Letters to the Editor 10-09-2002
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
- Concerned About Cultural Decline
Concerned About Cultural Decline
Editor, Times-Union:I read Gary Gerard's article, "Ignoring Cultural Decline," with dire concern. I also was extremely shocked when CBS News revealed what is called "Bumfighters," involving poor, destitute street derelicts who beat up or half kill one another for a group of lowlife, money-mad movie producers who pay the derelicts so they can buy food, booze etc.; furthermore, those sick, dollar-crazed movie makers are getting rich on photographing barbarous acts that men are performing on their fellow man. In fact, I understand that they are making millions off those videos depicting all kinds of dastardly tactics that bring out the worst in human nature. (It's an awful thing to say, but much of today's society seems to have an evil, sadistic attitude toward what they refer to as pleasure or entertainment. So many members of the human race obviously get a real bang out of seeing terrible things happen to other people, just so long as nothing dreadful or catastrophic happens to them, or theirs.)
Then, there's the question regarding today's motion pictures and their evil influence over the young. Today, kids desire movies that reek with blood and gore, including scenes depicting the process of cutting off arms, gouging out eyes, chopping off heads - kids today have become so hard and jaded that they laugh at what we senior citizens once thought represented absolute horror on the screen. Back in the 1930s, the film "Frankenstein" was considered to be the champion of all horror movies. Today, small kids and teenagers merely snicker at the hideous monster that Boris Karloff portrays in the film. And "King Kong"! In 1933, while watching the film lead up to the time for Kong to make his initial bow, we also watched Fay Wray, the leading lady, as she struggles to break loose from the chains that hold her captive for Kong, while she screams bloody murder at the prospect of confronting Kong for the first time. Well, movie spectators in 1933, along with Fay Wray, chewed their fingernails to the bone waiting in absolute terror for the monstrous ape, "King Kong," to make that first appearance. In recent years, I took my niece to view a reissue of "King Kong," and how did she react? Well, she found the film to be quite amusing; in fact, she sat there giggling in utter delight over the whole thing from the film's beginning until it ended.
Forty years ago, somebody bought off the Hollywood censors, and since then movies have certainly changed; entertainment values, for the most part, have changed; but most of all human beings have changed. Some call it progress for the better. But, how much of it actually is?
Don Kaiser
Warsaw
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- Concerned About Cultural Decline
Concerned About Cultural Decline
Editor, Times-Union:I read Gary Gerard's article, "Ignoring Cultural Decline," with dire concern. I also was extremely shocked when CBS News revealed what is called "Bumfighters," involving poor, destitute street derelicts who beat up or half kill one another for a group of lowlife, money-mad movie producers who pay the derelicts so they can buy food, booze etc.; furthermore, those sick, dollar-crazed movie makers are getting rich on photographing barbarous acts that men are performing on their fellow man. In fact, I understand that they are making millions off those videos depicting all kinds of dastardly tactics that bring out the worst in human nature. (It's an awful thing to say, but much of today's society seems to have an evil, sadistic attitude toward what they refer to as pleasure or entertainment. So many members of the human race obviously get a real bang out of seeing terrible things happen to other people, just so long as nothing dreadful or catastrophic happens to them, or theirs.)
Then, there's the question regarding today's motion pictures and their evil influence over the young. Today, kids desire movies that reek with blood and gore, including scenes depicting the process of cutting off arms, gouging out eyes, chopping off heads - kids today have become so hard and jaded that they laugh at what we senior citizens once thought represented absolute horror on the screen. Back in the 1930s, the film "Frankenstein" was considered to be the champion of all horror movies. Today, small kids and teenagers merely snicker at the hideous monster that Boris Karloff portrays in the film. And "King Kong"! In 1933, while watching the film lead up to the time for Kong to make his initial bow, we also watched Fay Wray, the leading lady, as she struggles to break loose from the chains that hold her captive for Kong, while she screams bloody murder at the prospect of confronting Kong for the first time. Well, movie spectators in 1933, along with Fay Wray, chewed their fingernails to the bone waiting in absolute terror for the monstrous ape, "King Kong," to make that first appearance. In recent years, I took my niece to view a reissue of "King Kong," and how did she react? Well, she found the film to be quite amusing; in fact, she sat there giggling in utter delight over the whole thing from the film's beginning until it ended.
Forty years ago, somebody bought off the Hollywood censors, and since then movies have certainly changed; entertainment values, for the most part, have changed; but most of all human beings have changed. Some call it progress for the better. But, how much of it actually is?
Don Kaiser
Warsaw
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