In my class, we had watched this short about a man and his wife trying to sleep, with their dog outside. And the dog would bark, because there were wolves out there. But the man got frustrated with the barking, so everytime the dog barked he cut off a limb till he was just parts scattered around. and then he didn't bark, and the wolves came and stole the wife. So the man sewed the dog back up, the dog saved the wife, and then they cut up the man the way he had cut up the dog. This was all animation, there was no bloody gushing or unnecessary gore.
And yet. It really freaked me out and disgusted me. If you had turned to look at me, you probably would have laughed at my face... at least other people have when I made that face. Kyle did the other day... Thank you for that, by the way. Ba-zinga.
It's weird, I can handle other violence better than the understated kind. A war scene, with blood flying everywhere? No problem! A vampire going for the throat? Pssshh, kid's stuff. American McGee's Alice? I love it. Je t'aime beaucoup. A poor little dog hopping around with no legs? Freaks me out like nothing else. It probably doesn't help that I already wasn't feeling well. (That person trying to cough quietly throughout class? that was me. Dear people witting in front of me: I tried my hardest not to cough or spray germs on you. I'm really sorry if I accidentally coughed on you.... Also the reason I nodded when Leeper asked if I was going to fall asleep. I was just too tired to think first.) Now I also freak out easily. So maybe it's me. But at the same time, maybe it's partly the media? I mean, as a kid I'd see the PG, and think it's not that bad. It's mild violence. And then I'd get older, and since I was the headstrong child thing that I was, I was certain I could handle it. I was grown up enough, dangit! I don't need no parents to tell me what I can and can't watch! And now I old enough to legally buy R rated movies. (Is it weird that at 17, you can see R rated film in the theaters, but to get it from the library, you have to be 18? I think that's weird.) So maybe I've slowly been immersed in the epic gory, that the only thing that gets to me is the symbolic gory?
I think the real thing that disturbed me was I could see myself in it a tiny bit. Not that I'd go out and chop a person/dog up (because that would only make me sick, and I probably couldn't do it anyways) but that the tireder I get, the more of my inner sadist comes out. We all have an inner sadist, you can admit it. The part of you that feels justified when some one you don't like gets punished. The part of you that is glad when that one guy gets pulled over by the cops. For me, it comes out when I'm cramping, feeling really badly/sick, or really tired. For instance over the summer, I counsel at two summer camps, each one only a week. Now at the beginning of the week, you try to be nice, wanting the little chillens to like you. At the end, you don't care if their little feelings get hurt, if you tell them no it means no, if you say they have to do something, they have to do it, and no matter how many times they beg, you will not share your eye liner, and no matter how many times they try to re-bargain, you will not draw them a ballerina. I don't care if your mother will be disappointed, or if she'd really like a ballerina. You reneged on your part of the deal. But I'm not bitter. (I'm really not, I love doing the camps.) But you just stop caring about other people's feelings. And isn't that what the man does? He just stops caring about the dog. It's irritating, and he wants it to stop. The main difference is he resorts to physical violence, we just laugh maniacally to ourselves, or use our words (like our parents taught us.) And we just. Don't. Care.
And we should. Oh we should. I'm often careless with my words. I'll be the first to admit. And when I'm tired enough, that little edit we normally have in our heads? It just disappears. Things I think are funny aren't. Sometimes I say stuff that just doesn't make sense, or is so very obscure no one gets the reference and it's ruined. And if you hurt me, my first instinct is to hurt you in the exact same way you hurt me. (Apparently I can also be really funny when I'm tired according to my friends) Words are easier to take out of context. Everything is amplified, and not always in a good way. We laugh, we cry, it moves us Bob. It's like in the 2003 Peter Pan. (I just watched that and Hook over the weekend) We're the fairies that are so small, we can only have one feeling at a time. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be old, look back at my life only to see dogs with no legs or tail or bodies littered in my wake.
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