Soooooo... a couple of days ago I started writing a new play, as I was feeling invigorated by the POMPEY experience. Very early on there is mention of a character gunning down fellow students at school.
Flash forward to Virginia Tech.
Just so we're all very clear on the subject, I was not inspired by the events at VT.
Apparently the gunman was also a playwright. He wrote profane plays about pedophilia and attacking people with chainsaws. And he also had a beef with "rich kids." One student blogged (how referring to blogs has suddenly become newsworthy, I have no idea) that "Looking back, he fit the exact stereotype of what one would typically think of as a 'school shooter' -- a loner, obsessed with violence, and serious personal problems."
Well, we now have a stereotype for a school shooter. Now we know what to look for. Watch out for those loners, kids. They're bad news.
Speaking for the loner class, while I may have hated life at one point (high school), kept to myself, and listened to a lot of Slayer, and in my later years, written plays about cannibalism, killing people with axes, vampires, slaughtered chihuahuas, appendages inexplicably falling off, organ theft, gynecological exams, euthanasia, strangulation, infanticide, stuffing human flesh into a jar, revolution, turning dogs into pillows, alcoholism, fascism, killing cats, incest, Satan, bestiality, the end of life as we know it, guns, Caligula, pimps, exorcisms, authority figures becoming homicidal... and so on... not ONCE did it ever occur to me to grab my father's gun and start whacking people who made me mad. Perhaps that means that I don't meet the stereotype, but, as the record shows, I'm pretty bloody insistent on following my own path. But more than that, I find it extremely offensive that there is now a stereotype for school shooters, filled with adjectives that apply somewhat to myself (thanks, Columbine). And this wasn't even the opinion of a news reporter, rather the musings of a blogger as quoted by a news reporter.
Did my father have a gun in the house. Of course. He's army. Did I go near it? Nope. Because I knew better. If there was any sense of abuse in my head, it was directed at myself and no one else.
Even now people see me in my black trenchcoat and joke with me that it is either my "Columbine" jacket or my "pedophile" jacket. Couple that with longer than normal hair, and apparently I am resembling something close to the mark. The words "serial killer" have even been tossed about, but that must be a Manson reference, because Ted Bundy looked nothing like me...
So, I guess the stereotype is that the black clad loners are school shooters, and the clean cut conservatives are serial killers who prefer strangulation, cannibalism, and large knives. And if that's the case, there are A LOT more serial killers out there than school shooters.
Has anyone checked out the background of this blogger, by the way? We may need a minority report on him.
Oh, and as a bonus, a spokesman for People Who Like Guns and Like People to Have Guns said something about how this would have never happened if the students at VT were allowed to carry fire arms. That was their take on the subject. The school shooter has a gun? Well, so do the intended victims! Let the bullets of personal responsibility fly! Because if everyone had a gun, then no one would use them! Brilliant. A return to Deadwood. Obviously Old West mentality works like a charm.
Now, I am not offering a suggestion as how this could have been prevented. Obviously the kid had access to a gun. Maybe it was his father's gun. Maybe he bought it on the street. If it hadn't been a gun, maybe it would have been a homemade bomb, or something as simple as a flamethrower, perhaps something clever like a poisonous gas conjured up in science class. All I know is that in a culture that idolizes violence, shouldn't the end result be somewhat expected? I know what you're thinking... hey films in Japan? They are way more hardcore than ours, and they don't have nearly the amount of senseless violence that we enjoy. Well, maybe that's what we're missing. I have a feeling that in Japan that the hyperviolence is truly escapism and not made out to be a instruction book. That may be a fault of our culture, but I'm not here to delve into that, because that will take all night, and I have a play to write.
My original point was to point out that we have enough stereotypes to deal with that color our deep-seeded horrors of the "what if?" variety. All this mentioned article serves to do is to view the loner character as a mistrustful, gun-wielding psycho, and not as someone better than that.
Joke with me if you will about my appearance and mannerisms, my friends. But don't be surprised if I hit back with a Ted Bundy joke or, for my female friends, a little nip about killing your child by driving your car into a river.
I'm going to listen to some Slayer now.
