No moral value

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2000)

We have become stimulus junkies.
I remember when I first saw Bonnie and Clyde and how shaken I was by one of the final scenes in which a storm of machine gun bullets shook their bodies as if they were puppets. It was emotionally upsetting, overwhelming. Yet that movie's presentation of violence was mild compared to that seen in Gladiator. Gladiator's violence offended me but did not affect me like Bonnie and Clyde. I have become, like I assume many have after so many other movies, Gladiator being a more extreme example, insensitive to violence.
Yet we want to be stimulated, overstimulated. Violence on a grander and grander scale is a simple and easy solution to the problem. Gladiator gives us our latest fix. But what does it cost us?
Is it surprising that we live in an age of drive by shootings, school shootings, and other forms of senseless death? I once read that in World War II many men had trouble shooting at the enemy the first time and that this is less and less a problem today. Today video games are sometimes used to desensitize our military trainees.
Violence does not lead everyone to become violent. That would be an absurd conclusion. Nevertheless combine the messages of Gladiator with someone who is already depressed, has a thought disorder, and who is prone to violence. What do you think we might get?