In a pretty dramatic change of scene from my last field report on “Extreme Midget Wrestling”, last night I attended a production of the musical “Wicked.” Now as much as we here at the CWR try to maintain general neutrality in the culture war, the simple fact of the matter is that we do have bias, and as far as yours truly is concerned, the theater is hostile territory.
The musical was being done at the Smith Center- a performance hall in downtown Vegas, which isn’t really “down” anywhere because it’s about dead center in the middle of the city. Incidentally, the “inner city” is actually situated on the outskirts of town- but that’s all beside the point. The lobby of this place is fancy, as you might expect. Marble floors, ornate chandeliers, gigantic plaques with the names of wealthy supporters etched into them. And all packed to the brim with women in painful high-heels and impractical dresses, and men in expensive slacks and lopsided orange tans and flashy white smiles that you can only buy from the dental surgeons that other dental surgeons go to. These are the white people black comedians make fun of. The five-minute-warning bell goes off and panic sets in, as everyone hobbles towards the doors. I move along with the crowd and taking my seat up in the top-tier of the balcony. Clearly someone was a little trigger-happy with the bell, ‘cuz it’s easily half an hour before the theater goes dark. I try to make use of the time to get better acquainted with the rest of the audience.
Down below me is a guy wearing a polo shirt and carrying a pair of binoculars around his neck- he knew what he was in for. To my left are two women- no lie- comparing jewelry to determine whose diamonds are “shinier”. The program isn’t so much of a program as it is a magazine with a few pages on the musical nestled down on page 32. The rest of it is full of ads for such upcoming attractions as Cabaret Jazz (sung by white people), “A State of the Union Conversation: An Evening with Frank Rich and Franz Lebowitz”, and “Dr. John & The Blind Boys of Alabama Performing ‘Spirituals to Funk'” (Dr. John is also white). In fact, the only non-white guy I can find in there is a construction worker in an ad for some building project, tucked away between pictures suggesting your life might not be complete without Lexus cars and MJ diamonds.
The musical does at long last start, and- coming from a guy who hates musicals- this was really good. There’s not a whole else to say about it- if you want a summary, go to Wikipedia- if you want to see it, sneak in- because tickets to these things are ****ing expensive.
This I do have to comment on, though:
The flying monkeys always have been, and always will be, terrifying. I don’t care who you are or how tough you think you are- the flying monkeys are the stuff nightmares are made of.
If you can see the musical- go for it- just don’t see it with this crowd. They’re giggling like idiots at every single malapropism.
They didn’t laugh so hard at “Thrillifying”, so I thought they had gotten it out of their system by the second hour in, but then along comes “Scandalacious” and they’re roaring with laughter, so no- **** these guys.
Can anyone tell me what’s up with that one munchkin in a dress? He’s not playing a female character or anything- he’s just wearing a dress. I ain’t judging or anything- I just couldn’t figure it out.
To whoever made all those “wicked good” puns as we were walking out, I will find you and slap you in the mouth. You have been warned.
There’s not a whole lot else to be said. I had a good time, but these people- they were in heaven.
EVAN: Last week you all voted for us to talk about the popularity of kung fu movies, so that is what we’re doing. The question that’s been on my mind being, why aren’t they popular anymore?
GORDON: See, I’m gonna have to butt heads with you right out of the gate. I just don’t think that kung fu movies are unpopular- at least, not anymore than at the supposed height of their glory…
EVAN: But there’s definite evidence of a time when they were all the rage. There were the dubbed martial arts films in the 70s and 80s, as well as the immense popularity of actors like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and now Jet Li.
GORDON: No argument there.
EVAN: Recently, all that really comes to mind is Li’s role in The Expendables 2. Which is by no means a large one, considering the immensity of its cast.
GORDON: Well, that’s part of the problem- movies have developed since the 70s and 80s- none perhaps more dramatically than the action flick. Take The Matrix, for example.
EVAN: Definitely a revolutionary flick.
GORDON: Amazing stunts, choreography, and so on- and all hugely influenced by kung fu movies. In fact, Wikipedia goes right ahead and lists it as a “King Fu” movie.
Now look at an action film from the 60s or 70s. At the very best, you get Dirty Harry pistol-whipping some thug, and more often than not, you get Captain Kirk doing some weird slap-fight with a man in green spandex.
EVAN: Hey, that man in green spandex had it coming.
GORDON: This is true. What I’m driving at here, I guess, is that kung fu movies haven’t gone away- they’ve been incorporated into every major action flick made since the 80s.
Just look at fight scenes in a modern action movie- that’s Judo, or Jui Jitsu, or Karate, or Muay Thai, and so on and so forth.
EVAN: Okay, let me come at this from a different angle. Would you say that at this point in time, Jet Li is the go-to guy as an Asian actor who specializes in martial arts?
GORDON: More or less, sure.
EVAN: How many [Western] movies has the guy been in compared to Jason Statham?
GORDON: Couldn’t say. I’m guessing Statham’s got him beat, though.
EVAN: Why is it that more often than not, whenever martial arts are depicted in a movie they’re performed by a white guy?
GORDON: Oof- where to begin? Tacit racism, hiring ease, translation, and so on.
EVAN: I’m just saying that there was a time, mid to late 90s and early 00s where Asian actors could still headline these films. You’ve got the Rush Hour films and Shanghai Noon and its sequel, to name some Jackie Chan vehicles. And you had stuff like Romeo Must Die with Jet Li.
As far as Wikipedia can tell me, all the martial arts films starring Asians in the last few years were made in Asia.
GORDON: And are nevertheless seen by Western audiences. Take The Raid, an Indonesian film, or The Man With the Iron Fists, which people are pretty psyched for, or Tony Jaa’s work.
EVAN: Yes. Tony Jaa.
GORDON: As there did before. I mean, barring certain movies, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Rush Hour, how much appeal did kung fu movies have anyways? I’m not knocking them or anything, but it seems that with certain exceptions for major pieces, kung fu movies (in the West) have always been mostly popular as a sugenre with fans of said subgenre. Much like the monster movie, or the sci-fi horror.
EVAN: At some point they epitomized the action genre, so I’d say they had a lot of appeal. I mean, it rode the trend of dojos and whatnot opening up all over North America.
GORDON: Wasn’t that with the 80s stupid action flick, though? I mean, c’mon. It was the 80s. Get some Aryan guy to face-kick a bunch of minorities, slap on an over-the-top title and you’ve got a hit.
EVAN: I was mostly referring to the fact that Asian martial arts films became so popular that they started creating them in Hollywood, using Asian actors.
GORDON: So the issue here isn’t kung fu- it’s Asians in media…
EVAN: We can concentrate on the genre and its popularity before we follow that train of thought. Why do you think it’s lessened so much? And if it has, what has replaced it?
GORDON: I think that the rise in awareness of martial arts in the West is responsible for that. Suddenly, you can get all the amazing choreographed fights without them being (necessarily) rooted in Asian culture.
The equivalent would probably be the Western/Cop flick and it’s influence on Hong Kong action movies.
EVAN: So what you’re saying is that Western culture has realized that this isn’t a genre that solely the East can lay claim to.
GORDON: Not entirely, anyways. Depends on how you define a “Kung Fu Movie.” I was just going with a movie that’s heavily rooted in martial arts.
EVAN: I mean, I’d say that it’s because the Asian actors that we [Westerners] can relate to are getting old. Jackie Chan is 58. Jet Li is 49. No one has really stepped up [or has been able to] and taken their places.
GORDON: Well- no argument there. Barring perhaps Tony Jaa. Who will **** you up if you so much as look at his elephant the wrong way.
EVAN: ช้าง อยู่ ไหน [chang yuu nai]?! If you saw the movie, you’d get it.
GORDON: Go see the movie. Now.
EVAN: Watch it please. Tom Yum Goong as it was released in Thailand, but retitled The Protector for an American release.
GORDON: Also, eat tom yum goong. It is the best thing ever.
EVAN: Anyway. I just think it’s interesting, the fact that there’s clearly still an interest in Asian martial arts.
Using two panda-related examples, Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda movies, and Blizzard’s upcoming expansion for World of WarCraft, Mists of Pandaria.
GORDON: This is true.
EVAN: Pandarens had existed in WarCraft for years before those movies, by the way. Just for everyone who’s saying that Blizzard ripped the concept of anthropomorphic martial arts fighting pandas from a Jack Black movie.
GORDON: And with that, we’re out of time.
EVAN: Don’t we have ten more minutes? We started at ten past.
GORDON: Oh. I thought we started on the hour.
EVAN: Nay. And we’re keeping all of this dialogue.
GORDON: To assure our readers that we too are flawed mortals?
EVAN: Well, that one of us is.
GORDON: Touché.
Back on the subject- let’s not forget that thanks to Netflix and piracy, it’s easier and easier to get movies from out of the country anyways. Just look at Red Cliff.
EVAN: Red Cliff?
GORDON: Epic action movie. Based on ancient Chinese history, and a text called “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” if I recall correctly. Some sort of an Eastern equivalent to “swords and sandals” flicks. Which are awesome, by the way.
EVAN: Yes. We do love our “swords and sandals” movies.
GORDON: Go watch Ironclad. Watch it now.
EVAN: If only to watch Paul Giamatti’s veins pop out on his neck as an angry King John.
GORDON: Words cannot describe how irritated he is in that movie. It defies logic. Also, a man gets beaten to death with his own arm.
EVAN: Actually, I am fairly sure the severed arm belonged to a different guy.
Back on topic one last, time, before we run out of it- It seems that Asian cinema continues to chug on, producing martial arts movies even if Western Cinema has since moved past that. In a way, what was popular for a period of time in Hollywood never stopped in Asia. Though those movies still changed the action genre in a huge way.
GORDON: Absolutely. From The Bourne Identity to Batman Begins, the blood of Kung Fu movies still pumps strong. And with that, we’re out of time. Be sure to swing in next week for our discussion on the upcoming season of Community.
EVAN: Nooooooooo. That’s next-next week. The day before the new season starts.
GORDON: Why must you make a fool of me?
EVAN: Why must you make a fool of yourself.
GORDON: Anyways. Be sure to vote for our discussion topic next week.
Over the past weeks, there’s been some talk here in Vegas about changing the name of our airport from McCarran to something- anything– else. Named after Nevada senator Pat McCarran (1876-1954), the group pushing for the change were of the opinion that it wasn’t quite right having one of the busiest airports in the world named after a viciously racist Fascist-sympathizing McCarthyite. Last night, I caught a bit of a local talk-show as I was channel surfing, and heard the subject get brought up. Steve Sebelius, a major journalist in Vegas, was commenting on the name-change movement’s loss of momentum, pointing out that despite McCarran’s psychotic antisemitism and racial bigotry, he was the principal defender of gambling in Nevada, and that without him “None of us would be sitting here”. The show wrapped up after that closing comment, and whether or not the they addressed the whole issue of what comprises one’s legacy I can’t tell you. Frankly, I would like to see the airport’s name changed- and not just the airport, but every street, boulevard, and building named after a bigot. But as the journalist rightly pointed out, the world doesn’t quite work in white and black.
Pictured: Pat McCarran, who objects to me using the words “white” and “black” so close to each other…
As much as we’d like to imagine (at our history book’s insistence) that America was created by heroic men who only drank distilled freedom and wiped the sweat from their brows with patriotic American flags autographed by Jesus, this nation was built on the backs of slaves and the bones of Native Americans. The same man who authored the Declaration of Independence owned his sister-in-law, and despite his assertion that it was self-evident that all men are created equal, hated and feared German immigrants with a passion that the Minutemen Project would feel is “a bit much”. Jackson- the hero of Federalism, the slaughter of Native Americans. FDR, the creator of the New Deal, the guy who forced over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans out of their homes and into prison camps. Between genocide, exploitation, segregation, and a host of other forgotten sins, there’s not much in US history or culture that doesn’t carry with it a stain of injustice or inequity.
Our food included…
But how, then, do we deal with this? If we rename racist streets or airports, why stop there? Why not get rid of the sexists’ names? Or those who were just plain greedy or arrogant or inept? It seems if we go down that road, we’ll wind up leaving everything blank as we dig through history in search of the perfect human being. On the other hand, we can’t exactly drive down Hitler avenue and assert that his anti-smoking campaign is just as much a part of his legacy as the concentration camps and Kristalnacht. So how do we measure a figure’s good acts against his bad ones? I’d personally like to see Jefferson Street renamed Malcolm X Street, yet I have to simultaneously deal with the fact that X held many racist views himself until his conversion and change of heart later in life. Again, how do we discern between the good guys and the bad guys? No one’s perfect, but not everyone uses child soldiers either. Simply, people are complicated.
Case and point…
And because I don’t want to leave you hanging with another “Make of it what you will” post (as I did in my report on Extreme Midget Wrestling– check it out), I’m going to fly in the face of caution and offer this criteria for naming your airports and roads:
I. Is he or she a good guy?
That’s it. If you can’t answer “yes” immediately to that question, and if “mostly” doesn’t work either- move on to someone else. Simple as that. There is always going to be controversy- and we’re going to have to deal wit that. Values change, secrets are uncovered, and some heroes become villains and villains heroes- but for now. For right now- let’s go ahead and make the change. Yeah, it’s a pain in the neck, but if we do it right the second time around, hopefully we won’t need to change up the names for a another seventy years or so. And before someone writes in about it being part of our past or our heritage- let me shoot you down right now. Yes, bigotry, as ugly as it is, is a part of our history. But changing names doesn’t mean that we’re running away from it- it means we’re passing judgment on it. In the end, that’s what I want to cite as my heritage- not racism, but the condemnation thereof.
It’s just shy of 8:00 in the Riviera hotel and casino, one of the last of the original Las Vegas casinos. I’m in the lobby, waiting for the show to start and killing time with some people-watching. An Elvis impersonator passes through, followed shortly by the Beatles. There’s your businessmen, your tourists, your townies out for the evening. A woman in her early fifties, covered in tattoos and carrying a four-foot glass vase of alcohol. Some hipsters in tight jeans taking their picture with the Extreme Midget Wrestling advertisement, some bros in tight Hollister t-shirts boasting about how much vodka they downed. There’s a guy in line to buy tickets with a “Hooked On Jesus” shirt, and a couple female body-builders. All strutting, sauntering, and stumbling past while U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)”- a tribute to the life and work of MLK Jr.- plays in the background.
There’s probably a message in there somewhere.
It’s about 8:20 when I get into the room- they’ve got a miniature fight ring in the center and thirty or so rows of seats fanning outwards from all sides, with little mobile booths on the outer orbit selling bad popcorn and overpriced drinks. Before you get the wrong idea- no, I’m not the kind of guy who’s a regular attendee of midget wrestling. I’m here in my capacity as a self-styled journalist on assignment on the front line of the culture wars.
The barker is hyping the crowd, working up a call-and-respond chant.
“Half the size!”
“Twice the violence!”
“Half the size!”
“Twice the violence!”
And as the cheering dies down, the referee appears on stage waving the American flag, and then everyone rises as the national anthem begins to play and the barker declares “This is for the troops!” The last notes play and the first of the wrestlers bounds up into the ring. Roughly 4’10”, and snarling at the DJ to turn his music down as he breaks into a quip about what a worthless town this is.
Boos and hisses from the audience.
“I don’t know what y’all are booing at- half of you don’t even live here!”
A few seats down from me, a guy in a baseball cap starts howling at the ring.
“Fake midget! You’re a fake midget! FAKE MIDGEEEET!!!”
The wrestler ignores him- tries to get on with his smack talk as the guy keeps yelling.
“You’re not a midget! Freaking Hobbit! Hey Hobbit-boy! Where’s Frodo, bitch?!”
Amidst more hisses and laughter at the guy’s insults, the wrestler finishes his spiel. The barker announces the challenger- a guy by the name of “Little Fabio”. He’s 4’8″, and has long flowing hair as golden and curly as the finest ramen noodles.
The fight begins. Choreographed, of course. Staged punches, slaps, metal trays to the cranium- it’s all there. It’s not staged well enough to be realistic, or over the top enough to be comedic, but then again, no one’s exactly expecting a production of Shakespeare. The crowd does what it can to get involved, and when Little Fabio mimics an elbow slam as he bounces off the top rope, they break out into cheering. And so it goes- long silence as the two wrestlers clumsily bat at each other and raucous whooping when the occasional stunt is performed. It doesn’t help much that the two stumble out of the ring and fight each other on the ground, where no-one who isn’t in the first couple rows can see anything. At long last, it ends, the barker making a joke about Little Fabio “taking out the trash”- which doesn’t really work, since Little Fabio dumps the smack-talker into a laundry cart, not a dumpster. The crowd applauds with general approval, but already they’re getting bored. “Lil’ Rampage,” representing Las Vegas is up next, sashaying down the ramp in a fur coat. His opponent hops into the ring, and the same scene is played out again. Back and forth with the pulled-punches and choke-holds, the audience trying to get worked up as the barker shouts out stuff like “Oooh! Drop-kick to the huevos!” Intermission finally arrives, and more than a few people filter out through the door. A security guard tries to get people to stop their kids (yeah, there are plenty of kids here- even couple who brought their baby) from climbing on the ring- no one listens, of course.
Note to the Riviera: Nothing says “I don’t have any real authority” more than a guy wearing cargo shorts. Invest the cash- get your security guys some pants.
People shuffle backs to their seats, and as the final strains of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” fade, we seize the opportunity to move up into one of the vacated rows. Better view, but you still can’t see a thing when they’re going at it outside the ring beyond the brief flash of trashcan being lifted over someone’s head before it disappears below the front rows and only a hollow crashing noise tells if you it hit someone. At 4’6″ it’s “The Machine” versus “The Athlete” of New York City. “The Athlete” is actually pretty neat to watch- clearing the ropes with a back flip and bounding up the corner posts with a kind of mad dexterity usually reserved for cats. Simple truth of the matter is that once they get at it, you do forget that they’re midgets- or at least, the fact that they are midgets (brought up only in the barkers patronizing and terrible puns) just doesn’t seem at all relevant. For some reason, there’s a cop stalking up and down the aisles, though exactly who or what she’s looking for, I really don’t want to know. The bouts are getting better, in both the acting and the stunts, but that doesn’t stop a small but steady trickle of people out of the room. Some wrestler with a vague dog-persona is vanquished, and most everyone assumes the show is over (yours truly including). A mass exodus occurs before it dawns on the barker what’s happening and he shouts that we’re just about to get to the main event- by the time it starts, half the audience is gone.
Which is a shame, because this is the point where everything picked up fast.
“The Little Show” pops out from behind the curtains, wearing jet-black sunglasses and a shrunken version of the holocaust cloak from The Princess Bride. 4’4″, they say as he sheds his cape and rips off his black wife-beater to reveal- that’s right- a smaller black wife-beater underneath. Obviously we were all hoping he’d rip that one off to reveal yet another, smaller wife-beater under that, but nothing came of it. The kids in the front row are going nuts as the tempo is ratcheted up as Disturbed’s “Get Down With The Sickness” blasts over the speakers, and “The Little Show” waltz around the ring, making sure everyone kicks a good look at the flames at the bottom of his black pleather pants. Dang those were cool pants. Then his challenger appears.
His name?
“Baby Jesus.”
That’s right- “Baby Jesus.”
3’6″. Gold cross emblazoned on his left pant-leg. Break-dancing in the ring. Break-dancing.
The crowd goes crazy and the barker is spewing out every pun he can come up with. These were my favorites:
“Who has more midget muscle!?”
<Baby Jesus gets slammed into the ground> “Oooh! He almost sent him back to heaven!”
“C’mon, Baby Jeezus! C’mon!”
Little Show charges, but Baby Jesus stretches the ring’s ropes open and steps aside, sending Little Show flying through. The front rows are standing up now, and one section has started up the chant of “Ho-ly Shit! Ho-ly Shit! Ho-ly Shit!”. Back in the ring, Baby Jesus takes a chair to the face but comes back with a beautiful crowd hype as he does the worm for no apparent reason. Just as it appears all is lost for BJ, he flips over (yes, flips over) Little Show and wrestles him to the ground, pinning him down as the cheesiest referee imaginable slaps the ground three times. Everyone’s standing and cheering, and Baby Jesus is declared the winner, lugging away a belt easily twice his size.
A battle royale is declared as all eight wrestlers clamber back into the ring. They have at it, but most of the entertainment at this point is coming from the barker’s increasingly ridiculous slogans.
“IT’S MIDGET MAYHEM!!!”
“MIDGETGEDDON!!!!!!”
“CLASH OF THE MIDGETS, EVERYBODY! CLASH OF THE MIDGETS!!!”
One by one, they wrestlers are bumped off, until it’s only Baby Jesus left in the ring. Next thing you know, it’s being declared that Polaroids will be sold for 10 bucks a pop, and that you should pick up a t-shirt or get your poster autographed. I wait in the hall as people exit- most of ’em are on their phones, chuckling that it was funny. It’s just past 10:00, and everyone’s exuding that post-show deflation as they head off to their rooms or cars.
This is the part of the post where you might expect some sort of conclusion, but truth be told, for all my notes, I’m not exactly sure what to make of it all. Degrading to the midgets? Like I said, without the barker, chances are it probably wouldn’t even register as you watched the fights. Degrading to the audience? Despite the snickers, most of the people there were clearly more investing in the fact that that they were watching wrestlers rather than short people. What critique exactly do you apply to an event that’s part of a subculture of a subculture anyways? Maybe it was exploitation, pure and simple. Maybe it was an example of people being able to do what they love regardless of their physical stature. I can only really present the facts here- you’re going to have to debate whether what they all add up to is right or wrong for yourselves, or of course, conclude that there’s really no moral to this story.
GORDON: Welcome back, ladies, gentlemen, and persons who defy conventional gender roles, to another edifying episode of Evan and Gordon Talk. Our topic for tonight: Hipster Racism.
Evan- if you’ll offer a quick definition.
EVAN: Uh, I’m going to leave you to that, actually. Gordon sent me this link to check out, and the bit about “hipster racism” is actually quite short [appearing at about 00:00]. The speaker, China Miéville, had a lot of amazing things to say, and I lost it in there somewhere. [I’ll probably be writing more about the lecture on Friday]
GORDON: Essentially, “Hipster Racism” or “Ironic Racism” are jokes or comedy with traditionally racist content, funny not because they put people down, but funny because of how utterly atrocious and ignorant they are. Similar to a dead baby joke.
The question we’ll be dealing with tonight is this: Is ironic racism still just racism?
EVAN: This strikes a similar chord with a conversation I had with . . . a friend of mine, where he called Arab people “towelheads.”
In the wake of the Aurora Shooting, the Sikh Temple Massacre, and a recent spate of gun violence across the country, the debate of the violence in media has once again reared its head. On one side, those who cite the saturation of film, music, and video games with violence and the glorification of violence as responsible for creating these monsters, or at the very least, pushing them over the edge. On the other side, the ranks of apologists, who declare that it’s ridiculous to blame movies and music for mass-murder. I’m not here to analyze the claims of either point, or to make an argument for one side or the other- that’s already been done better by The Escapist’s Robert Chipman (check it out here).
No, I’m here to address the subject of violence and its possible contributing factors outside of film and music.
When I touched on a complaints I had with movies like Brideshead Revisited and I Love You Man a few weeks ago, I briefly mentioned goth-rock-star Marilyn Manson, whose music was accused by many of being responsible for having influenced the Columbine shooters in committing the massacre. Interviewed by Michael Moore in his documentary Bowling for Columbine, Manson had this to say regarding violent influences:
And therein really lies the crux of the issue- when tragedies like this happen, the scope of our outrage is usually so small that we fail to take into account all the other possible factors. We can cite GTA or rock or rap or cartoons as being responsible and maybe- just maybe- there’s something to that. But what about everything else? If violence in media causes violence, surely violence itself should be cited here!
You remember this?
That’s Marine Corps veteran Scott Olsen, moments after he was shot in the head with a gas canister from close range. Part of the brutal crackdown by police on the Occupy Oakland protests last year- back when Mayor Jean Quan decided the best way to deal with a peaceful protest was by turning her town into a war zone.
But why talk about Oakland and countless other cities being turned into war zones when we can just talk about actual war?
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this is the single longest war in American history. Year after year after year, it goes on, and with no end in sight. That’s got to be the single largest and publicized campaign advocating violence, yet where is the outrage against it?
And what about hunting? That’s all about guns and the glorification of killing things…
What about Civil War Reenactors?
What about the national anthem? That thing is full of references to bombs. What about the 4th of July? A day when we celebrate our victory in a war by setting off explosives!
What about the very way we talk about violence? Should the Mob Museum here in Las Vegas be shut down? Should we do away with anything related to pirates? Should we stop teaching about the war of 1812 in schools?
And so on…
You get the idea. Ours is a culture and history built on violence. It’s in everything– not just our media. While I’ve got my own views on what does and doesn’t cause or promote violence, my purpose here isn’t to take a side. I’m simply trying to demonstrate that if you do want to try to get into the causes of violence, you don’t get to be selective about who you put on trial.You want to find out if there was something in our world beyond the killer’s diseased mind responsible for death and destruction, you have to look at everything- anything less is just a witch hunt, pure and simple.
Let’s face it, half the time, tragedies like these are the platform from which we get to lynch things we didn’t like to begin with…
…I wonder if that kind of vicious and petty mentality might contribute to violence at all…
In a pretty dramatic change of scene from my last field report on “Extreme Midget Wrestling”, last night I attended a production of the musical “Wicked.” Now as much as we here at the CWR try to maintain general neutrality in the culture war, the simple fact of the matter is that we do have bias, and as far as yours truly is concerned, the theater is hostile territory.
Culture War Reporters 