response to aeonx
This post has been edited by me on 12/19 in order to take out instigating remarks said to aeonx, which were a mistake on my part, and focus on my rebuttal to her comment about something I wrote in a post. She made a good point in that I am a teacher, and ought to always teach the higher ground. My apologies, aeonx.
aeonx,
Since you apparently used a piece of my argument to discredit my line of discussion, I feel the need to respond and clarify my point of view:
aeonx said:
After this movie, several incidents of 'Mickey & Mallory'-behaviour were reported in countries over the world, and people got killed. You say in your first post that you won't see the tarot horror movie, but Natural Born Killers is 'ok' because of the message you understood from the movie?
On your first assertion, I will have to take your word for it that worldwide copycat violence resulted from the viewing of this movie, though I have not heard of any from any other source. This may be true, but since I did not research it I cannot verify one way or another. In any case, let me move my point further. My quote you refer to was this:
"In any case, I do not plan on seeing the movie if the subject is as you say."
Now, at the time of that post, I understood the movie to be a horror movie glorifying demonic practices and using tarot to exemplify that. I am not fond of horror that revels in itself. I prefer horror to be repulsive and to be shown to point out that it is horrible. It was my personal choice to decide whether I would see it or not. Also, I continued after this with,
"I know any form of media cannot "make" people think a certain way, but if the only way something is presented is in a negative light, then, well, that's most likely how folks will see it. And if you expect to make the point within the context of the movie that this boy is naughty,, ..bad bad for doing this... there is still the contingent who will not see the movie, but think themselves experts knowing about the movie."
My point here was to alert arkgoth to possible implications, and since he graciously entered a tarot chat site for our viewpoints, I thought I would give him words to think about. I did say this in another post:
"I am not witch hunting arkgoth and his film. I believe he made a call for opinions and I wanted him to note some possible implications, not ultimate truths. If I believed that he didn't want to hear all sides and be open to them, I would not have bothered to post him, or at least post anything thoughtful. I will give him as much information as I have in my limited store of knowledge (I, in no way, profess to be a tarot expert. I have much to learn)."
I did also add that, "However I do stand by my belief that a movie of this subject matter may lead to negative repercussions within the tarot community."
Exactomundo. Your point. I bet that the majority of people who saw NBK did not get the message Stone was trying to convey, instead they disliked the movie because of the violence and 'sickness' of it. People see different things and make up their own opinions. Trying to covering up things will not help clarifying them to others. We, ourselves, need to voice the actual matter.
i agree that many did not get the message of the movie, which is precisely why I show the movie in the context of a media awareness course. And within the context I preface the viewing of the movie within a contextual background of Stone's message. I use an extended version which has a documentary featuring Stone and the main cast explaining the movies roots in satire (which attempts to point up society's problems by ridiculing them) and Stone's assertion that he is disgusted with violence being treated by other filmmakers as fun. I highlight the points he makes, and I even show a further petition he makes at the beginning of the video for the viewer to understand his message against desensitization of violence and a challenge for the viewer to see it again as he intended.
I do not wish to "cover up" arkgoth's attempt in this movie; in fact, further in my post I said, "I love his movie for its in-your-face portrayal of the grossness of media violence. If you perform this feat as well as he, then I think your movie will be wonderful. "
If you think I contradict myself by saying this, having previously said I do not plan on seeing the movie (followed, I stress, by an "if" clause, because even in that post I did not pass a final judgment on the movie), I think it is just my progression of understanding, which came by speaking my thoughts, hearing the other side, and adjusting my understanding accordingly, not through hypocrisy. I think I demonstrated my evolution of understanding when I responded to Diana's despondency at my comments:
"I will try to look at things with a more worldly perspective, and for that I ask that you continue to offer it to us, or at least offer repeatedly that mirror through which we view our blemishes. "
I wanted to keep Diana in the dialogue, since she offered opposing viewpoints and an important point about how much of the world is different from America, and, as I have also said in this thread, everything has its opposite and a whole needs to have each opposite in order to be effective.
Another difference that I saw between NBK and this movie in progress was that Stone came from an angle of expertise, having been thoroughly engulfed in violence from personal experience in Vietnam and saturation of violence in the media. arkgoth professes several times in this thread that he knows little of his subject matter. I therefore felt I might offer some of my own insights, though I am no expert. On a sidenote, hoping that arkgoth is still reading and has not closed his open ears because of a comment he read, I do hope he remains in the discussion and still holds some of the ideas he was presented with by the posters of this thread. I am quite interested in his movie now, and I see he is a thinking man trying to stimulate further thought, which is to me, a most valuable thing.
Finally, I do not wish to compare this movie with NBK for one simple reason: NBK is a finished product, whereas this remains now a work in progress. I am not ruling out seeing it, just speculating what may be. I do not attempt to suppress, simply offer up views when someone asks for them. I am proud that arkgoth found one of my musings to be something interesting to think about, something he has not considered, and I hope it is something that adds further to his understanding of the world, or makes him question his understandings, as I get the impression he wishes to do with this film. That to me is a good thing. As a teacher, one of my constant, underlying missions is to challenge my students to think in a way they haven't thought before. True intelligence, in my opinion, comes from having ones thoughts, understandings and beliefs challenged, not to necessarily change them, but at least to test them, which can result in reinforcement of beliefs, evolution of belief, or total turnaround of belief. And in the end, that is for the individual to decide upon.
Peace!
I would like to thank those of you who were concerned and gave me the opportunity to dive a little further into the subject that I was portraying on film. Your help was invaluable.