I loved guns as a kid. I think because I was skinny runt looking for some back-door to manhood. And in America, manhood means committing violence. In today’s news is the story of Alec Baldwin accidentally killing a team member of a western he was working on, and injuring its director. A prop gun seems to have been a real gun, and loaded.
My friend Stirling McLaughlin wrote a thoughtful piece about this on the Feebs, which is how I first learned about the story. Magda told me this morning it was Alec Baldwin who accidentally fired the gun. Horrible accident. Won’t change anything. We’re obsessed.
I wonder if it’s anthropology. We can’t look away from horror. Or displays of raw power. We are all hooting apes watching as the alpha male beats a would-be usurper to death. We are both horrified and put on blast: this could be you!
“This could be me!” We hoot to ourselves. “I could be the Alpha!”
Wait no, the scene says, you or your loved ones could be the victims!
“What would I do if I was the Alpha,” we ask, ignoring the warning of escalating violence, “I would of course be a kind Alpha. Unless…”
Feel lucky? Punk?
Ongoing school shootings. Mass killings at public events. Forever war against turbaned enemies. Accidental shootings on set. Children murdered by children.
Perhaps America spawned this ultra violent media trend, but it’s everywhere now. “Squid Game” comes to mind. Though I wish it hadn’t.
Noah Yuval Harari posits that we are an alpha predator species without alpha predator credentials. We jumped the line. By inventing weaponry we booted large cats off the throne and became monkey kings. But while lions and tigers are supremely confident in their place, we remains chittering upstarts, pleading with the kingdom for respect. Demanding it.
This could be a long post with lots of pop-anthropology points. Some in my closest circle know that I have a smoldering, deeply annoying rant about Pulp Fiction being the turning point in American culture from “redemptive violence,” the violence of hero’s justice, to simply casual violence, the violence of shocking exhibition. But in fact Tarantino probably just pulled the veil back. We were always in it for the spectacle. A soothing lullaby of lethal force. That’ll keep the usurpers at bay.
For now.
For now we should chitter and hoot about this tragedy of a young woman losing her life. Thoughts and prayers for her family. And then turn our attention back to the vicarious spectacle.