By Philip Schweier
July 24, 2012 - 10:37
There
is a scene in The Dead Pool (1988), in which a man named Gus Wheeler (played
by Louis Giambalvo) douses himself with gasoline and threatens to set himself
afire unless he can speak with a TV reporter. Samantha Walker (Patricia
Clarkson) arrives with boyfriend Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood)
posing as her cameraman.
Clint Eastwood and Patricia Clarkson in The Dead Pool
Wheeler proceeds to explain that all his life he’s been a nobody, but when
people see what he’s about to do, people will remember him. Samantha Walker
assures him they won’t. She then shuts down the camera, promising Wheeler that
no one will see him kill himself. If he’s determined to kill himself, she can
only do so much to prevent it, but she has no obligation to broadcast it just
to satisfy Wheeler ’s misguided sense of self-importance.
I’m no authority, but it seems to me people bent on destruction
often have one of two agendas: either they want to be perpetrators of a
spectacle, and thereby require an audience; or as, Michael Caine put it in The
Dark Knight, “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
John Hinckley Jr.'s mugshot
For those seeking an audience for their misdeeds, it seems too often the media
is willing to oblige them. Back in 1981, before the age of 24-hour news
networks, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate then-U.S. President Ronald
Reagan, and in the days and weeks that followed the footage was recycled
endlessly on television.
There’s no denying the recent tragedy in Aurora, CO., was a
newsworthy event, nor do I have any desire to diminish the lives of the people
who fell victim to the massacre. But the perpetrator of the massacre deserves
no publicity; merely a quick and speedy trial and an equally quick and speedy
sentence, so that he may be soon forgotten.
Regretfully, the consequences of his actions can never be forgotten. Lives were
shattered by what he did, and the repercussions of his actions will be felt for
years to come by those who lost loved ones.
I heard one television news pundit suggest that because the crime was
Batman-related, comic books might be at the root of the problem. I find that
thinking incredibly flawed. Yes, it was Batman-related. It was also
movie-related. It was also Colorado-related.
It’s only natural to seek answers or some form of understanding in the
aftermath of senseless tragedy. In this instance, I think it boils down to a
sad, evil person seeking the wrong form of attention, and regretfully, the
public and the media are obliging him.
Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at
philip@comicbookbin.com