Does human depravity know no bounds? I often wonder. Or so I did very recently upon seeing the superhero spoof "Kickass" on Thursday night.
Going into the movie, my brain was filled with assumptions of comedic one-liners, superhuman slapstick, and teen star wannabe goofiness. I was only half right.
Along with the occasional colorful remark or two (and good, old-fashioned slapstick), the audience also witnessed about 50 people dying extremely brutal, (often senseless) and always teeth-gnashing, bloody deaths. The protagonist gets violently beaten upwards of four or five times, as do other hero sidekicks. It is assumed by this show of brutality that we are establishing the notion that "heroes saving the day" just doesn't match up to reality. Ever.
In this gospel according to Kickass, if someone is dying in the street, 99 out of 100of us will sit by and watch, rather than do anything in our power to help them. In fact, the entire city would even watch a live youtube-like broadcast of two known vigilante protectors of their streets beaten, tortured, stabbed, slit, and engulfed in flames- and do absolutely nothing about it. We are to understand that these helpless viewers are paralyzed from fear, which must (we suppose) explain why we can only sink in futility and stay tuned as human life is literally being sliced out someone...
But I should be clear. I do not disagree entirely with the message of this film. On the contrary, I find it frighteningly real. I hated this movie. Everything in my gut wanted to cry out and tear my eyes away from the screen. It sucked away nearly everything in my being that told me humanity is overall good, even at its darkest- and I deeply resented it for that. This film so affected me that on the way home I was sobbing. No joke. I was crying my eyes out in the face of our patheticism (if that even counts as a word.)
What I have to know is... why? What makes us so desensitized to such depravity? Who cares anymore whether we live or die? I've never felt so alone, sitting in that theater with those images and that screen repeating the senselessness over and over, as if it were brain-washing: "Life doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. We kill and we kill and we kill. Who cares?"
It was more than disturbing and unsettling. It made me physically sick to my stomach. And the weird thing was, it was a pretty decent movie in general, as movies go. I've never seen Nicholas Cage act so well, in fact. And I'm not saying it's a bad movie either. There's just more truth in it for society today that I (as an ever-optimist hopeful) find incredibly hard to swallow.
I just don't understand how we've come this far. We've let this desensitizing go wayyyyyy too far. Nothing affects us anymore. Even my own reaction to this film is sad in of itself, really. The fact that it took all that gore and violence to shake me? It's telling. I'm just as much a part of the senseless machine as we all are. Nothing sets off our alarms anymore. No one stirs when we see someone die on-screen. We step out of the theater and into the reassuring, bright light of day and tell ourselves "Ah well. It's just a movie. Great effects, dontcha think?"
So tell me. What the hell is wrong with us?? Why can't we see it??
...And that being said... am I crazy for thinking this? :/
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