Poll: What Should We Watch?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dexter are coming to English TV. I’ve heard good things about Dexter and nothing about Chronicles. So which should The Brit and I watch? (and tell us why in the comments!)
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February 19, 2008 in Polls, Television |
Because Terminator is rubbish and Dexter rules. From what I know of the brit, it’s right up his alley.
Comment by Rusty — February 19, 2008 @ 7:06 am
I haven’t watched Sarah Connor Chronicles yet (it’s DVRed), but it looks good. And it’s got Summer Glau, who was great in Firefly. I’d give it a try at least.
I’ve seen the first episode of Dexter, and it’s very good.
Comment by Allison — February 19, 2008 @ 7:35 am
I would never watch Dexter. A serial killer who works above the law to kill bad guys. Sorry, but that is the kind of show I would never support.
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 7:36 am
Terminator isn’t very good. The acting is poor(especially Sumer who I thought was the worst actor in Firefly) and the dialogue seems to have bee writen by scrubs it’s so bad.
Dexter is great as long as you can put up with some pretty bloody scenes in the occasional episode.
Dan, did you support the A-Team?
Comment by jjohnsen — February 19, 2008 @ 7:41 am
Dan, you should give Dexter a shot. I don’t think it’s quite the show that you’re thinking it is. For one, Dexter is a complex character–he’s a sociopath and doesn’t pull any punches about it. He kills because he likes killing, and he’s very creepy. He’s just selective about his victims. Michael C. Hall is excellent. Part of what makes the show great is that you don’t know quite what to think of Dexter.
Comment by BTD Greg — February 19, 2008 @ 8:49 am
Dan,
I think you should change your name to the Grumpy Democrat!
Comment by The Brit — February 19, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Greg,
That’s precisely why I cannot watch him. The A-Team didn’t go around beatin’ up bad guys because they liked it. And I ain’ grumpy!
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 10:14 am
Dan, the A-Team is problematic exactly because that show presented its excessive violence as unproblematically good. I think it’s a lot more moral and realistic to show violence as messy and those who frequently choose to use it as troubled…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 19, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Dan, you could be right. Dexter is pretty disturbing, and I don’t fault anyone for refusing to watch it because it’s disturbing (or violent, or gory). But it’s also pretty well done. I’m just saying you might not want to dismiss it out of hand based on your preconceptions about what the show is like.
Comment by BTD Greg — February 19, 2008 @ 10:58 am
Greg,
I figured it would be well done, highly cinematographic. I just simply have my limitations on what I will watch. I think that writers and producers need to realize this, that there should be limitations on the subject matter. I’m sure the writers have created wonderfully taut story-lines that keep the viewer gripped on what will happen next, but that just doesn’t matter to me if the subject matter is beyond the pale. And in my view this is just that.
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 11:07 am
he A-Team is problematic exactly because that show presented its excessive violence as unproblematically good
That pretty much sums up every vigilante show from the 80s ever.
Speaking of which, did anyone else watch that Knight Rider Tv movie/backdoor pilot on NBC sunday. I put up a review on my blog. I wasn’t impressed.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — February 19, 2008 @ 11:37 am
Sarah Connor is not so well written; there are glaring inconsistencies that are enough that I just can’t watch it anymore.
Dexter is very, very well-written. I can ignore the errors in his sociopathy because it is a captivating show. It’s also very disturbing, and sometimes makes (easily disturbed viewers like myself) reconsider stances.
Whichever you choose, watch with caution.
Comment by Caroline — February 19, 2008 @ 11:44 am
Dan, what makes a movie/show good or bad in moral terms, I think, isn’t what it’s about, but rather how it’s about it. (Roger Ebert sometimes says something like this.) There’s really nothing in modern media that’s more twisted than some of the subject matter in the Old Testament. Yet much of the Old Testament material strikes us as morally good because the terrible subject matter is presented with a coherent and consistent moral perspective. (I would note that there is certainly a lot of violence, sexual and otherwise, in the Old Testament that doesn’t meet this standard, though.) So I think the suggestion that there exists subject matter which is inherently “beyond the pale” is appealing but probably incorrect. It’s not subject but perspective that makes a text moral or immoral.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 19, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
I only saw the first four episodes of Dexter. It’s on my Netflix queue. I found what makes it so interesting is precisely the moral issues it raises. It’s hardly holding Dexter up as some hero. Rather there are all sorts of complexities. In a way by his very extremism he is a kind of mirror to many aspects of society.
Comment by clark — February 19, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Roasted Tomatoes,
Like I said, I’m sure the weekly episodes are well thought out and well written, but it crosses the line I have chosen in what I will watch. I am sad that it was moved from Showtime to a wider audience at CBS.
Now, if Dexter gets it in the end, if he ends up being killed for his crimes, well, then the show has some merit. But I get the feeling that that is not the direction the show will go.
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
As a forensic scientist, aren’t there pretty good odds he’ll get assigned to his own case?
Looking forward to it!
Comment by FHL — February 19, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Dan, I have the feeling that your comment didn’t address my argument. I’m not claiming that the quality of the weekly episodes as art is what matters here, but rather that trying to classify morality by subject matter is impossible and morally unjustified. I certainly don’t think that a “crime-doesn’t-pay” ending in which the main character dies should be seen as giving moral merit (indeed, retrospective merit!) to the text up to that point. If the show celebrated murder and vigilantism — which it in fact doesn’t — then it would be an evil show even if the murderer eventually died. Since the show instead depicts those acts as wrong, troubled, and problematic echoes of our society’s broader thirst for the blood of our enemies, I think that the eventual ending is irrelevant.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 19, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Having seen Sarah Connor for about 3 episodes and CBS’ sanitized version of Dex on Sunday, I think it’s really a tough draw.
My dad really loved the first 2 Dexter books (I haven’t had a chance to ask him his opinion about the show), but he likes those types of stories.
I loved the Terminator movies, and I think Sarah Connor had tons of potential - the writers were going to have the series be a continuation of T2, and not have any connections to T3. But recently, it’s been slow, boring, and blah.
My vote goes to Dex - more intriguing storyline, and it makes you think - lots of moral ethics that come into play that make you take a side
My vote goes for Lost - but - that wasn’t an option
Comment by Brandt — February 19, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
Roasted Tomatoes,
But doesn’t the depicting of blood not add to society’s thirst for blood? Haven’t you noticed a disturbing trend in our shows? We’re now watching a show about a serial killer who kills serial killers!
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
“But doesn’t the depicting of blood not add to society’s thirst for blood? Haven’t you noticed a disturbing trend in our shows? We’re now watching a show about a serial killer who kills serial killers!”
Dan, with all due respect, I don’t think you can judge that without seeing the show. My impression is that the way it is presented it does *not* add to society’s thirst for blood, because it doesn’t glorify it at all.
Comment by BTD Greg — February 19, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
Dan, you ask whether depicting blood adds to society’s thirst for blood. As a general question, I’m sure there isn’t an answer. Violence and death certainly can be portrayed in ways that decrease our appetite for them. I’d be amazed if anyone left off watching Schindler’s List, The Pianist, or Eastwood’s Iwo Jima films feeling heightened blood lust. War weariness, perhaps.
I think this particular show is a good example. I don’t think many people will dress as Dexter for Halloween. But the broader point — you just can’t judge the morality of art by asking what its subject matter is, but rather have to make the extra effort of discovering what it has to say about that subject matter — is, I think, the more important one.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 19, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Greg and Roasted Tomatoes,
I appreciate your guys’ reasoning. This topic is just one that I cannot entertain. I’ll skip out on Dexter.
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
Just be sure not to confuse Dexter with Webster. They’re not the same.
Comment by California Condor — February 19, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
How sympathetic a character is Dexter? I haven’t seen it and I doubt I will. I have issues with it like Dan does. The whole idea of a TV show with a serial killer as the main character is really offensive.
Part of it for me comes from growing up going swimming in the Green River, I’m sure. My dad’s cousin was a principal at a high school and a couple of his students were victims of the Green River Killer. It’s weird, growing up with the knowledge that somewhere near you is a serial killer who was never caught.
Comment by Susan M — February 19, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
In fairness, Dexter only offs people who’ve gotten away with murders or other truly awful crimes. Plain old civilians and prostitutes aren’t his cup of tea. I don’t expect that anyone will try to copy his messy version of vigilante justice, but I wouldn’t put it past some knucklehead to try it….
It’s not a show for everyone, but once it’s edited for TV I think it will play out much softer than it did on cable and DVD. As the seasons progress, Dexter discovers what feeling are all about and you actually come to like him in some sort of twisted way. The show and the humor are very dark, so it might bomb completely on network television. I think it’ll be interesting to see how they edit it and how it goes over with the mainstream viewing public.
What I’ve seen of the Terminator show hasn’t been great, though I know some people who are crazy about it.
Comment by mo mommy — February 19, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
“How sympathetic a character is Dexter?”
Susan, my take (based on only the pilot episode) is that he’s ambiguous and different people react to him differently. He’s a sociopath, so he is emotionally uninvolved and lacks empathy for anyone else. Naturally, this doesn’t make him very endearing. He narrates it, so we get everything from his own sociopathic point of view. On the other hand (as is the case often with sociopaths), he’s learned how to be charming when he wants to in order to get along in society, so he’s not totally unlikeable, even if he’s extraordinarily creepy.
And, as others have pointed out, he makes it a practice to only kill other killers. I think it’s unclear whether Dexter views this as virtuous (I don’t think he does) or simply a way to perpetuate his compulsions to murder without drawing attention from the powers that be.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that this show is for everyone. It’s perfectly fine to be turned off by the premise, and the show is definitely not recommended for people who can’t stand gore.
Comment by BTD Greg — February 19, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
Susan: FWIW, I think the Green River killer has now been caught, so you can sleep easier on that issue.
As far as it being offensive that a serial killer would be the main character of a TV show, I think you’re missing the point. There have been many movies and TV shows where the main character does a lot of very bad things. Isn’t the Sopranos an excellent example? Are you offended by that show too? Because I’m not sure that I see a difference.
Tony Soprano was, in some ways, portrayed as a sympathetic character, despite his behavior. Dexter is too, and maybe more so, because he sees himself as performing a service to society. He doesn’t kill for gain, as Tony did, he kills because he is compelled to do so because of how he was raised (kind of a long story) but ultimately because he believes the people he kills are evil and must be stopped.
There’s a moral ambiguity to this story that is wholly missing from the Sopranos, or other shows that depict violent or criminal behavior. It’s interesting, and it’s well done. Worth watching, in my opinion.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
One way to consider Dexter is that it is all the ‘revenge’ stories taken to a logical conclusion. Once again I only saw the first four episodes but at that point it was clear one of the other police officers in his department wants revenge on a mob kingpin for brutally killing a cop and his family. The question then becomes, is that guy that different from Dexter? And if not, are characters in most action movies (which typically are big revenge plots on a morality stage such that one gets to ignore the moral quandries of their actions). Yes he’s a vigilante, but it is precisely because we face him as a serial killer that we’re brought face to face with the whole action genre.
Do we, in our desire for revenge on horrible criminals anything more than having a secret desire to be a serial killer?
Certainly there’s a big difference between wanting ‘justice’ and being Charles Manson. But I think Dexter by its very nature questions the nice artifice we put up between revenge and murder.
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Exactly right Clark.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
(#25) I know Dexter is being shown on CBS(?) and has probably been toned down, but in England we’ll get the Showtime version (as long as it’s shown after 9pm - after which swearing, nudity, violence etc is allowed)
I’m interested to see it mainly because I loved Michael C Hall in Six Feet Under.
The gal from Firefly puts me off Sarah Connor Chronicles a bit. She was the most annoying in an otherwise really great cast.
I’ll probably watch the first episode of each (Terminator this Thursday and a couple of weeks for Dexter). I’m expecting to like Dexter better, but we’ll see!
Comment by Rebecca — February 19, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
This all gets even more convoluted because a serial killer Dexter and the police are chasing discovers that Dexter is also a serial killer and then starts emulating Dexter.
There were lots of layers within layers that made the show pretty complex. The two parts I remember were the following:
The first was a scene where Dexter finds himself in a restaurant with his sister only to see the mobster all the police want dead there at all. He goes into the bathroom quite prepared to kill the mobster but doesn’t. A flashback indicates that it is because his father taught him not to do risky killings. (I don’t know if it is completely accurate, but from the early shows it appears like his dad figured out Dexter was a sociopath and so trained him both how not to get caught but also to just kill bad people in an attempt to keep Dexter at least semi-socially acceptable) But is it this or is it because Dexter is starting to ‘feel’ and thus starts to understand what risk really is - because he doesn’t want to lose love.
But that seems to be a hardy critique of emotional killing. In effect killing out of emotion is a kind of denial of emotion - of the human relations that make risk difficult. There’s this really weird theme along these lines as the socially dysfunctional Dexter tries to become ‘human’ which raises troubling issues relative to war.
The second scene I remember (it’s been more than a year) was where he had this serial drunk driver tied up on a medical table in a room sealed in plastic. He’d picked the guy out after watching various trials in the courthouse. This was a guy who’d killed several people in various states by drunk driving. After each conviction he’d put up a convincing defense about how he was the victim, get off, and go to an other state.
Anyway the guy is on the table pleading for his life and he going off about how he can’t help himself. It’s an illness. Dexter says, “I understand completely” and then the screen goes black. (It’s obvious what he does)
It makes you think about those of us who harm others but portray ourselves as helpless victims. Are we once again falling prey to being exactly as Dexter but simply repress any idea that we might be like him?
As I said, I only saw four episodes. It really made me think though. I’ve wanted to rewatch them ever since.
I will say the cinematography isn’t that great. It’s shot in Miami, but clearly on the cheap with HD cameras and poor lighting. Somehow though this ends up working with the content very well unlike other shows. (You remember how critical I was of the first episodes of Chuck along these lines)
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Watch both, they’re both great. Terminator is at least as good as the movies (yes, it is. those movies aren’t very good). Dexter is perversely delicious, with the best opening credits there are.
Comment by Supergenius — February 19, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
MCQ, I never watch any mafia-themed, or hitman-themed, movies or TV shows, purely on principle. I think they glamorize violence and killing in a way most movies that are full of violence don’t.
I assume you were teasing me with the GRK question? I knew he was caught. It was the biggest news to hit Seattle since they started finding his victims’ bodies. One of his dump sites was near my kids’ school. I used to work across the street from a motel where he picked up one of his victims, too.
Comment by Susan M — February 19, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
I think this has been an interesting discussion. I’ve seen most of the first season of Dexter. I find it entertaining and thought-provoking, but I do think it’s ethically suspect.
I buy Roasted’s argument, but I’m not convinced Dexter necessarily deals with its subject matter in a particularly responsible fashion.
For one thing, it perpetuates certain Hollywood falsehoods about serial killers, namely that they are highly skilled “artists,” and that their kills are a clever game. In my book, this is a glorification, no question.
There’s also no exploration of free will. Dexter’s a born killer with no real option but to kill. The choice for him is never not to kill, but who to kill, and that’s disturbing. Is the fact a behavior is compulsive ever excuse the fact it’s wrong.
Plus, I have yet to see Dexter worry about making a mistake in one of his killings, and I’ve seen him kill a married couple, a teenager, and many others. He’s got an awful lot of blood slides in his collection. Because he’s a sociopath he’s apparently incapable of worrying about the emotional toll his kills are taking, or any other implications moral or ethical. So in that regard, he’s really not different than your traditional gun-toting action hero.
Dexter is a “principled” killer in many ways similar to Bardem’s character in No Country For Old Men, but that a killer has principles and codes in no way mitigates that murder is an absolute wrong. From what I’ve seen neither the show or the character grapple with that issue, but one of the reasons I keep watching is because I have hopes that as Dexter keeps learning how to feel, one day he will have to deal with that fact.
Comment by Brian G — February 19, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
Clark,
But I don’t think that this is the purpose of the show Dexter. It isn’t really a critique of our action genre. It adds to our action genre rather than becomes a satirical critique of it.
Comment by Dan — February 19, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
Dan, this is where watching the show is a little bit of an aid to participating in a discussion about it.
You are exactly wrong. There is a definite critique of the action genre going on here, and a critique of TV violence in general.
The writers of Dexter, in fact, are toying with us in many ways, because it’s very hard to decide how Dexter is different from other movie and TV characters who kill. This is precisely intended to be a comment on exactly those shows and our oh-so-acceptable feelings about the “good guys” killing the “bad guys.”
In Dexter, the good guys are the bad guys, or there are none, you can never decide which.
Susan, Dexter is probably not a show you would enjoy, but I would say that it is not a show that glamorizes violence. It is a show that has a lot to say about our feelings toward violence, and especially TV violence.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Brian, I would say that many of your concerns are addressed in later episodes, and much more is explained.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
Oh, and SG is so right about the opening credits. Bizarre and tantalyzing. They are ingeniously crafted to make you squirm and make your mouth water at the same time.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
Dan, that’s a fair problem with any critique. For instance there was that first “impact” from Saving Private Ryan and then within a month it lost that impact for many people and became the very thing it critiqued. That is people went for it for the excitement of battle. This then transformed other movies - not all of them with even the same motives of Spielberg - and eventually became a video game (the Call of Duty Games) that highlighted the very problem of displaying violence.
So I don’t dispute that, for all the interesting questions Dexter raises, the possibility of glamorization is always possible. That will always be there for any critique. When you show anything as morally suspect in a demonstrative fashion it can always be taken as glorified. Consider the reaction over the decades to Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange (a film I’ve never been able to sit very long in - I’ve never manage to stay for more than a few moments here or there)
I thus don’t dispute that reaction. I’m not sure how to respond except to say that the question is how you’ll respond. If one is more concerned about its impact on society it gets more complex since arguably there are plenty of films that do glamorize these things. (Hannibal Lector? The Joker? etc.)
I’m not sure how to respond beyond simply pointing out what I find interesting in it.
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
To add, at best I can echo what MCQ suggested. If there is glamorization (and I can’t deny there is some - in anything) then the film raises the question about whether that glamorization is good. It is, in that sense, a self-referential work. (Much like I think Fight Club is: it presents something as attractive only to make you question whether it should be)
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
The fact is that stupid people are always going to miss the critique. The best examples of this are the idiots that cheered the violence in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” and the Reagan Campaign’s use of Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” as a patriotic anthem. But you can’t judge a piece of art on the reaction of stupid people.
Comment by MCQ — February 19, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
Reagan was a genius. He knew no one heard the words to Pink Houses or Born in the USA. Everyone just remembers the refrain and gives it their own meaning.
The issue of the critique is interesting since arguably there are directors who have a critique but it is perhaps overwhelmed by the film itself. Think Robocop, Starship Troopers or the other films by Verhoven.
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
Clark,
That’s the point I am making. Thank you for saying it much clearer than I can. By its very nature, a movie using violence to critique violence becomes the violent movie it critiques. It is added to the pile. It becomes the accepted norm. And in the case of Saving Private Ryan, it really is fascinating how all the “war” movies and tv shows to follow it use some of the same techniques. For instance, I just saw a preview of the ending of the first season of the show Jericho, where the two towns had a battle, and you could see the jittery camera work, the shaking of the weapons, the bombs bursting about. You’d see all that that would never have been shown on a TV show before Saving Private Ryan. It cheapens the experience because for the most part, that kind of violence has powerful psychological impacts on those who experience it. I read an article about the 20th anniversary of the show “COPS” wherein the retired police chief of Washington DC said that he hoped the show would depict what police officers go through after a violent bust, where guns were fired. Police officers go through a short trauma rehab to ensure they were okay. When we watch these violent shows, and we let sink in what we see, we don’t go talking with shrinks to ensure it doesn’t do us lasting damage. But it does.
Comment by Dan — February 20, 2008 @ 8:22 am
COPS has been on for 20 years? I think that says more about our society than Dexter ever will.
This is an interesting discussion though. I get bothered by the critique-is-the-thing-it’s-critiquing, especially in Shrek. The satirizing about advertising. It is advertising. I also hate when movies and tv shows try to be cute with their product placement by acknowledging that it’s product placement. 30 Rock did it once and I’m tempted not to watch the show ever again.
Comment by Susan M — February 20, 2008 @ 10:28 am
Dan, I just can’t agree with what you’re saying. It’s sometimes the case that foolish people misinterpret art like the beach landing sequence of Saving Private Ryan — although in that film, the misinterpretation is made so much easier by the fact that much of the rest of the film glamorizes war and war heroism. Yet there are certainly texts that vigorously and successfully resist this kind of misinterpretation; I’d offer the example of the film Irreversible, which I think would be really hard for anyone to view as celebratory of the behavior it depicts. So things do indeed go in multiple directions.
But, here’s where your argument actually worries me. If we decide in advance that we’re going to rule out critiques of our attitudes toward violence because of the possibility that they might be misinterpreted as celebrating those attitudes, then there will be fewer critiques of our attitudes about violence. Those attitudes aren’t going to go away just because they aren’t critiqued.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 20, 2008 @ 10:44 am
Also, Dan, to be fair, there’s really no clear evidence that viewing violence in art actually does produce psychological damage, lasting or otherwise.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — February 20, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Susan,
You have to admit that the Burger King placement in Arrested Development was pure genius.
Dan,
While I’ve never seen evidence either way of RT’s claim in #46, my feeling is that it’s likely true. Perhaps that’s related to the fact that my favorite video game is Call of Duty 4 and I don’t mind violence in movies games even though I’m the least violent person I know (I’ve never been in a fight with or even hit someone in my life). Of course that’s anecdotal, but I can’t believe I’m the opposite of the majority of people.
Comment by Rusty — February 20, 2008 @ 11:02 am
Roasted Tomatoes,
I don’t mind at all a good critique about our acceptance of violence. What I am saying is that the visceral nature of violence depicted adds to our accepted norms, rather than is a critique of accepted norms. Since Schindler’s List and its frequent shootings in the head, how many times have we seen gunshot wounds to the head in our movies and sometimes even in our TV shows?
I argue that violence isn’t that much different than pornography. Can you truly have a critique of pornography with the use of pornography?
Comment by Dan — February 20, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
Dang, Rusty, I can’t remember any BK mention. Arrested Development was wrong on so many levels. They were just so genius about it, you can’t help but recognize it as the most brilliantly written tv show, ever.
Comment by Susan M — February 20, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Makes me want a Whopper.
Tongue in cheek product placement makes me happy.
Comment by mo mommy — February 20, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
The episode Motherboy XXX, Carl Weathers gets Burger King to underwrite the Scandalmakers show in exchange for a scene being set there. After Carl says “Burger King” a number of unsubtle times, Tobias says, “It’s a wonderful restaurant!” then the narrator says, “It sure is.”
Yes Susan, ever.
Comment by Rusty — February 20, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
Haven’t seen Dexter. It is on my to-do list.
I would advise that you skip Connor Chronicles. I gave up on that one right away.
Comment by John K. — February 20, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
I’m also concerned about movie violence, but for rather ironically different reasons. I think seeing graphic violence makes people all the more reluctant towards violence - even if they’re not the ones engaging in it. Would America still have sent its boys to Omaha Beach if they had seen Saving Private Ryan? I don’t know if they would have. And that’s a scary thought.
Comment by Eric Russell — February 20, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Personally I’d take the violence of Saving Private Ryan over the violence (and lack of consequences) in say the A-Team. But that’s just me. But I think Dan has a point to what he says. I just find the desanitized highly fictious violence glamorizes it just as much if not more but makes one unaware of the consequences of violence.
Comment by Clark — February 20, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
So we watched Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight. Actually, we switched it off - sorry SG - it’s just rubbish!
Still waiting for premiere date for Dexter.
Also heading this side of the ocean - Gossip Girl, Bionic Woman and Pushing Daisies. The latter 2 we downloaded - turned off BW and didn’t like PD. Any thoughts/opinions on GG?
Comment by Rebecca — February 22, 2008 @ 4:47 pm