Last night I was watching Apolyptico, a movie about hunters and gatherers living in the rain forest. Doesn't sound so bad right? As I was watching this gruesome movie where men, women, and children were being slaughtered unneccessarily or in other words genocide was taking place, a thought occurred to me, when did society become to know these types of movies as entertainment?
I am not saying if you like these types of movies you are a bad person, I have watched movies that include such gruesome, horrific details but I find myself questioning my decisions to watch such movies. Schindler's list, Hotel Rwanda, Apolyptico, are just a few examples of the movies I am talking about, movies where a race of people get wiped out at the leisure or pleasure of someone else. I am not saying these movies are totally bad either, Hotel Rwanda was about a man who wanted to stay behind as a U.S. troop to save the people of Rwanda while the rest of his country did nothing. Schindler's list was about the Jews and Nazis. These are all films that happened in history and are no doubt interesting and educational.
I am not against educational movies, and so perhaps I am on the fence about this as I like to learn and watch movies that teach me things, however the portrayl of history is where my dislike hangs. Watching human beings be totured is not something that I am willing to pay money for. I have rented these movies in the past and guilty as charged liked them. I think in the future I will be more conscience of the movies I rent and if I would like to learn about the latest genocide movie that comes out I will read about it in a text book. That way I won't be watching the gruesome facts, I will be reading about them but not in such a descriptive manner!
3 comments:
I'm with you. Those movies have such important messages and it's important that we know about them however I could do without all the gruesome gore...then again would justice be given to the message without it? Without that gore or the actual realism would we truly understand just how important the message is? I'm not so sure.
I think all those Mel Gibson directed movies are a bit much. Passion of the Christ being one of them.
The worse part about Schindler's List is that it isn't all acting. Some of the scenes were real footage. That's what was so terrifying.
Hotel Rwanda was wonderful!!! Despite the gore of course. Another one was Blood Diamond regarding Sierra Leon. Important message but gory!! They were mutilating kids and everything!!!!
And I know Mel Gibson didn't direct Schindler's List.
I agree with you!! While those movies probably needed that kind of affect to make us really understand what happened I still think they are too gory for my liking. Hotel Rwanda was a good movie however not a second time viewing is necessary. I think I might just choose to stay away from those types of films if I can help it!
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