Please be gentle on my mind (a newspaper article)

[aldona]

This is an article that appeared in today's newspaper - I just had to share it.

(quote)

Please be gentle on my mind

A FRIEND invited me to a movie and, as usual, I said no. Because that movie, like almost every other, contained violence.

After 10 years’ close association with an organisation supporting bereaved people and seven years helping survivors write Holocaust memoirs, I do not do violence as entertainment.

Another friend came to spend the evening. "So, what’s on television, then?" he said brightly. "You’ll have to fi nd something without violence in it," I replied. "I don’t do violence. I don’t care whether it’s upperclass, nicely dressed violence, trash-alley violence, police violence, mortuary violence, joke violence, cyber violence or emergency-room trauma. I don’t read detective stories either. To me, murder is simply not fun."

He was silent as he scanned the guide — and, of course, the television stayed off.

I never liked violence. On the farm I was the one who could never shoot a possum, hook a fi sh or slit a sheep’s throat. I couldn’t even stamp on a snail or kill a snake.

Oh, how they loved to bash their poor little jewel heads in. Those who relished such sport were tough, healthy country kids. I was the weakling, the softie, the weirdo, the easy tease.

The "normal" supped their violence like single malts, relishing the terror. "That was so good," they said. "I was soooo scared!"

We guzzle violence, yet when it breaks on our screens as news we’re shocked. "It’s appalling, horrible, degrading and must be stopped!" cry the masses. People flinch at the details of the ghastly violence perpetrated on women and children in some Aboriginal communities, but two hours later are tucked up with a block of chocolate and yet another star-studded kill-fest, hearts in their mouths in front of the fire as they watch a young woman being stalked by a gang with knives.

When I declare myself, people often respond by saying how marvellous the script is, or the wonderful cinematography, and I’m even sadder, because all this talent is so dedicated to making the world ugly.

Isn’t it blindingly obvious? We love watching other people suffer. Besides the blood and- guts stuff with deadly weapons, shows such as Big Brother glory in the psychological abuse of young, stupid people. We want that girl to break down and cry. We want the loudmouth to be mortified on national television.

It’s so sick, yet after a long diet of such strong stuff we’re so numbed that only greater violence makes us feel anything. Gentle won’t rate its socks off. Gentle doesn’t stand a chance. Give us blood, pain and fear! And we thought Nero was a barbarian.

Obviously, violent entertainment pays well, so it’s not likely to go away. If it pays, it stays — like trying to get the Chinese Government to admit atrocities in Tibet. No government is ever going to raise that argument, not with all those dollars pouring in.

Perhaps the only thing powerful enough to change our ways is some massive global catastrophe, leaving a silent and broken planet on which the only way forward for the few survivors is to help each other.

(source: "The Age", Melbourne, Australia, 6 June 2006.)