A Sympathetic Note

Last night at midnight I was dragged to the movie theatre to watch the film District 9. It was a fine enough film. There was a non-readily apparent metaphor about apartheid Africa going on that I guess was good, but it left me with that sinking feeling I get whenever I watch movies containing social commentary; a certain disdain for some of our baser instincts & our habitual (& now celebrated) lack of sympathy for one another.

Unforunately for the film, I was displeased before it started. Why? The previews. It's not that there were too many of them or the movies all looked bad. I don't mind previews... & I like good ones.

What bothered me was what the films were about. The films advertised were Haloween II, The Final Destination, Shutter Island, & a comedy about zombies. See a trend? They were all about murder &, more than murder, about suffering & torture. Here, I take the European position. What is appealing about watching a guy terrorize, torture & murder innocent people? Can't one of the characters in Final Destination just go into old-fashioned cardiac arrest? Is the stake-through-the-eye a must?

Whenever I watch or hear of someone being tortured, my first thought is, "This is unpleasant." My next thought is, as with most things I find unpleasant, "I should stop." & I usually do. For instance, my mother makes it a habit of recounting graphic details of terrible stories she hears & I usually cut her off halfway through. After suggesting we watch it, my friend described a scene from Saw II to which I could only reply, "Why would anyone (note: not just 'I') want to watch that?"

This sentiment is one of the many things that separates me & RdG from those many of those arond us. When I see someone suffering for whatever reason, I can't help but empathize & want to end my own suffering &, thereby, theirs. (Odd how I've never thought to just stop empathizing in the first place, but I'll hold on my empathy over a Rob Zombie film any day.) We're allowed to disregard the similarity of experience... just because the pain is not mine, it's OK if I don't deal with it, if I don't take it up as my own.

This is not to say that we have to be perpetually nice to one another or that it's never appropriate or in good fun & even affectionate to be a little mean. But one must have a sense of propriety. What good roommate doesn't pull a prank or two? Waking up & finding all of your shoelaces tied together is funny. Wrapping someone in toilet paper while he's sleeping is funny. Pouring bleach on a woman because she asked you to quiet down in a movie theatre & fundamentally destroying an important part of her livelihood is not. (& no, she's not just being up-tight.)

I think that that's my issue with these films & a culture that enjoys them. If I can watch a man have a hole drilled in his ankles & told "You're free to go now" with nothing more than an "Eww!", I can't say I'm "shocked & appalled" to hear about businessmen abusing the un-infranchized around the world or that a teenager reacted to a minor embarrassment with an atrocious attack. If I get some sense of enjoyment out of watching people tortured (& it must be some form of enjoyment -- or people wouldn't attend), do I not tacitly condone it in real life?

Here is a film that decries the human ability to disregard the suffering of others being funded by & promoting films that revel in it. I'm one who does not like inconsitencies & I see a big one. Bismomo Hir Mehran Nir Rahim. [MdG]