Posted on 07/20/2012 9:01:52 AM PDT by I still care
If I were 10 years old, would I be badgering my parents to take me to see the new Batman film, The Dark Knight?
You bet I would. It's the latest and biggest release in the superhero genre, which children instantly understand as a direct appeal to their special interests.
It's also touched with the alluring suggestion of forbidden fruit: the maniacal, deranged face of The Joker, grippingly played by the late Heath Ledger, leers from posters all over town.
If I were the parent who relented and took a 10-year-old child to see The Dark Knight, would I be sorry? Once again, you bet I would.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
XV "That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
As we cast aside the bonds that tie us to morality and temperence, the perceived need grows within society to have government control us. Moving forward, we move backwards to tyranny. The sick thing is, people think the guns are the problem - it's the mind and heart that has been cultured by the wanton left.
Oh, by the way, Drudge linked to this on his front page. That is where I found it.
A six year old is reportedly dead and a three-month-old injured at the theater, at 12:30 AM. What is the matter with parents these days? Children should be home in bed instead of listening to special effects blow up cities at that hour.
So it's the parents' fault that these kids were killed and wounded?
My God...the kids' bodies aren't even cold yet, but so many FReepers can't WAIT to pass judgment on people they don't know.
War has been glorified as honorable. Look at war movies from the last 10 years. They glorify the explosions and the gunfire. Men get shot and just spin through the air. Bearded, foreign-speaking people shoot up crowds, blow up malls, etc. We watch and cheer on the protagonists.
The American psyche hasn’t been tried by the endless streams of bodies coming from foreign shores since Vietnam. The American government has consistently tried to keep a tight lid on the violence perpetrated overseas. News is sterilized. Things like the Berg beheading or videos of women being stoned to death by Islamists are shuffled off to the deepest corners of the Internet. To the American people, war is what we see in the theaters.
Movies like Saving Private Ryan showed the absolute cost of war. Bodies were blowing up on Omaha beach. Men walked around without arms or tried to crawl from the tides without legs. The intestines of soldiers spilled from their bellies. When a soldier was killed, it wasn’t this dramatic spinning through the air BS. It was, like the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, “Boom! Down.” No final dramatic gasping words. No tearful goodbyes. Just a bullet through the head or the heart and they collapsed like a sack of wet laundry.
I’m not going to be quick to blame Hollywood, but they share a portion of the burden for glorifying the violence. They share a portion of the depravity with movies like “Machete” or “Saw” or “Final Destination” probing the deepest depths of morbid curiosity. It used to be that the worst someone would see in their lives was the bloodstained asphalt near a fatal car crash while driving home from work or the mall. Now even the most depraved scenes can be found in movies and online.
We, as a culture, have strayed from God. We’ve strayed from our roots. We’ve strayed into acceptance of homosexuality, depraved indifference to violence, and replacement of God with big-G Government.
This incident in Aurora is not unique insomuch as it’s happened before and will happen again. There’s no way to stop every man or woman with a bloodlust from falling into depression or psychosis and deciding to shoot up a movie theater or a mall or a school. Sadly, I think it’s bound to happen more as time goes on, and not because of the availability of guns. This could’ve happened with a baseball bat, a nail gun, a chainsaw, a law mower, an automobile.
We need to correct the way we think and how we portray life around us. Violence shouldn’t be glorified, it should be shown for what it is: not spinning through the air but “boom, down.”
It’s summer vacation, so it’s not a school night. I’m sure it was a special treat to get to see the new movie on its first showing. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
But, that said, I’m not sure I would want to expose a child to the kind of weirdos who are *normally* out at midnight in a city.
I’ve been to midnight showings before. It’s usually a lot more fun than a regular showing since the big fans are all there. I imagine the parents really wanted to see the movie, and figured the little kids would just sleep anyway.
Not a big deal, and certainly not worth accusing the parents of being accessories to their own children’s murder.
People are going to over-analyze this as they always do. The bottom line is, there is bad seed, and there is nothing you can do to change that fact.
But the point here is that there ARE heroes out there who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to protect those us who prefer peace. I would gladly take up arms for my countrymen if asked, and I will stand behind those countrymen with my heart and my wallet because they ensure that I will wake up the next morning.
The exact same hollywierd people who claim violence in films/TV do not cause violence in society because they have no effect on people will also turn around and sell ads to advertisers because then people will buy their product.
So somehow they can magically create a demand in ones mind for a product but not inspire violence in that same mind. AMAZING.
It always amazed me that you can show, during the family hour, knifing, shooting, dismemberment, body burning, all kinds of violence against other humans but don’t you dare show a boob or a tallywacker. Oh, the humanity if someone sees a natural creation of GOD but blood and guts are OK. AMAZING!
A few years back, my boyfriend went to see The Hills Have Eyes 2. In front of him was a family, with 5 kids, the youngest looked about 4 or so, he thought the oldest was no older than 12. When I saw Doom, the guy behind me had 2 kids with him, an infant and a pre schooler. Meanwhile I wouldn’t let my son watch anything without me seeing it first until recently (he is 17). I would question the wisdom in letting a 6 yr old see this movie without viewing it myself first
Reading “Thermopylae” right now. What a celebration of violence!
Wait, no - it was not. It was a celebration of civic virtue and those willing to give their last full measure to stand up to tyranny in order to preserve freedom.
War is rarely the answer - but when it is - it is the ONLY answer.
There is a reason why people for centuries have celebrated the 300 Spartans. I suggest you learn it.
Neither of the posters said the parents were responsible for the childrens’ injuries or murder.
However, I have to wonder at the idea of taking such small children to that sort of movie myself or having them out at that hour. You are free to disagree, but having raised 3 boys I do have some experience. Mostly it is laziness and cheapness. But kids require one to grow up and think of someone other than yourself. Our culture does not prize that.
No, I feel terrible for the parents, and they are not to blame for the violence that happened to their children. However, I would always counsel parents not to take small children to movies like this or to have them out in the middle of the night when they should be home in bed. Sometimes being a parent means making hard choices, even not getting to see a movie they “really wanted to see”.
I don’t disagree with you, but there seems to be just as much derision being directed at these parents as the murderer.
In the end, this decision isn’t a big deal. Yes, there are more responsible ways of going about it, but that doesn’t drive some notion of culpability on their behalf. They just went to a movie.
Not sure how to take your post, but I will say this:
I’m not dismissing works of literature or art that glorify times in history when violent protest led to peace. America’s history is replete with examples of this.
What I’m discussing here is the rampant glorification of violence for the sake of violence. Tell me what cultural or civil value there is in the “Saw” movies or the “Final Destination” movies? They’re entertaining you say? That’s a depraved idea of entertainment.
I watched the Berg beheading. It changed who I was as a person. I watched the first “Final Destination” movie. It changed what I questioned as entertainment. When a movie is made to tell a story about a time in history when war led to peace, I’ll watch it. When a movie is made to tell a story about depravity and espouses violence for shock value, that’s not a movie I’d watch nor consider entertainment. It only serves to deaden the nerves, IMO. The more you watch, the more immune.
But as soon as a violent event happens, as soon as war comes to your shore or your neighborhood, as soon as you see a neighbor or a friend or a family member maimed by some madman, your whole world changes, your whole world view changes. Is that entertainment? No. But watching it happen to someone on a big screen is? I don’t get that mentality.
I’ll date myself with this, but I used to go see Kentucky Fried Movie, Wizards, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Midnight Madness at the local multiplex.
I can also attest, after working many years on the late shifts, that there are a lot of really weird, unsavory types who seem to come out only at night to shop or whatever, in addition to the regular criminal and gang banger types.
Yeah, but you’re talking about those weird cult hits. I went to see the “Star Wars” prequels (for some reason) at the midnight showings. Those were just nerds looking to watch a (supposedly) fun movie. Not a thing threatening about such an event.
I certainly wouldn’t bring a kid to a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” midnight showing. That’s a bit of a recipe for insanity there that kids don’t need to see.
My God...the kids' bodies aren't even cold yet, but so many FReepers can't WAIT to pass judgment on people they don't know.
When I was in the 3rd grade my dad took me to see the movie “Patton” when it opened. Some here might say that that sort of movie was inappropriate for a kid that age but my dad, a WWII vet talked with me before the movie and with me afterward – he thought that while rather graphic in its depiction of war and the movie’s strong language, he felt it was important for me to see in its historical context – and it was a great bonding for me and my dad and a good educational experience.
I have a lot of friends and family members who are big sci-fi fans. I recall my niece and her husband taking their then 7 year old son to see a midnight opening showing of one of the Star Wars movies.
While I might not take an infant or toddler or allow my very young teenager to go to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, I’m not going to pass judgment on them either.
The issue is not about the people who were in the theater to see a movie, to have a nice evening out; the real issue is with the psycho, whatever his motivations were, to plan and open fire on innocent people in a crowded movie theater.
Yes, it’s two different things, and at this time it’s not the issue. The crazy shooter is the issue. I think maybe people are so horrified when these things happen that they start just looking at everything and trying to find reasons (as if we can ever really find them).
Of course, I think the whole way kids are raised these days is a big deal, but that’s a thread for another time. Today, prayers for everyone. I have a grandson who is 3 months old, I cannot imagine losing him this way. What grief they must feel. God bless them.
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