Violence In Society Essay, Research Paper

Time to Recognize

Who can predict which works of art will provoke what sorts of desperate acts? Entertainment cannot be the blame for the psychotic actions of adults and youths who obviously can’t tell the difference between fiction and real life. In Grisham’s “Unnatural Killer,” he talks about a movie provoking two teenagers to go on a killing spree; this drawed me in and made me angry because it represents how mixed up our society is today. If there is anyone that should take the blame, it is the incompetent parents of these kids who obviously didn’t give them enough guidance. Sarah began using drugs and alcohol at the age of thirteen and at fourteen was locked up for psychiatric treatment. Ben’s father was an alcoholic who divorced Ben’s mother twice, then later committed suicide. Ben too has a history of drug abuse and psychiatric treatment (572). These are obvious signs of a troubled teen.

It seems this pair of misguided youth, bummed out after they missed a rock concert because they got the date wrong, decided the best alternative was to rob and kill their way across two states. They popped some hallucinogens into their mouths, sat through several viewings of Oliver Stones song to mindless violence, Natural Born Killers, and off they went on a killing spree. Not as gruesome as the actual

Floyd 2

movie, but exciting enough for them. One of those they killed was a friend of Grisham’s and Grisham believes Stone is to blame for the murder.

This is bizarre, first because Grisham, like Stone has gotten rich by catering to his audience thirst for violence and evil in their entertainment. Natural Born Killers is a relentlessly bloody story designed to shock us and to further numb us to the senselessness of reckless murder. It wasn’t made with the intent of stimulating morally depraved young people to commit similar crimes, but such a result can hardly be a surprise (576). Violence and aggression exist in people long before they watch a movie like Natural Born Killers. They don’t just wake up one morning and decide to commit a murder. The thought that someone could be legally responsible for the criminal conduct of someone who may have seen a film or watched at TV show is absurd. Grisham himself could be held responsible anytime two idiots get together and rape a young girl, because that happens in one of his books.

The plain truth is, these two kids were psychopathic long before they saw Stone’s movie. Ben and Susan are predictable of the offspring of a society in deep psychological trouble. Stone’s film might better be seen as a documentary, an examination of a growing lethal attitude among our youth. But there’s no way it can rationally be credited with instigating the insanity that drove those two to go on a murder spree. They must take that credit themselves.