The Century theater on the night of the shooting |
|
I saw THE DARK KNIGHT RISES the Saturday after the shooting, and you can bet there were parts when I was looking around the theater with suspicion.
I'm tired of seeing these psychotic assholes sliming their way onto my TV and laptop screens. It seems like every year, some lunatic thinks it would be a great idea to walk into a public place and kill a lot of innocent, unsuspecting people. They're always described by people who knew them as never giving any indication that they could do such a thing, the same way the people who knew Jeffrey Dahmer described him.
I have two completely different points about this notion. Number 1: No matter who you see in life, the chances are that often what's on the surface isn't going to reveal what they're capable of. Number 2: In the particular cases of these mass murderer douchebags, the pictures taken of them after the fact practically scream out THIS PERSON IS A NUTCASE.
Maybe it's easier to say that about a person when he has a mop of easter egg-orange hair and a look in his eyes that seems to indicate his brain passed sanity about 5000 miles back. But you know what I'm saying.
Very often, incidents like the one this asshole (who I'm not going to mention by name or show a picture of) perpetrated are blamed on pop culture figures. Marilyn Manson in the Columbine shootings, for example. This time, the murderer himself compared himself to a pop culture figure: Heath Ledger's Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT.
So thanks for attempting to take the fun out of it for anyone who enjoyed Ledger's performance, monkey dick. See, most of us were able to enjoy the movie and the performance on the basis that it was a work of fiction about a psychopath who aimed to bring down an entire city. Apparently, some members of the viewing audience not only identified a little too strongly with the beliefs this character held, but took to thinking they actually were the character. This is fair to no one, not to the people who liked the movie and not to the people who made it, being that they were simply trying to create a superior work of fiction.
But the word unfair doesn't even do justice to the circumstances that surround those poor people in Aurora, Colorado 
At least one of those rooms belongs to a complete eel cunt |
|
who just wanted to go to a midnight screening of the new Batman movie on the day before it was released.
I myself woke up the next day to the sound of my phone ringing. It was my brother, calling to ask me if I'd heard about what happened. I hadn't yet, so he told me. It was the most shocking news I'd woken up to since 911. I watched footage on TV of some kids who were at the screening and made it out unharmed, talking about the chaotic experience of living through the shooting.
I feel so much for those people that were injured, particularly for the ones who died, and also for the people who knew the ones that died. The news made my mom opine that it made her not even want to go anywhere anymore. It's so tragic that people can just pick a random place to go - with the hopes of having fun - the way all of us do, and encounter such horrible circumstances. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one in such a senseless event.
Things like that shouldn't happen. Whether it be Aurora, Colorado, Virginia Tech, Columbine or anywhere else. Those people weren't asking for trouble. They were minding their own business and going about their lives, the way they were supposed to. Then a crazy douchebag infringes on their rights to exist in peace and fucks everything up.
Now that I've addressed the tragedy of the event in Aurora, I want to focus on the Carrot Top wannabe that made it happen.
Supposedly this asshole was a grad student (I can't remember his prime subject, and I don't feel like looking it up). That means he was supposedly smart. To paraphrase something my brother, who's in college, said: What's the matter dude? Can't handle the pressure? But the extent to which he's a mental wimp (which is considerable) isn't my point, nor is his lack of mental facilities. It's his lack of the intelligence he supposedly possesses.
Everyone with anything even resembling a soul knows that what happened in that movie theater was a tragic, sad, disgusting event, and that everything about it was wrong; furthermore, that anyone who could do such a thing is evil incarnate. That goes without saying, really. What I want to focus on is how stupid I think this guy is.
He 
From a memorial that took place later behind the theater |
|
genuinely seemed to think he was The Joker, according to police. First of all, I'm not sure if anyone had clued him in on this fact, but The Joker is a fictional character. Hi, I'm James Bond: How's it going?
Second of all, what did he think he was doing, walking into a showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and killing a lot of people to punish Gotham City? I'm guessing he could look around and surmise that Aurora, Colorado doesn't look like Gotham City. Maybe that would've been a good indication that he was a little off.
Third of all, he's makeup free. Fourth of all, which Joker? Cesar Romero?
Okay, okay. He meant that metaphorically he's The Joker. So that means he's a terrorist that operates on a psychological level. Maybe he didn't mean that he's The Joker so much as he meant that he's any number of movie villains who create chaos in public settings to make his message clear: that society is destined to produce its own destruction through such antichrists, er, anarchists.
Here's the thing, the way I see it:
What do most villains in movies like this, action or suspense usually, do? They come up with something brilliant that will torture the good people in the story, forcing a dilemna upon them that will test their wills and decision making abilities. At the same time, they'll turn the tables on the pre-existing order, possibly by turning a person representing ultimate good into a person representing ultimate bad, or possibly forcing the opposite result on an established figure of justice. And while all this is going on, they'll frustrate the hell out of authority figures by constantly slipping through their fingers, only to come up with situations that perplex them through the fact that there are no solutions to them. Furthermore, they'll antagonize other forces of evil by beating them at their own game and becoming the baddest in the land. Finally, if they're so inclined, they'll find a way to extort money, gold, drugs or any number of items from the powers that be.
Now...
What did this asshole do? He walked into a public place and hurt or killed a bunch of people. That was his master plan? Don't the villainous masterminds in these kinds of movies normally aim a little 
What's gun control? |
|
higher than that? Isn't there something a little more complex and elaborate to what they're doing and what they hope to gain? Like the domination of an entire town, or the entire world even? Something that's going to outsmart someone and make them lose control? Something that's going to force a result out of people?
This guy picks one public place out of all the public places in the world, walks in and shoots it up. And that accomplishes...what? Not only that, but in a place that's right across the street from where he lives, which he goes on to plant explosives in. This makes it pretty easy for him to be caught. Then again, maybe he wanted to be caught. All the better to announce to the world his master plan of...
"Dur, I'm gonna walk into a movie theater while people are watchin a movie...Deh, then I'm gonna shoot em...Duh."
This guy isn't an "evil genius." He's a fucking moron.
Did he just want to get notoriety for being a person who opened fire in a theater, violently attacking people who were watching a movie? Well you got it, you fucking jerkoff. Now, like The Joker in The Dark Knight, you're caught, and you can spend the rest of your life locked up. Personally, I think they could've treated him like the version of The Joker Jack Nicholson played and thrown him off a building.
Then again, I think locking someone up for life is actually worse punishment. Someone should assign someone to Ronald Mcdonald that can elicit the results from him that the prison therapy in A Clockwork Orange did from Alex (at least for awhile).
In the pictures I've seen, he looks a little stunned, like the ramifications of what he did are beginning to occur to him. Maybe it's sinking into his retarded brain that all of this is real, and he really is going to be punished for this. From what I've gathered, the police who initially questioned him said that he literally thought he was in a movie. I told a friend of mine that he'll know he's not in a movie when he's being raped.
I also told this friend how little sense the guy's actions - and whatever he thought he was going to accomplish with them - made to me. My friend summed it up pretty well, I thought: "You can't argue with crazy."
 email this column to a friend
Comment on this Column:
Sorry, you must be a member to add comments to columns.
Join or Login. |
 | Samantha
Aug 10, 2012 8:10 AM
| [X] delete |
Now, I am in no way making excuses for the shooter, but I want to emphasize that there is a distinction between being stupid and being insane. If he truly believed himself to be the Joker, he is obviously delusional, possibly antisocial given his disregard for human life, neither of which have anything to do with intelligence. Should he never see the light of the day again? Of course, but not because he's an idiot.
What I find moronic is how the media and the public generally react to these tragic events. Mourning? Yes, that's understandable. Printing a photograph of one of the victim's sobbing fiance on the cover of a magazine? Offensive, intrusive, exploitative. Also, survivors jumping on the bandwagon of suing the movie theatre, the guy's university, and his psychiatrist? As if any of these people could really have stopped him or known what he was planning? Yes, there may have been warning signs, but in the end, HE made a decision, and it's HIS fault. I think, rather than turning on each other in anger or frustration or throwing the pain of the victims onto every news outlet, we would be better off coming together to mourn and heal, rather than act out of anger or a desire for payback, something the shooter is incapable of doing seeing how little he cares for other people. |
|
 | Barbie Q
Aug 11, 2012 4:21 PM
| [X] delete |
| Was the use of profanity in your column title really necessary? Surely your vocabulary range goes beyond resorting to the use of the f-word in order to get your angry point of view across? |
|
 | Nathan
Aug 11, 2012 5:10 PM
| [X] delete |
| Well what is this, Sesame Street? With all due respect, it depends on what your problem with the word is and why you consider it a bad one. This isn't a restricted site. I think it adds some edge to the columns section, and so does the anger in this column. Like George Carlin said, that word's never lost its ability to add to a sentence. I also have been seeking some proof that people are actually reading my columns (which I still don't have from you), so if it gets attention, good. As far as my "angry column," what's wrong with an angry column? It obviously got a reaction from you. Or is it just the word you find offensive enough to comment on, at the same time being almost insulting (I think you can tell from my columns how extensive my vocabulary is or isn't), instead of commenting on anything to do with what I wrote about? Again, I think a column like this makes the section more interesting. But you have a right to your opinion and comment, certainly. |
|
 | Jon
Aug 24, 2012 8:29 AM
| [X] delete |
Interesting, stimulating points made but, at the risk sounding prudish, you could have expressed yourself just as eloquently without the F-bombs sprinkled throughout the piece. Thanks
. |
|
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS
|
| Nathanizms |
Every other Friday
This is an outlet granted to me by the makers, in which I will espouse grand words, unleashing in written form
the very movie-related praise and outrage I'm probably thinking about and/or discussing at the time anyway.
|
| Nathan Reece |
I was born in a log cabin that was built in a sewer. After serving during wartime, I woke up from this vicious dream and learned to tapdance.
It's a commendable trade, but not a recommendable one. As I've said many a time, on one hand, I have five fingers. Yet on the other hand, I have
five fingers. Sometimes I sleep. I would probably watch more sumo wrestling if it was on TV more often. The first movie I saw at the theater was Superman
II...the last was The Terror, and this much is true. Far be it from me to call myself stupid, but if I did so (and believe me, I would), I'd say it behind
my back. Then I would figure out how I did it. Sometimes I sleep. Love, Nate.
|
| Contact |
If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, you can send a message to Nathan Reece by clicking here.
|
|
Aug 11, 2012 12:08 AM
As for the question of his insanity vs. stupidity, I see what you're saying, but I want to explain where I'm coming from. Obviously the guy's intelligent, because he was a grad student, and from what I recall, not in an easy field. But I think what I'm trying to do in my reaction is to not react the way I feel he probably wants people to: basically to look at him as some dastardly harvester of chaos, some insane freak. The more I can downplay the validity and logic of his efforts, the more it takes the piss out of him and what he was trying to accomplish, at least in my mind. So I'm not really saying he's stupid as far as what he knows or has retained in school etc. - but more stupid in the sense of his thinking this was going to be some sort of master plan. The act itself was stupid. Nobody's going to think of him as some evil genius, just a lunatic that shot up a movie theater. So he's a "moron" in my book just for thinking there was going to be some sort of statement behind this, or some legacy he'd be remembered for. It was nothing that required any thought or planning: it was just a cruel, violent action. That being said, he's definitely a nutbar. Delusional, antisocial, all those things: you have my agreement! Probably too far gone to have any rationalization make sense, but it still can to us!
Thanks for the th
Aug 11, 2012 12:13 AM
Aug 11, 2012 9:40 PM
Aug 11, 2012 10:10 PM