Victims of Violence

Underlying the controversy over guns in our country is the reality of our attraction to and love of violence. Television’s commercial "breaks” are awash in the blood of promotions for violent TV series. They promise increasingly gruesome and graphic crimes and punishments. Just the ads turn my stomach, and I don’t watch the shows they hype. Fact is, I don’t watch much television at all, so I am no expert on what’s out there. I depend upon the reports of people like James Poniewozik

In the March 11 issue of Time, Poniewozik writes about “Serial Killing: How TV dramas, good and bad, have become addicted to blood.” He tries to distinguish between shows that include violence as an element in well-constructed plots involving fully-realized characters, and those that simply use violence as a means to attract the coveted young adult male demographic. Either way, violence now plays essential roles in dramas that aspire to success.

We argue about whether immersion in virtual and visual violence makes it more likely some people will resort to real violence as a way to solve real problems and settle real issues. Scientific studies are reported to be inconclusive on the debate. Common sense tells me that if you grow up being told and shown violence as the preferred way of dealing with life you are more likely to chose violence when you feel life pointing a gun at your head.

Strange, isn’t it, that “Christian” America is fixated on violence. I have always thought Jesus was about love, forgiveness, and redemption. When it comes to violence, violence came to him, and he suffered at its hands, not returning evil for evil. If any violence was to be brought into the world, it would come as a result of the judgment of God, not of us visiting it upon one another. Suffering was to be eased, not inflicted, and if it could not be eased, it was to be borne, not brandished. “The one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword,” he who wished the death of no one asserted. “When will ‘they’ ever learn...”

James Poniewozik writes (mostly) approvingly of The Walking Dead, reporting that in one episode a character dies in childbirth. “Before she slips away, she says to her young son, ‘Promise me you’ll always do what’s right.’ After she dies, he picks up a gun and –so she won’t rise as undead–shoots her through the head. Because he loves her.”

Then he writes:

“It’s deeply affecting and human, as mother-son mercy rekillings go. But you know what else is affecting and human? Falling in love, and out of it. Growing up. Chasing a dream that doesn’t involve running guns or drugs. Coping with illnesses that do not terminate in zombieism. TV’s new golden age has given us shows that couldn’t have existed 20 years ago. But it hasn’t yet found much room for personal, grownup dramas like...”

I’ll leave the shows he feels meet that test up to your judgment, you who know television much better than do I. All of us could well take a hard look at how our culture’s obsession with violence afflicts our own souls and the quality of our life together.