Violence, gore, the media, and us

Indonesia
November 15, 2009 5:53pm CST
Not too long before, a good friend of mine showed me a short video clip (well, not too short perhaps, considering its 6 minute duration) about a Japanese animation called "School Life". I have no idea what that "School Life" is all about, but he said - no, warned - me and my other friend that the video we are about to behold are of utmost gruesome nature and it will "ruin" our morality. My friend watched the clip first, and i counted at least 7 shocking sights in the clip, enough to stir the bile in his gut, widen his eyes, and exclaim "oh my god!". After he was done with it, I watched the video as well. It was in Japanese so I am not privy to whatever atrocious conversations that unfolded between the characters, but it does involve a lot of gore( it shows how a girl continuously stabbed her lover who cheated on her until he is lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes wide and empty, with some tears streaking down. When the girl realized what she had done, she ran away. Then the other girl, supposedly the one the man has been cheating with, came into the room, and saw the corpse in front of her. Then that girl (B) confronted the murderer girl (A). when B confronted A, her eyes are already empty, supposedly from the anguish of losing her lover. they had a little word fight, and then A saw that B had severed the head of the lover and put it in a bag. B then proceeded to slash A at her midsection. the scene was censored and a gush of blood skywards was all that I saw during the slashing.).after watching that video, i feel...nothing. no sense of fear, no disgust, no astonishment, no bile churning in my gut, no blood curdling in my veins, nothing. My other two companions smiled at my state, calling me a heartless person. and at that moment, a thought came to my mind. "am i really a heartless person?" am i really devoid of emotions?(a fact that i am aware of recently)have i no sense of pity, remorse, fear, guilt? or was it because i simply can stomach such displays better than my compatriots? when i continue to ponder on this subject, more and more theories came to me about my friends' reactions and opinions about that clip and how theirs are very different from mine. i do not fancy myself to be an emotional person. most of my decisions are based on (as other say, cold and indifferent) logic. but have i gone down to a state where i have lost my sense of humanity? or has our current generation of mankind lost its ability to adapt to the cruelty and brutality (and perhaps even the eventuality) of our lives?
1 person likes this
2 responses
@ybong007 (6643)
• Philippines
16 Nov 09
I don't think your not being grossed out has anything to do about your humanity, I can say that you have more tolerance in seeing those things. Maybe you are just able to differentiate what's real and what's not because we normally base our reactions to how we relate to a situation and how we visualize ourselves in that situation. I think I would react the same as your friends did because I can visualize myself as the victim in the video whereas you tend to look at is as only a movie and therefore your reaction is different. If you see a real person having to go through the same fate and you still have that indifferent reaction, maybe there's something wrong somewhere. Cheers!
• Indonesia
17 Nov 09
you say that you visualize yourself as a victim to that video. please enlighten me on that matter for i do not fully understand it. and, regarding seeing a real person undergo such a similar fate, perhaps so, but i have yet to have that experience, if ever. alas, it will only be a matter of time before such scarring sights assail one in his life, for he would be lucky to be spared such macabre subjects in his time.
• United States
15 Nov 09
I'm so revolted by such things that I was unable to finish reading your post. Sorry! I hope we're not becoming insensitive to it when there's so much of it everywhere these days!
• Indonesia
16 Nov 09
lol i quite understand your situation, and my sentiments the same :)