Violence vs. Violence

I try to be a pacifist. At heart, I hate violence. Now, I'm not gonna say that I ain't never raised my hand in anger at another human being before, cause that would be a lie. And I certainly can't say I ain't contemplated violence against another human being before, cause that would be a lie as well. But, at the end of the day, I don't like it. I'm anti-war. I don't like boxing, kickboxing, Pride Fighting, Ultimate Fighting, or, to a certain extent Football, because in each instance people have been trained to go out and intentionally hurt other people (again, football is a lesser example, but if you don't think some of those guys ain't out there thinking "I'm gonna kill that guy if he gets the ball", then you're crazy). I figure there's three basic reasons for this: 1) I'm very empathic, so I really can't stand to see people hurting each other, 2) Real life violence, from an aesthetic stand point, looks like crap, and 3) I'm a big old wussie.

Now, some of you out there at this point may be saying to yourselves, "Now waitaminute Mr. Guywho'salwaysputtingyourfootinyourmouth, I've read your comics, and most issues are violent as hell. And we know you have, like, the world's largest collection of horror movies. Plus, we all know you're a wrestling fanatic. What's the dilly, yo?" We'll start with the wrestling. I like wrestling because it's fake. Wrestlers are trained to execute manuevers that both look cool and painful on camera, while at the same time do an absolute minimum of damage. A wrestler never steps into the ring thinking, "I'm gonna do everything in my power to really hurt this guy", because if he does, then some other guy could come along, drop him on his head mid-move and paralyse him for life. Because it's fake, and because the violence is choreographed, it looks better than real violence, and it becomes more of an endurance test. After all, an Ultimate Fighter doesn't walk into the ring thinking "Welp, I'm gonna get choked out today". He thinks, "I'm gonna do everything in my power to avoid getting choked out today." A wrestler on the other hand, knows full well that he's gonna get slammed down hard 20 or 30 times and end up getting dumped into thumbtacks. And if you think knowing that stuff ahead of time makes it easier, well, it don't. Believe me.

As for Movie/Comic Book/SDF violence, again, it looks better than real life violence. Guy gets his head cut off in an issue of SDF, and blood shoots outa the stump like a fountain, and it looks crazy, and kinda silly, and cool. Guy gets his head cut off in real life, and everybody's busy screaming and puking and praying to God. In comics and movies, violence is more abstract and expressionistic. It's cathartic. Instead of wishing I could punch out some guy, I can put him in my comic, turn him into a demon, and disembowel him without having to worry about getting locked away. I can do stuff in a comic book fight scene that could never happen in real life. For those of you that have a copy, check out the fight scene between CJ and Voodoo Dolly vs. the Rednecks in SDF: Sombrero Friday. Some of the moves Voodoo Dolly pulls off in that fight are downright laughable, not to mention pretty much scientifically impossible. But it looks cool, and that's what counts. Plus, as the old saying goes, no one gets hurt in a movie or comic, they're just playing dead.

Except for Bruce Lee, his kid, and those folks that got decapitated in that one Spielburg movie...