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None of this is to make excuses for Cho. He was sick, and the pain that he inflicted makes his own suffering insignificant. Miniscule. Infinitesimal. He was the bad guy, and he got off easy by shooting himself. But as disturbed as he was, on some level, I understand. I think we all do, and that's why we're so fascinated. Why we excuse the round-the-clock coverage, the invasiveness of the media firestorm. Because what happened at Virginia Tech, and Columbine, and with Charles Whitman and every other whack job that snapped one day and took out his anger and frustration on anyone and everyone he could find... every time that happens, it offers us a peek at the darkness inside us all. These guys aren't suicide bombers half way across the world fighting a political battle. They aren't a nameless, faceless catastrophe. They aren't even schizophrenics who thought Joan of Arc was telling them to do it. They're us, just too weak or stupid or... something, I guess, to face the world for what it is. And as crazy as that sounds, that makes me feel good, and it should make you feel good, too. Because we are the ones that are strong enough. We wake up every day and face the world not knowing if our lives mean anything. We face injustice and unfairness, a world filled with man's inhumanity toward man and broadcast into our living rooms round the clock, and we soldier on. We do our best to fight the good fight. We try. We stumble, and we fail, and we can be weak. But unlike Cho, unlike those Columbine kids, we're not giving up. We're not lashing out. We're trying to fix the things that seem so wrong. We're fascinated because we see our weakness in them, but deep down we know that we're stronger.

By now you're probably wondering how on earth I can swing this conversation back around to movies. I know you're not reading to hear my diatribe on the human condition. But in the coming weeks, people are going to try to cover this with a smoke screen. They're going to try and fit it into that nice, neat box that they can control and fix. It's already starting, with the revelation that Cho watched Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy repeatedly before going on his shooting spree. One of the photos he sent to NBC even shows him posing with a hammer like the film's hero. They're going to say the movies are to blame. They're already saying it.

I've seen Oldboy, and I liked it. For the uninitiated, it's a revenge flick from a talented director named Park Chan-wook. By sheer coincidence, I have his follow-up flick, the brilliantly titled Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, sitting in a Netflix envelope on my coffee table. Oldboy is the story of a man locked in a room for fourteen years by some unseen enemy, and he has no idea why. Then, he's released, and has only a few days to find out who locked him up and why. His road to that end is brutal, filled with stylish violence and ends with a psychological torture that almost breaks him. Maybe it does, you could argue. But as a revenge film, it is elevated almost to the level of Greek tragedy, if you ask me. It contains elements of incest and self-mutilation, but so does Oedipus Rex. It's not Schindler's List, and most critics derided it as being stylish to a fault, without anything much to say. I disagree, but so it goes.

Posted in Moviegasm , Newsgasm by Sutter Cane at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Last Comment: sutter kane on May 6, 2007 01:32 PM.

Comments (5)

nmk01 :

You deserve a standing ovation for that. Well said.

1 of 5 | Posted by nmk01 | Posted on April 25, 2007 2:20 PM

JayhawkAnne :

Amen, Sutter. You've succinctly and eloquently said what's been bouncing around in my mind since the horrific incident. Thank you. Ditto the standing ovation.

2 of 5 | Posted by JayhawkAnne | Posted on April 25, 2007 2:51 PM

jack:

Sutter, are you a Wahoo?

in any case, well said, friend--i'm from central VA, had dozens of friends at Tech, and have two cousins there now--one in the grad. engineering school and another on the aeronautical engineering faculty--they were both elsewhere when Cho entered Norris (the main engineering classroom building at Tech) but I too have felt more personally affected by this than I might otherwise have been . . . I can also remember watching the Columbine story unfold in my apt. in C'ville way back in the day . .

Nice work; unexpected sincerity at TVGasm. Your sober account of this sad story is refreshing in comparison to the hysteria of the major news media outlets. kudos.

3 of 5 | Posted by jack | Posted on April 26, 2007 8:53 AM

Megolopolis :

Why isn't anyone blaming Collective Soul? Apparently he was obsessed with one of their songs - Shine?

Kudos for such a courageous statement.

4 of 5 | Posted by Megolopolis | Posted on April 26, 2007 11:48 AM

sutter kane :

Thanks, everybody, for your comments.

5 of 5 | Posted by sutter kane | Posted on May 6, 2007 1:32 PM

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