Pointing Fingers

No, of course, what really matters is the blame.
Somebody to blame.
Fine, if that's the thing you enjoy, placing the blame,
If that's the aim, give me the blame.

- The Witch, "The Last Midnight," Into the Woods

Sometimes it amazes me how much people obsess over who is to blame for human stupidity. Well, that and the fact that the only way Cincinnati can make the national news is for something profoundly dumb.

I'm sure most of you have seen the video of the 16-year old boy from Independence, KY (a few miles south of Cincinnati) who let his friends plow into him with a car, thinking that he could jump it and avoid getting hurt. It's been reported that the boys were taping the stunt to try to get it aired on Jackass, a fine example of the other things the "M" in MTV has come to stand for. (Mediocre, Moronic, Manure, Makes-me-want-to-tear-my-eyes-out, Mindnumbingly bad, My-God-we-actually-played-four-whole-music-videos-today...need I go on?)

I'm most certainly not going to defend the intelligence of the high school students, or the value of Jackass as quality programming. The few times I've seen the show, I've wound up shaking my head over the stupidity of the "stunts," not to mention that someone in a boardroom heard the pitch for this and thought, "Wow! What a great idea for a show!" Hell, he probably got a promotion for greenlighting it.

So yeah, the kids were incredibly stupid for thinking that they could pull this stunt off injury-free. If they were taping this to submit to Jackass (which, by the way, is apparently too crass a word to be said on the evening news here - they just kept referring to it as "the show on MTV." But showing the video 57 million times is OK.), the students apparently missed out on the disclaimers included in the show that warn viewers not to try what they see at home and not to send in tapes because they won't use them. Big duhs all around.

This (and other incidents involving other group of similar dim bulbs) has sparked yet another nationwide outcry about the horrible things television is doing to the young people in our country. Time to jump on the "MTV is evil" bandwagon again. There's only one problem with this argument: the witness who called 911, a friend of the would-be car-jumper, states that his now hospitalized friend doesn't have cable and has maybe seen the show once or twice. They were just videotaping a stupid, incredibly dangerous stunt for the hell of it.

Sounds like the Beavis and Butthead thing all over again. You remember. The 5-year old who set fire to the family trailer, killing his 2-year old sister in the process? And the mom tried to blame it on Mike Judge's favorite idiot boys. Never mind the fact that the trailer park had no cable hookups, the children were left unattended, and the lighter was readily available. Everybody condemned the show, and MTV censored out all the references to fire and changed the disclaimer at the beginning of the show and moved it to a later time slot.

And as if all this wasn't silly enough, the families of the victims of the Columbine massacre have filed a lawsuit against 25 entertainment companies for $5 billion dollars in punitive damages. OK, I don't want to open a big old messy can of worms here. What happened at Columbine (and all other related student-caused tragedies) is awful, and my heart goes out to the families, the victims, the survivors. But the two kids did not just go nuts because they played a little too much Doom. Marilyn Manson did not put the guns in their hands and whisper, "Pull the trigger," in their ears. But yet they've picked the video game manufacturers as the scapegoats du jour because their "super-violent video games" take happy normal kids "and turn them into monster killers."

I've played Doom, and I wasn't very good at it. Of course, it took me 6 or 7 hours straight of playing to come to this conclusion. I've been known to burn through a roll of quarters on Area 51, and I take my alien killing rather seriously. I was better at the game than most of the bouncers at the Warehouse. I listen to industrial music. Marilyn Manson? Got it. KMFDM? Got it. Rammstein? Got it. (And how an album that's entirely in German was a factor to warping their fragile little minds still boggles my mind. From what I can discern, neither of the boys spoke the language. I mean, judging from the snarling vocals, I think it's safe to say that the singer's not talking about puppies and ice cream, but I can't say that with complete accuracy. And after the night that Roger Mexico told me what Front 242's "Headhunter" was really about, I've learned not to assume.) JohnnyB is surgically attached to Diablo2, except when he's kicking my ass in EvilZone on the Playstation. Are any of us going to go postal anytime soon?

I've watched Jackass a few times with Nash. I even caught my dad watching it one night. I think it's safe to say that none of us are going to be attempting to leap over moving cars anytime soon.

Just because a person watches a movie or TV show, plays a video game, or listens to a particular type of music and then does something moronic or tragic is no reason to completely ban or do away with that medium. If the media is to blame, then I advise you to turn your computer off immediately - there's bad stuff out there like violence and gore and pornography and I wouldn't want to expose you to it. Keep your TV turned off. Don't turn on the radio. Don't go to the movies. The entertainment business is dead set on controlling your mind. You, the public, are not smart enough to watch/listen/play the products that are out there and make an intelligent decision. You will just mindlessly mimic the medium in real life, whether that means running your friend over with your Honda Civic or shooting someone in the back.

How many times do we have to go through this? Did any of those lawsuits filed against Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest years ago prove that those kids would have been perfectly happy and productive members of society if the evil music hadn't "told" them to commit suicide? Did anyone go on a cross-country killing spree with their significant other simply because they saw Natural Born Killers? Has one single person ever been arrested after murdering a police officer and used "Ice T told me to" as a plausible motive? If a battered wife kills her abusive husband, will politicians be pointing fingers at the Dixie Chicks?

Ugh. This makes my head hurt. Time to go home and do something mindless, like watch Bring It On for the billionth time.

Yeah, that's right. I own the damn cheerleader movie. It was on the previously viewed shelf, I was powerless. Can I sue Universal Studios and Blockbuster Video for mind control?