I would not normally have anything useful to say about the unspeakable tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. That is the type of thing that warrants grief-filled silence.
But there is one aspect of the event that comes into the bailiwick of Breakfast with Pandora: the connection between the shooter and the intense, violent story being told where he chose to shoot.
Did "The Dark Knight Rises" bear any responsibility for the shooter's act? Does myth-- deeply-felt stories told over and over again by a particular culture-- adversely affect our behavior?
This particular shooter has gone on record as having been directly affected by the Batman story that "Rises" tells: he said he "was the Joker," a villain from the iconic comic book series. The Joker is violent, so he decided to take on that persona and commit violent acts.
So did the story drive the shooter to his crime?
Here is a suggestion from movie reviewer Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Can we at least consider the possibility that our movies have become a feedback loop for national neurosis, celebrating it, glorifying it and nourishing it?
It has long been clear to me that our current cinema — in the United States — has lost the Female Principle, that our cinema, especially our most popular cinema, is concerned only with external things, to the exclusion of inner values, and the external thing that it’s mainly concerned with is violence.
I bent myself into contortions trying to say something nice about THE DARK KNIGHT RISES in my review today, knowing that this is not, generically, my kind of movie and thus I should make some kind of allowance for the bias of personal predilection. But there is something in this kind of cinema that strikes me as essentially anti-human — a cinema where human interaction is a kind of unreal expression standing in for real emotion — and where the only things that actually feel real are chaos and calamity.
I understand Mr. LaSalle's point, and I agree with him in some particulars. But I wouldn't agree that our popular cinema feeds a "national" neurosis-- just, in this case, one particular deranged mind.
In fact, I think it is a real blessing that it in this country, where violence is glorified in stories, where there is so much dark, difficult material out there, not only in movies but in comic books, novels, TV shows (ever seen "Dangerous Minds"?), and where guns are so readily available for legal sale, it's truly a blessing that this type of tragedy does not happen more often.
In fact, maybe violence in stories REDUCES violence in real life.
Aristotle the Greek philosopher would contend that violence in stories should calm a person down. He wrote that the action of a tragic drama (such as "Oedipus the King," one of the most intense stories ever created) should bring about a psychological "cleansing" or "purgation" (catharsis) of emotions. Scholars differ as to what that actually means, but it's clear Aristotle considered it a good thing. In my course on Greek mythology I called it the "wet noodle" effect-- the calming, centering effect that an overwhelming rush of adrenaline has on a person.
Would this shooter have done what he did without the fantasy of becoming a character in a drama? I think he would have. I think he would have found some outlet or excuse or pretense.
Is "The Dark Knight Rising" dehumanizing? Does it, rather than purge one's emotions, incite one to violence? Possibly. I can't judge because I haven't seen it and probably won't. I don't need that type of adrenaline rush very often.
Most likely, we are dealing with one person who is mentally ill, or disordered personality-wise, and it is as simple as that. As long as we have people who can't cope with their world, we will have trouble. I don't think myth causes that, or that there's anything that myth can do about it.
David,
I often deal with violent, aggressive, cruel characters in stories...and often the stories have sad endings.
This is often deemed "acceptable" to adult audiences, but I cannot even begin to count the number of times that adults panic over the same scenario when children are listening.
Actually, I find that children cope better. They have a far better sense of reality; and a far more down to earth sense of justice....for example, in telling of the 3 Little Pigs, I had a teacher object, loudly , that the first two pigs were eaten. It was a 4 year old boy who told her
"Miss, the other two pigs broke ALL the rules, disobeyed their mother, acted stupid, of COURSE they're gonna get eaten for it, cos that's right!"
In my early days as a storyteller, I grappled with the violence inherent in the myths of every society I have studied. Not just background violence, but often, gleeful, shocking, "In-your-face" violence. I still cannot tell the tale of Branwen without inwardly recoiling as her infant son is hurled into a fire by her brother. And yes, I've asked myself often, can that bit be left out? My conclusion is always no. It cannot. It serves the story, and serves a deeper purpose. Sometimes the shared experience of violence (a bloody good bust up, war, fighting) serves to relieve a tension. I'm not a particularly violent human being, although I have a pretty hot temper. After the telling of a tale, I feel satiated. All hint of aggression worn out in default through the story. (Perhaps this is why, over the years, my temper has worn away to nearly nothing).
In the case of the tale of Branwen, by the end we are grieving, all together, sharing our most primal fears. I think it teaches us that we do share that common humanity. I've never told the story without witnessing a quietening in the room. Often, folk are weeping, even grown men. It is by the sharing of these fears and troubles, that the individual realises that they are not alone...or lone. Someone who can place themselves in the shoes of others, is; I think, unlikely to go out and rampage. I cannot speak of Batman etc...not my genre, not my area. Except to say that I feel strongly that we can never blame the story for the crime. Myth shows us how to share pains, and joys,and fears; how to relieve ourselves of the burdens of aggression; and teaches us basic justice.
Posted by: Fiona Siobhan Powell | July 23, 2012 at 12:05 PM
I am bemused to see that Mr. LaSalle thinks we've lost the "female principle".....and are thus more violent. He obviously hasn't looked into the myths of Matriarchal societies, such as the early Celts..violent as all get-out!!
I think there are more stories of women, mothers, sisters , wives, exerting life power over their tribe/family than there are men. Men are too busy hunting and bashing up other tribes who threaten them; to plan horrific schemes against their own kind.
Posted by: Fiona Siobhan Powell | July 23, 2012 at 12:19 PM
Fiona, Thanks for your wisdom. As Mr. LaSalle is a journalist and limited to a certain number of words not exactly thought out perfectly before he must go to print, I would like to think that he is pointing to a kind of violent story that is exactly not cathartic, not unifying us in our humanity, but brutalizing us. Violence in stories, as you rightly point out, can be helpful to us. I think in particular of the movie Pan's Labyrinth, which is a rough and terrifying ride, but which left me with a deep sense of the connectedness of humanity. I cannot think of a movie that LaSalle would consider devoid of the "Female Principle," whatever that is, but he must have thought "The Dark Knight Rises" was this type of dehumanizing story.
http://myth.typepad.com/breakfast/2007/07/pans-labyrinth-.html
Posted by: DF | July 23, 2012 at 03:06 PM