The bizarre
hazing that happened at Glenbrook North High School is horrible. It made national news, in a time when there is a lot going on in the world. That, as much as many other things, shows the power of it. Senior girls beating on junior girls for fun. I don't get it. I'm
glad I don't get it. You need to have a sick twisted mind to ever think that anything like that would be amusing. I am
extremely glad that was not my school. But it could have been. I know that school. My high school and GBN are in the same conference for sports and competitions and whatever else high school conferences are for. (Now you all can find out that I go to one of four other schools. Oh no - my anonymity is dying. Oh well.)
In English class we read the short story
'Videotape' by Don DeLillo. It is about a 12 year old girl who is playing with a video camera in the back seat of her parents' car during a trip. She films the driver of the car directly behind hers. And in doing so, catches on tape his murder. The man in the car behind this nameless girl is shot through the head by the 'Texas Highway Murderer'. Throughout the rest of the story, we then see a man watching this footage on his television. The TV stations keep replaying the crudely shot home video over and over again.
My English group was in charge of teaching this short story to the class (each group had a different story). It was only days after the Glenbrook North. The two had countless parallels. The videos of the GBN hazing were being show all over the news. People apparently felt compelled to watch them over and over again. As Don DeLillo said about the murder, "The tape [was] superreal, or maybe underreal is the way you want to put it. It is what lies at the scraped bottom of all the layers you have added. And this is another reason why you keep on looking. The tape has a searing realness." This event had a realness for people. (I rarely watch the news, so I had not yet seen any of these tapes, and had only briefly heard about it on the radio before this all came up in class discussion.) One of the amazing things was, people in my class kept shouting out thoughts and opinions. And with very little exception, I was not able to discern whether they were talking about 'Videotape' or whether they were talking about GBN. It was haunting. It was creepy, "it [was] real this time, not fancy movie violence" (DeLillo, 'Videotape')
But, to use more of DeLillo’s words, “They show it because it exists, because they have to show it, because this is why they’re out there. The horror freezes your soul but this doesn’t mean that you want them to stop.” People keep watching it. The TV keeps showing it so people keep watching it. Violence is obviously real, and no one wants it. No one wants to be near pain or suffering or injury or tears or fear. But they are sheltered. The nameless girl in 'Videotape' was in the safety of her own car, watching from behind the lens of the videotape. The onlookers in the GBN hazing were there, but they were separated. They did
nothing to stop anything, they were watching from behind the safety of their video cameras. The man continuously viewing and reviewing the murder on TV and the people watching the hazing on TV were all behind a lens. They are struck with the horror, but remain safe. They know it won’t happen to them. It could never happen to them. They just know it. They’re safe. Or at least safer than all the other people who thought they were perfectly safe, but weren’t.
Posted by Serene Chaos at
2:12:00 AM
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We just got our in depth graduation information. This includes the hight list for lining up for the actual ceremony. I am proud to say that I am now officially the
shortest person in the
entire grade!
Posted by Serene Chaos at
1:12:00 AM
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So, I've been wondering. Is it bad that every time I take a deep breath my back cracks? And if I stretch, even just a little, my back cracks then too. (Wow. I just realized that my back sure does like [to] crack...)
Posted by Serene Chaos at
1:10:00 AM
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