Hello again everyone. After a brief leave of abscence whilst moving, I have returned. I really love this new place. Except a shelf collapsed in my closet this morning spilling crap everywhere. I gotta call maintenance.
Anyway, I signed on here with a purpose. Today I have something to say. I was thinking about the differences between my generation and my parents generation. I was thinking about how people blamed violence on TV or in movies, or in music for the Columbine shootings two years ago. I decided to take a look back at some of the shows that my parents grew up with, and see their moral value. And what could hold more moral value than a christmas movie. How about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? There's a wholesome christmas movie, right? Brace yourselves readers, after a careful look, I have found the dark messages portrayed in this christmas classic.
First of all you have Rudolph. He is born and his parents love him, but then they see he has a red nose. Well, crap, he'll never be on Santa's Sleigh pulling team now. He is different. He is unique. He won't fit in. Santa sees and says that they need to fix his nose, so his parents try to cover up their son's disformity because they are afraid that Santa will look down on his father, Donner, because Rudolph stands out. They cover his nose with a black thing. He goes to reindeer tryouts or whatever and the coach is there. Rudolph's makes some friends there, including a young doe who thinks that he is cute. Rudolph, excited by the doe, jumps around and his black nose falls off, exposing the red nose. His friends turn on him, the coach chastises him in front of everyone, and the doe's father doesn't want his daughter hanging around with a red nosed reindeer.
The lesson so far: Conform kids. If you are different, your parents will be ashamed, your friends will laugh at you, you'll never get a girlfriend, and, yes, even Santa Claus himself will hate you.
Cut to Herbie the Elf. Tired of working at a monotonous job, making the same toys over and over, he aspires to make more of his life. He wants to help people. He wants to be a dentist. His efforts are continually thwarted by his boss who tells him he'll never amount to anything more than an elf. And he'll LIKE it. Herbie is crushed and cannot concentrate on his boring and meaningless factory job while his dreams of fillings, braces, and drills dance across his mind. Herbie botches the elf dance for Santa and his boss really lets him have it. Herbie runs away.
Let go of your dreams kids, you'll never really amount to anything. If you are an elf, be an elf, do not try to better your station in life, because it is wrong to do.
The ultimate in this lesson of conformity is the Island of Misfit Toys, where all the "different" toys go to die. There we see a "Charley in the Box", shunned simply because his name isn't Jack, and as we all know, "Nobody wants to play with a CHARLEY in the Box."
Is this really the moral programming we've deviated from? Is showing sex and violence that much worse than showing hatred for those who are different?
Let's look at music. There's a song that is attacked a lot called "Kim" by Eminem. In this song Marshall kills his wife for cheating on him. Now I'll agree, kids shouldn't hear this song. I'll only agree because it has a lot of F words and is pretty vulgar. But the message is not driving kids to kill. The message of killing your girlfriend for cheating on you was okay, when it came out for my parents generation in the Jimi Hendrix song "Hey Joe." It's the exact same plot. Or how about killing the guy she's cheating with, like in "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles. I mean come on. The Beatles came out with a song called "Happiness is a Warm Gun," and you're getting upset about OUR music? Charles Manson said "Helter Skelter" pumped him up. I think that's the only time in history a violent act has been blamed on music BY the person who committed the act, and not by ignorant people trying to find comfort in blaming the horrendous affairs on others. I just watched a thing on VH1 about Judas Preist I think. They had a song that two kids listened to while they killed themselves. In the song, the parents swear, along with their lawyer, were subliminal messages saying the phrase "Do it." over and over seven times. And according to them, this is why their kids were dead. They brought in a sound guy to play the song at super slow speeds and drown out some of the noises and get it so they could hear what ended up being a mix between a plucked guitar string, and an exhalation of the lead singer, that barely resembled the phrase "do it" if that's what you were listening for. I mean if you wanted to hear "strudel" you could've heard that too. Anyway, you had to strain to hear anything at all, but during the course of the trial the phrase "do it" in reference to the complaint had to be stated, quite clearly, at least a hundred times. And yet, no one shot themselves. Weird, eh? I mean "do it" even if it was there, would only mean "commit suicide" if you were going to do it anyway. Otherwise it might mean "clean your room" or "take out the trash" or "moon the neighbors." And yet, this actually made it to trial and was almost found in favor of the plaintiff.
My generations problem is that we are so easily classified by our parents generation. It's their way of blocking out what is different from them. According to them we are all killers. We are all on the edge and we are ready to snap. We all listen to rap and we all do drugs. We all don't get steady jobs and we all dye our hair purple. (the purple hair was an accident on my part). We're all going to shoot up high schools, its our generation that is so lost, that that is okay to us. What is wrong with our generation? Why do we need to kill people?
This is of course based on Columbine, Santana, and probably like four more high school shootings. At MOST fifteen kids have gone on these shooting sprees. I'd say fifteen is a good representation of our WHOLE generation, wouldn't you? My generation was also the victims of those attacks, by the way.
So okay. Based on the information I have, my parents generation are all a group of killers too. They hear dogs telling them what to do (The Son of Sam, David Berkowitz), and dress as clowns (John Wayne Gacy) and kill kids. They also assassinate presidents (Lee Harvey Oswald) or try to assassinate presidents for famous people (John Hinckley shot Reagan for Jodie Foster). Let us not forget about how screwed up they are, proven by one Charles Manson. And let us not forget about where the term "Going Postal" came from. David Koresh thought he was Jesus Christ and burned up all his people, and everyone drank the Kool-Aid at Jonestown. I think you guys are more screwed up than us. You watch your violent movies (i.e. The Godfather) and hear your violent music (i.e. the beforementioned). It drives you to kill everyone. All of your generation is messed up severly. At least we don't make up some lame excuse and blame it on dogs, or the ATF and Janet Reno, or "Taxi Driver" and "Helter Skelter." We have you to do that for us.
Anyway, I signed on here with a purpose. Today I have something to say. I was thinking about the differences between my generation and my parents generation. I was thinking about how people blamed violence on TV or in movies, or in music for the Columbine shootings two years ago. I decided to take a look back at some of the shows that my parents grew up with, and see their moral value. And what could hold more moral value than a christmas movie. How about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? There's a wholesome christmas movie, right? Brace yourselves readers, after a careful look, I have found the dark messages portrayed in this christmas classic.
First of all you have Rudolph. He is born and his parents love him, but then they see he has a red nose. Well, crap, he'll never be on Santa's Sleigh pulling team now. He is different. He is unique. He won't fit in. Santa sees and says that they need to fix his nose, so his parents try to cover up their son's disformity because they are afraid that Santa will look down on his father, Donner, because Rudolph stands out. They cover his nose with a black thing. He goes to reindeer tryouts or whatever and the coach is there. Rudolph's makes some friends there, including a young doe who thinks that he is cute. Rudolph, excited by the doe, jumps around and his black nose falls off, exposing the red nose. His friends turn on him, the coach chastises him in front of everyone, and the doe's father doesn't want his daughter hanging around with a red nosed reindeer.
The lesson so far: Conform kids. If you are different, your parents will be ashamed, your friends will laugh at you, you'll never get a girlfriend, and, yes, even Santa Claus himself will hate you.
Cut to Herbie the Elf. Tired of working at a monotonous job, making the same toys over and over, he aspires to make more of his life. He wants to help people. He wants to be a dentist. His efforts are continually thwarted by his boss who tells him he'll never amount to anything more than an elf. And he'll LIKE it. Herbie is crushed and cannot concentrate on his boring and meaningless factory job while his dreams of fillings, braces, and drills dance across his mind. Herbie botches the elf dance for Santa and his boss really lets him have it. Herbie runs away.
Let go of your dreams kids, you'll never really amount to anything. If you are an elf, be an elf, do not try to better your station in life, because it is wrong to do.
The ultimate in this lesson of conformity is the Island of Misfit Toys, where all the "different" toys go to die. There we see a "Charley in the Box", shunned simply because his name isn't Jack, and as we all know, "Nobody wants to play with a CHARLEY in the Box."
Is this really the moral programming we've deviated from? Is showing sex and violence that much worse than showing hatred for those who are different?
Let's look at music. There's a song that is attacked a lot called "Kim" by Eminem. In this song Marshall kills his wife for cheating on him. Now I'll agree, kids shouldn't hear this song. I'll only agree because it has a lot of F words and is pretty vulgar. But the message is not driving kids to kill. The message of killing your girlfriend for cheating on you was okay, when it came out for my parents generation in the Jimi Hendrix song "Hey Joe." It's the exact same plot. Or how about killing the guy she's cheating with, like in "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles. I mean come on. The Beatles came out with a song called "Happiness is a Warm Gun," and you're getting upset about OUR music? Charles Manson said "Helter Skelter" pumped him up. I think that's the only time in history a violent act has been blamed on music BY the person who committed the act, and not by ignorant people trying to find comfort in blaming the horrendous affairs on others. I just watched a thing on VH1 about Judas Preist I think. They had a song that two kids listened to while they killed themselves. In the song, the parents swear, along with their lawyer, were subliminal messages saying the phrase "Do it." over and over seven times. And according to them, this is why their kids were dead. They brought in a sound guy to play the song at super slow speeds and drown out some of the noises and get it so they could hear what ended up being a mix between a plucked guitar string, and an exhalation of the lead singer, that barely resembled the phrase "do it" if that's what you were listening for. I mean if you wanted to hear "strudel" you could've heard that too. Anyway, you had to strain to hear anything at all, but during the course of the trial the phrase "do it" in reference to the complaint had to be stated, quite clearly, at least a hundred times. And yet, no one shot themselves. Weird, eh? I mean "do it" even if it was there, would only mean "commit suicide" if you were going to do it anyway. Otherwise it might mean "clean your room" or "take out the trash" or "moon the neighbors." And yet, this actually made it to trial and was almost found in favor of the plaintiff.
My generations problem is that we are so easily classified by our parents generation. It's their way of blocking out what is different from them. According to them we are all killers. We are all on the edge and we are ready to snap. We all listen to rap and we all do drugs. We all don't get steady jobs and we all dye our hair purple. (the purple hair was an accident on my part). We're all going to shoot up high schools, its our generation that is so lost, that that is okay to us. What is wrong with our generation? Why do we need to kill people?
This is of course based on Columbine, Santana, and probably like four more high school shootings. At MOST fifteen kids have gone on these shooting sprees. I'd say fifteen is a good representation of our WHOLE generation, wouldn't you? My generation was also the victims of those attacks, by the way.
So okay. Based on the information I have, my parents generation are all a group of killers too. They hear dogs telling them what to do (The Son of Sam, David Berkowitz), and dress as clowns (John Wayne Gacy) and kill kids. They also assassinate presidents (Lee Harvey Oswald) or try to assassinate presidents for famous people (John Hinckley shot Reagan for Jodie Foster). Let us not forget about how screwed up they are, proven by one Charles Manson. And let us not forget about where the term "Going Postal" came from. David Koresh thought he was Jesus Christ and burned up all his people, and everyone drank the Kool-Aid at Jonestown. I think you guys are more screwed up than us. You watch your violent movies (i.e. The Godfather) and hear your violent music (i.e. the beforementioned). It drives you to kill everyone. All of your generation is messed up severly. At least we don't make up some lame excuse and blame it on dogs, or the ATF and Janet Reno, or "Taxi Driver" and "Helter Skelter." We have you to do that for us.
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