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San Francisco, 10:18 AM
Tue Dec 22
27 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of ♠ Final ♠ ♠ Final ♠
    12/02/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Going shopping on Friday made me want to reclaim some cold, hard humanity and make a statement against American consumerism.
     Reply
    ♠ Final ♠ was starred ♠ Final ♠ was unstarred
    Image of AngeloPolyxena AngeloPolyxena
    12/02/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    no one minded when luke killed a billion sentient beings on an artificial planetoid.
     Reply
    ♠ Final ♠ approved this comment AngeloPolyxena was starred AngeloPolyxena was unstarred
    Image of ♠ Final ♠ ♠ Final ♠
    12/02/09

    @AngeloPolyxena: Are you really sentient if you enlist with the Empire? Are you?
     Reply
    ♠ Final ♠ was starred ♠ Final ♠ was unstarred
    Image of Jeyl Jeyl
    12/02/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    "Does Marcus actually kill anybody directly, or just cause their deaths by tearing apart their security?"

    No. The only time anyone dies while persuing Marcus is when those swimming terminators grab the helicopter John Conner was on. Marcus didn't know. And don't forget about the folks who try to steal the medkit away from him and his gal. That's a good example of how he doesn't upfront kill anyone.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Jeyl was starred Jeyl was unstarred
    Image of Klebert L. Hall Klebert L. Hall
    12/02/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    People (many of them, anyway) enjoy violence, and watching it on a screen is probably better than going out and comiting it upon the innocent.

    Very few people go to these movies looking for philosophy.
    -Kle.
     Reply
    Klebert L. Hall was starred Klebert L. Hall was unstarred
    Image of Susan B. Susan B.
    12/02/09

    @Klebert L. Hall: The "fake violence as helpful catharsis" theory has largely been disproven--watching scenes of violence has been shown to increase aggression.
     Reply
    Klebert L. Hall promoted this comment Susan B. was starred Susan B. was unstarred
    Image of Klebert L. Hall Klebert L. Hall
    12/03/09

    @Susan B.:
    Yeah, that's been disproven, too.

    Besides, I didn't say it provided catharsis - I just said that watching a movie is better than punching someone.
    -Kle.
     Reply
    Klebert L. Hall was starred Klebert L. Hall was unstarred
    Image of Susan B. Susan B.
    12/03/09

    @Klebert L. Hall: Has that been disproven? That's awesome. Do you know any details on that?
     Reply
    Susan B. was starred Susan B. was unstarred
    Image of Klebert L. Hall Klebert L. Hall
    12/04/09

    @Susan B.:
    Generally, the studies are inconclusive, with many competing studies reporting opposite findings.

    In the absence of repeatable experiments that all get the same results, I'm going with the conclusion "influence of violent entertainment on violent behavior currently unknown".
    -Kle.
     Reply
    Klebert L. Hall was starred Klebert L. Hall was unstarred
    Image of comrade_leviathan comrade_leviathan
    12/02/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    This entire discussion does hinge on the concept of acceptable collateral damage. Working for the greater good with the greatest possible expediency often will include sacrificing innocent lives. The trade off is when there are MORE innocent lives to be saved by sacrificing the few that are in the way. And although most action films completely gloss over this topic, the true dramatic tension of the hero is supposed to be the fact that they assume the role of protecting the most number of people while also being willing to sacrifice what is necessary to save them.

    Much like the captain of a ship must be willing to send one guy to his death to save everyone else. But yeah... this is completely lost on the vast majority of action movies.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment comrade_leviathan was starred comrade_leviathan was unstarred
    Image of David Grossman David Grossman
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Excellent essay. There's never been an exactly clean way to deal with massive body counts in movie. Like in The Terminator, when the terminator kills Sarah Conner after Sarah Conner, and then goes through a rampage through the police station. You're never exactly rooting for the police or old ladies in these scenes. In T2 they try to add sympathy, reminding the viewer that the dead cops had wives and families, but it doesn't do much good.

    What I think, and this definitely isn't the only idea worth considering, is that it has something to do with people's inherent love of the macabre. The idea of treating a human body with so little value as Logan does is horrifying, but also somewhat exciting. You're right, I think there is a Nietzschein element to it. We want to see the strong burst through the feeble laws society has set up for us.
     Reply
    David Grossman was starred David Grossman was unstarred
    Image of origin002 origin002
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Batman begins sticks out in my mind for this. The scene that bugged me was when he dropped little explosive devices that flipped cop cars. I'm sure those guys didn't walk away. Isn't he supposed to be hurting the bad dudes?
     Reply
    Charlie Jane Anders approved this comment origin002 was starred origin002 was unstarred
    Image of elysdir elysdir
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    I was gonna toss in a discussion of BSG here, but I'm not sure how relevant it is. Still, I think it's at least tangentially connected: Cylons kill *billions*, a scope that's hard to really wrap viewer heads around, but the high-impact-on-audience deaths are the individuals. (Even some of the minor characters, because we see the protagonists grieving for them.)

    And then the Cylons attempt to gain some humanity, sorta kinda, and we're tempted to forget that they killed billions of humans....
     Reply
    Charlie Jane Anders promoted this comment elysdir was starred elysdir was unstarred
    Image of Faustic_Caust Faustic_Caust
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    We need more movies about heroes trying to discharge their humanity.
     Reply
    Charlie Jane Anders promoted this comment Faustic_Caust was starred Faustic_Caust was unstarred
    Image of wetware242 wetware242
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    i am not sure that these examples are about reclaiming humanity so much as control, volition and person-hood.

    i think it is not so much whether the hero kills to regain his/her humanity but who is killed. the characters are almost always innately violent individuals who have their individuality stripped because their skill is more useful than their person-hood (think robocop and the remark "a lifetime of law enforcement programming"). they end up killing a lot of people because it is what they do. the decision of who to kill makes the difference.

    basically, they are making victims of those who victimized them and breaking the cycle rather than transferring to someone undeserving.

    i agree, at least for the most part, that we are not encouraged to see the bad guys as having families or redeeming value. that has always sort of bothered me. this is more because it cheapens them into one dimensional characters who deserve to die rather than complex ones who find reciprocity is ugly some times.
     Reply
    Charlie Jane Anders promoted this comment SJ_Edwards approved this comment wetware242 was starred wetware242 was unstarred
    Image of tnmnsquare tnmnsquare
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Hercules and Odysseus run through friends like kleenex. That's why I avoid heroes or doing heroic things.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment tnmnsquare was starred tnmnsquare was unstarred
    Image of DraconisXC DraconisXC
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Clearly the lesson to take away from these movies is: you can only be unique if everyone else is dead.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment DraconisXC was starred DraconisXC was unstarred
    Image of jamesryan jamesryan
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    Would I be wrong in assuming that the last time we had a hero trying to achieve his humanity by NOT killing everyone was in the movie THE IRON GIANT? If anything, that film seems to have the title character going out of his way to keep any blood from being spilled, save for those few moments when he loses control.
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards promoted this comment jamesryan was starred jamesryan was unstarred
    Image of fraying fraying
    12/01/09

    @jamesryan: See also: Hulk, Jekyll, um ... GI Joe?
     Reply
    fraying was starred fraying was unstarred
    Image of emerson999 emerson999
    12/01/09

    @jamesryan: While not a movie, it's one of the things I love about doctor who. He's not human. He keeps humans around, in part, to remind him of how precious the lives of we mere mortals are.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment emerson999 was starred emerson999 was unstarred
    Image of Sproing Sproing
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    A great video essay by Matt Zoller Seitz, about Eastwood movies, touches on a lot of these points. And since Eastwood's heroes are the proto-Wolverine, it's not even really off-topic.

    [www.movingimagesource.us]
     Reply
    Sproing was starred Sproing was unstarred
    Image of MyCityScreams MyCityScreams
    12/01/09

    In reply to Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People
    This rant shows a lack of empathy for the character's situation. Most, if not all, are facing a "kill or be killed" scenario. In what parallel dimension do you live that you would not kill to preserve your own existence? Even the times in which the character is seeking out the kill, it's usually a preventative measure in which he/she is taking caution to ensure that they won't be followed, or that there's no one left to come and seek them out in the future. Cutting the head off the snake, if you will. It's weird that you've boiled down entire premises to all these movies into a little nugget of: This guy is just walking around killing people aimlessly. Seems to me there's more to it than that. Anyway, they're just movies....
     Reply
    Cory Gross promoted this comment MyCityScreams was starred MyCityScreams was unstarred
    Image of Cory Gross Cory Gross
    12/01/09

    @MyCityScreams: "In what parallel dimension do you live that you would not kill to preserve your own existence?"

    It's called "nonviolence" and it's a viable philosophy. Many people have used it.
     Reply
    Cory Gross was starred Cory Gross was unstarred
    Image of MyCityScreams MyCityScreams
    12/02/09

    @Cory Gross: Yes but you're skirting the question. If faced with the choice of kill or be killed - no other option - would you kill? Like it or not, most people would choose to live.
     Reply
    MyCityScreams was starred MyCityScreams was unstarred
    Image of Cory Gross Cory Gross
    12/03/09

    @MyCityScreams: Ah, but you're skirting your own question. You asked "In what parallel dimension do you live that you would not kill to preserve your own existence?" What I pointed out is that enough people reject the "kill or be killed" false dilemma that there's actually a name for the philosophy. There is no need for a parallel dimension: it would be enough for the regular Marvel Universe to have had Wolverine assert his humanity be becoming a Martin Luther King Jr.-style advocate for mutant nonviolence and reconciled race relations. Probably be more interesting too.
     Reply
    Cory Gross was starred Cory Gross was unstarred
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