What We Think Makes a Killer

So the speculation has begun already. In less than a week since the murders at Virginia Tech, the media and society has begun looking for things to pin the blame on for the slaughter perpetrated by Cho Seung-Hui. With the release of photos and video which he mailed to NBC prior to the second part of his killing spree, speculation began as to the basis for the photos. One image that struck a chord with some people was the one with Cho holding a hammer in a threatening manner. Almost identical to the image shown with this blog. This image is from the movie "Oldboy" which is a South Korean movie that won many accolades including the Grand Prix Prize at Cannes in 2004. It tells the story of a youth who is snatched off of the streets and locked into a cell for 20 years with no explanation. When he finally gains freedom he goes off seeking vengence with a fire in his heart and a hammer in his hand. An automatic link to the violence that led Cho on his killing spree correct? Wrong. The film lacks any significant gunplay which would have also 'inspired' Cho to shoot up his campus and as far as we know right now, he never used a hammer at any point other than for the photograph taken at some previous time.

Yet, the media and those of us with too much time on our hands are looking at this as a means of finding a rationale behind what happened. We're looking for someone or something to blame for what happened. Movies and video games are the most obvious choice. The movie "Oldboy" is just one of the examples that everyone seems hard pressed to point the finger to. Given the fact that it's a Korean film and that Cho was a Korean, the automatic assumption is that he would have understood it without the need for subtitles and as such it would have likely resonated with him much more. I agree that he probably understood it in greater detail but how does that make it any different than any other movie someone sees in their native language. Because Cho was Korean doesn't make it any different.

Films such as "Fight Club" and "Swordfish", both American made films made after the Oklahoma City bombings depict the bombing of public buildings and the slaughter of innocent bystanders and yet, these films are pointed to a as possible inspirations for others like Timothy McVeigh. At the time of the bombing there, the public was worried that this was a terrorist attack perpetrated by someone outside of the country such as a foreign terrorist group and yet when it was discovered that the bombers were Americans, the furor died down just a bit. There were no calls for the ending of violence in movies or anything of that sort. There were cries for better protection of chemicals and materials that could be used in bombs but not the movies.

Flash forward a few years to Columbine; a name that will now always be linked in American conscience to another shooting tragedy. The two shooters there were also American kids who had apparently suffered a great deal of ridicule and ostracization during their time in school and were finally lashing out. At that time again the blame was thrown in the laps of movie makers and video game producers. They blamed films like "The Matrix" for inspiring the killers to go on a similar killing spree and I just don't think that's fair.

I'm in no way saying that all of these killers were right for what they did; they were absolutely and completely wrong and their desire to kill people who may not have even been connected to them was unjust and unfair. But to blame their actions on someone else is not fair either. Harris and Clebold in Columbine were apparently targeted by some of the other kids in school. They were often the butt of jokes and were targets for pranks and the like. Same thing apparently happened to Cho if you read some of the incidents he endured when he was in high school. It's probably the one tough time in an adolescent's life and being the victim of bullying isn't making it any easier. So why don't I think this is connected to the movies? Because the anger and frustration these guys felt towards their peers was already manifest and it wasn't made stronger by the movies. People made attempts to reach out to them but when the majority outranks the minority by a large amount, frustration builds up a larger barrier and makes it difficult to penetrate.

Cho's actions while reprehensible, were not apparently directly relatable to any movie so for people to want to lay the blame on Korean movies or Hong Kong action films is premature. Violence in movies is not going to go away because of incidents like this. It's been there before and will likely be there a long time after the shock of the Virginia Tech shootings dies down. We all have a short term memory and while at this time we will call for movies to tone down violence and for video game developers to stop glorifying violence in their games, it will also die down and we'll be back to where we were prior to Monday's awful events. People like Cho will continue to be ostracized and will become angry because they are misunderstood or have problems that we have not yet learned to diagnose. One can hope that the type of frustration and anger that welled up inside him will not happen again but it could happen.