If you’ve read my previous blogs, especially those from this quarter, then it’s pretty apparent that I have a very different kind of media exposure than the “typical” young American adult. I don’t keep up with primetime TV shows, I don’t particularly care for most top 40s songs, and I only really go out to watch movies when Disney releases something new. Rather, I digest a regular (and rather abundant) diet of anime that changes from season to season, and while studying, I have my endless iTunes library of foreign music on loop. However, just because I don’t have much exposure to contemporary Western pop culture doesn’t mean that I don’t see its the same recurring themes in the things that I enjoy. Even in the anime I watch, the comics I read, and the songs I listen to, probably the two most prominent themes in any medium are ever-present… love and hate. It’s explained quite simply, really - we enjoy that which stirs our strongest emotions, that which moves us. But what has always baffled and confused me is our seemingly universal fascination with the most common manifestation of hate, which would be war and battle. Why do we obsesses and oogle over watching our own kind destroy each other? Is it because we empathize with wanting to of “beat” or reign supreme over our enemies or over that with which we disagree? Is it the thrill of the action and explosions? An admiration of heroes? Or perhaps we have been conditioned as a species, through various representations of war, to actually like it?
Let me start off by talking about just how widespread the usage of war and violence is in different mediums. “War” is pretty much an entire genre on its own, with video games, movies, shows, and even songs centered around it. Though somehow, it even manages to penetrate other genres such as romance, musicals, and even comedy. There’s the heart-wrenching romance drama “Dear John,” musicals like “Miss Saigon” and “South Pacific,” and the parody “The Dictator” just to name a few. War and violence’s integration in nearly every form of entertainment is inevitable, as they are deeply woven into our own lives. But there is a clear distinction between experiencing war and viewing war, as we learned this quarter. Our fascination, rather than horrification, with war is because of a distancing between the general public and war, because they view war as more of a spectacle than a reality. The same applies to torture and violence; it is so commonplace in our entertainment that it does not faze us, and we oftentimes find ourselves cheering for the “righteous” or “justified” torturer. To me, this is horrible, but it is, unfortunately, the reality of us on the homefront. Even though I am aware of this distancing between the realities of war and violence and our superficial view of them, in this media-heavy, entertainment-heavy society, it seems nearly impossible to close this gap. Personally, I don’t think that I will ever truly understand the horrors of war unless it comes knocking on my door. The most we can do is educate ourselves and try our best to open our eyes to reality and not be consumed by what we are fed on screen.