I don’t watch a lot of TV, barely any so that means that the movies are a big entertainment treat for me.
I like to sneak in food (I’ve done Chinese food and even a whole beef ribs and potato and Pepsi from BBQs. Generally I stick with a hot pastrami hero and a Pepsi. Yes, I still buy popcorn.). The movies are a mini-event for me.
Years ago a friend worked at one of those theaters that shows older films and kept inviting me. So I went one weekend. They were showing the classic action thriller Seven with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. This was some time after it had come out but I had yet to see it.
I generally avoid war movies, horror movies and comedies but this time I made an exception—-going in, knowing it might be gory.
It starts rolling along and the theater is about 200 people packed and I can’t help it.
I start laughing.
At all the “wrong” times.
The film is sort of darkly………HILARIOUS.
Each murder/mayhem is more and more far reaching, broad strokes, insane.
When he kills the fashion model and she has the choice of suicide-pills or calling for help—-the cutting off of her part of her face meaning the end of her career but she can save herself from bleeding to death——”He cut off her nose to spite her face.” My light outbursts and chuckles became a full on guffaw.
That shit is funny.
Now my group of friends is tickled by my laughter every time I laugh, they can’t help but laugh too. Soon the entire theater is waiting and then bursting out laughing when I do.
Okay, okay, okay…….the big field, the cops with Kevin Spacey and a Fed Ex truck pulls up. A wisp of blood hair comes form the opened box.
Lost it. I lost it.
I lost it because on one level the movie is brilliant in its’ insanity—-from a writing/writer’s perspective and two, it’s further insane because everyone is playing this film in a dreary way, as deeply serious.
But the whole serial killer/Deadly Sins angle is like watching this serial killer artist paint a mad tapestry that gets more and more insanely creative and destructive.
But it’s not simply gory for gore’s sake—-it’s this creative gore. Truly creative. And has a deep pique of sardonic humor to it. The Mozart of serial killers is deeply playing this game with the cops, the world and the movie itself, with the audience.
So the movie ends, on a wild note for me, and we all file out and people are following me, crowding around to get to know me, to ask what and why I found things funny if they didn’t directly get it when I laughed. One couple, with a stroller and baby, is like didn’t I think laughing ruined the mood? And I’m like: “What mood? Serial killer, manic gore and carnage in your head mood? And how are you bringing a toddler to this?”
See here’s how I see it.
It’s a movie.
It’s fiction. Fiction is NOT real. Fiction is a stretching of real-ity to insane proportions for entertainment’s sake.
Are there real serial killers—-sure, but that’s not what we were in that theater to dwell upon. We entered that space willingly knowing that we were going to see some fiction. With actors. On a giant screen.
One of the reasons why I avoid too much entertainment/TV consumption is because it projects not just false values but because it projects a lot of fiction and fantasy without often pragmatic or reality contextualizations.
By that big word sentence—-I mean just what the couple was demonstrating to me—-you’re invested in this movie being horrible, disgusting, freaking you out” and you bring your child.
Just think about that for a second.
Let’s go into a dark room and watch murder and mayhem. And bring our children!
That’s sort of darkly hilarious too.
You’ve so normed insanity that it’s a family event. Or even more disturbingly, you’ve so normed horrific fictitious projections that you MUST match it’s mood or react as IT intends.
See, I see TV and movies with a detachment. The way you’re detached when you’re in the supermarket and picking fruits and vegetables. Do you ever think THAT green pepper will be offended that I chose THAT one instead? Or do you wonder what the lady next to you is thinking of you for buying 4 and not 3 apples?
I have a TV show so I know all of the science of how video/film projection works and sometimes I’m editing videos and episodes down to the 1–5 second clips—-what’s long enough for something to get into your brain and at the same time you can or cannot recognize it. 30 images per second is generally the speed I’m working in and sometimes I’m shaving off or adding half a second to things. I’m doing this to GET INTO YOUR BRAIN with whatever I am making/creating. The hope is that I stay responsible and conscious but not everyone is doing so.
But the way to defend against shit, and most of it is shit, coming into your brain willy nilly 30x faster than you can consciously process or filter, is to break up the image—-have a portion of your self/brain looking at it in a detached way, seeing and pointing things out—-even laughing.
Sometimes I’m looking at things in a detached writer kind of way where I’m considering the structure of a scene, the actors, the language itself. As a teaching tool I often use clips, never longer than 15 minutes, for students, and if possible I put on the subtitles and closed captioning. This forces the brain to pay a sort of dual attention so that you don't get sucked into to just silent absorption.
Also another thing I personally do is I have videos, films on multiple screens while I’m doing something else so I’m paying partial attention, not the totality of my attention.
What I’m always trying to do is keep THAT at mental bay, force it to slow down, explain itself, show itself to me and go through my Mental Filter. Notice no one talks about that, people generally talk about getting totally absorbed into entertainment.
A few years ago I was running an Amazon store, making oodles of cash and the Passion of the Christ came out. So I was figuring out my whole DVD scheme and marketing and so on and working full time. A co-worker asked if I’d seen the movie and I was like :”Hell to the no! I’m not a Christian but what kind of sense would it make to willingly go into a darks theater, with hundreds of people, to watch my deity be killed? On a Saturday night.”
No, no, no, don’t bring religion or belief or faith into it-—-don't’ clean it up or justify it.
Go into a theater to watch your personal concept of God be horribly tortured and killed. Just hold that thought.
Ludicrous.
I fully expect within my lifetime for us to be able to go to large theaters to watch REAL snuff films, kids being raped, puppies shot in the face. There’s a whole thing in here about extremes and gore and such and what that does to the mind, to the core psyche to the spirit. But I’m not going there.
Seven was funny and creative and I avoid gory films. And the audience laughed at the insanity as I did and with me. But some of what I was laughing at—-was the gullibility of the audience itself.
And I have a TV show.
lol
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Smile, Kyle
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Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
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