6.Yrs said
Nah..
Way to give em what they wanted..
Infamy.
|
An excerpt from a CUNY paper from 2019 titled Mass Shooting Films: Myths, Academic Knowledge, and Popular
Criminology
In We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011), the perpetrator (Kevin) gives a televised
interview from prison following the massacre stating:
Kevin: You wake up, and you watch TV. Get in your car, and you listen to the radio. And
you go to your little job or your little school, but you are not going to hear about
that on the 6:00 news. Why? Because nothing is really happening. Then you go
home and you watch some more TV. Or maybe, if it’s a fun night, you go out and
you watch a movie. I mean, it’s got so bad that half the time the people on TV,
inside the TV – they’re watching TV. And what are all these people watching?
People like me. I mean what are all you doing right now, but watching me? You
don’t think they would have changed the channel by now if all I did was get an A
in Geometry?
Kevin’s monologue provides a particularly well suited cinematic example for illustrating the
pursuit of media notoriety through mass murder. He suggests that even if he had been successful
in other areas (i.e. by getting good grades), he would not have been able to garner the public and
media attention he was seeking. In other words, he accurately recognizes that one of the few
ways to ensure media fame is through sensationally violent actions against an unarmed public.
The presentation of perpetrators in the media is also interpreted as an emphasis on the news
media’s role in enabling fame-seeking behaviors.
|