting and will not watch. There is perhaps merit in the opinions of those who believe watching violence leads to violence on the part of the watcher. I don't know that answer and don't wish to take part in any discussion of that facet of the issue. Personally, I'm a peaceful person who avoids violence at almost any cost and always have. I once put a man in the hospital who then charged me with assault and battery. The judge laughed him out of court, especially when he wore the same knife to court that he had threatened my girlfriend with. What an idiot. That incident is the only one of its kind in my life. So, that's my post. I'd like to hear from both those who are bothered by my liking certain kinds of movie violence and those who aren't troubled by it at all.
I hate the up close & personal stuff. I have antenna tv so watch whatever I can receive. I watch some of those crime stories, and when it is an innocent getting hurt or kidnapped or personally victimized in some way, I gotta change the channel. I won't watch stories about child abductions, even if the details are solely by inference. I don't mind pretend shootings but hate stabbings and slicing. I took a date to see the Schwarzenegger flick "Total Recall" because I've read some of Philip Dick's stuff. Within the first 10 minutes, the body count had hit 20, and we had no idea who the dead were...they were just "extras." There was no context. We got up and left not because of sensibilities but because it was stupid and gratuitous. So I don't know. Perhaps as you said there is a degree of uncomfortable realism in some (and it doesn't always have to be graphic) and a degree of "great special effects but not plausible" in others.
I was concerned enough about my mental health at one point to try to wean myself off the violent stuff, thinking it could only affect me badly. I suffer from severe periodic depression. The alternatives might be good drama or comedy or historical documentaries but the good drama is rare and the comedies grow stale after a while. For f's sake, I've read over 8000 books in my lifetime, less than half of that being fiction. It's arrogant to imagine I know everything, but I do know a lot, although the premature senility is causing things to fade. My point being that, being well grounded in science and history, there is little to learn from documentaries. My conclusion is 1) watching it is not making me mentally ill or violent 2) I'm not hurting anyone , so what the heck? Sometimes the day and night seem to go on forever ( I only sleep 3 hrs. a night due to my illness ) and whatever I can find to pass the time, as long as I'm not hurting anyone, seems kosher. As far as the personal revelations, I've been socially isolated for a long, long time and knowing I'll never meet any of you fine folks in person, I occasionally give myself the shrift to reveal a personal detail or two. I have no other outlet. My friends and family are weary of my constant illness and never call. I go for months at a time with my only interaction with others being a short chat with the checker at food lion. I'm not whining, understand, and I know a lot of others are isolated in these times, but that's my situation. Thanks for your thoughtful answer, John. BTW, were you ever a porn star? Was John Homely your stage name?
I've read my share of books, but it's been a while. I don't have the attention span to retain non-fiction, and it bums me out. I try to read history, and I'll encounter a character who is not familiar to me and I gotta turn back 5 pages to where he was introduced and start again from there. It's just not worth it. It's a gap in my knowledge I lament, but shall never fill. I don't really believe that watching violence begets violent behaviour. The rate of violence in our society has been in general decline, save the recent stuff that's been organized by outside pot-stirrers. Heck, for all the violent games and all the guns in the hands of citizens, the rate AND the absolute number of homicides hit an all-time low [since FBI stats have been kept starting in the 60s] within the past 10 years. I, too, tend to isolate. Middle ground is tough to find. I had engaged in more activities after I moved here in 2010, but COVID has killed many of those. The non-profit I was with for 7 years and enjoyed so much went under. COVID has killed all the church activities I used to do; in fact, I've stopped going all together because the nonvaccinated are "unclean." I was the only nonvaccinated one attending...the others stopped going when draconian measures were implemented. This was a group of 3 affiliated churches, so there was always something going on at one of them I could help with or be a part of. I was using MEETUP.COM when I first moved here to find get-togethers that I enjoyed until the group I really liked disbanded. It's an interesting platform where you can find groups with similar interests near you, and "just show up" for an event without really joining anything or being on the hook to come back a specific number of times. I really liked it. I could go out and bowl or see a movie or have dinner & conversation with folks, then go home. It was not a hook-up thing, it was Casual Social. Most of the stuff these days is done virtually (although I sense that relaxing a bit.) So in the past few years the non-profit, my churches, and Meetup all went away. I guess at least I was making the effort. Do you ever go to the museums and art galleries in DC or Baltimore? Are they even open these days? I used to do that a lot. I belonged to Smithsonian Resident Associates just to have the occasional event to attend. Sometimes I would drive downtown on a nice summer night and just sit at the lighted memorials. I'm not certain what the environment is like these days...I might not be so inclined to try it now. I can't imagine surviving on only 3 hours of sleep. At some point it's gotta "catch up" to you and you crash, I would think. I guess I'd watch a lot of shows, too. With antenna tv and marginal internet, my options are limited.
John, I've only read a couple of paragraphs of your reply, but I have to stop and tell you this. You're starting to piss me off because I think you're smarter than me. (than I,for the language nazis) Now I'll get back to reading your reply.
I've been to the smithsonian once, the franklin place in Penns. and one other i can't remember tonight. All with wonderful arrays of history and science. I felt like i was in wonderland. I'd gone more but the family was broke. Thank you for making me remember the experience.
Has it ever occurred to you that the more science a man knows the less he believes in God? Not in all cases mind you, but it's a definite trend. I don't have any conclusions. It's just something that makes me think and I need that from time to time. I think I've read and forgotten more philosophy than many. The forgetting is forgetting something I was into deeply at one time. Ha! ... and now it's all gone away. I'm going to opt on the version where my brain is discarding useless knowledge, rather than the one which shows that I'm senile.
You're likely familiar with Calvert Cliffs in St. Mary's County. I went on a fossil hunting trip there with The Smithsonian. It's less glamorous than it seems, since you dig in the sand or the surf with your hands, and they are from the Pliocene Epoch, which is relatively recent. I doubt that they do it anymore, since the peat cliffs continue to erode (and people cannot obey the rules and stop digging things out of them, thus accelerating the erosion.) It was a cold drizzly day, and I waded out into the surf and dug around. I found a nice sized ecphora (the Maryland State Fossil.) I used to fossil hunt on the Virginia/West Virginia border both in H.S. science club and as an adult. My neighbors home schooled their two boys, and when the kids went through their dinosaur phase, I dug through my collection and gave them each a trilobyie. I hear it made them the hit of their home school group. It's the stuff of science fiction.
I'm not sure of that. If you seek out the scientists who do not get censored, many will tell you that the more they investigate the universe, the more they see the hand of a creator. I've taken botany classes and studied a bit, and the more I learn (and observe) the less I can believe that things "just are." You can apply that to an "individual creature level" all they way to the symbiotic nature of Nature and how things shift and forever seem to balance out.
This is probably my most serious reply of the evening. You are a believer and I am not. I'm in some odd place with the faith issue and it's too complicated to describe. I reach my brain limit in areas like these. The important thing I wanted to say will sound prosaic. It's good that we can converse.
I had a guy tell me that my poetry would scare everyone. I just didn't get it. He says You're telling people how many of the things that rule over them are absurd, based on nothing but greed. I said that what he said was absolutely true. He says We know it but not everybody has to...... My poetry wasn't all that great so ...
I hope it's not obvious but I've gotten a little drunk tonight. Shame on me. The real shame I feel is that I'm so very self-centered, straight or otherwise, for such a deeply flawed person such as myself, without the qualities that could justify such ego-centrism. I see it in others and don't like it, worse so in myself.
I read my own recent posts and go Did I say those stupid things. Yes, evidently. I really despise myself when I catch myself speaking as though I were a kind of genius or intellectual. I feel I'm stupider than most people.