Thursday, April 19, 2007

Virginia Gunman Chou Plays

Here's the first one, basically a 13 year old fighting with his stepfather, Richard McBeef
and here's the second one: Mr. Brownstone.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I've been reading your blog for a while. Thanks for creating it.

With this post you created about the Virginia Gunman, I thought how it's interesting that you keep up with the events in America when many people here are relatively ignorant of the events in your country and elswhere in the world. It just struck me as wrong somehow. America has to become more connected with the world. It's our only chance.

Anyways, I won't bother you any longer. Take care.

Peace,
Christine

zmanutdz said...

For some reason, I just feel so cold towards the shooting and the death of those young people. The Iraqi atrocities desentisised my heart towards death and killing in general. How sad.

piers said...

So, should we conclude from your posting of 4/13 that you are no longer the least but confused, and have joined the ranks of the haters--who would not know what it feels like to be confused, or understand the difference between confusion and understanding?

Anonymous said...

Those plays were pretty weird.

Mostly what bothered me about them so much was the language rather than the actual stories.

I can't decide whether he believes the things the kids in each story do is right or if hes being darkly sarcastic and making fun of them all for being such disgusting little twits. Or maybe its something else entirely...

Some of the news reports here cite pedophilia as a subject of the stories... but in the first story nothing of the sort ever takes place and allegations of it are only lobbed around in order to hurt the stepfather directly and to further damage the man's reputation in the mother's eyes.

In the second story the kids talk about all being "ass-raped" by Mr.Brownstone. I can't decide if this is supposed to be literal or figurative. People use the term "ass-raped" when they feel a great injustice has been done to them... like students frequently feel about their teachers in school. I'm almost sure it has to be figurative. It just seems to me like a bunch of teenage kids frustrated by authority and school just hanging around talking a lot of really distasteful trash. Then as it turns out M.Brownstone has been behind them the entire time and he winds up getting their 5 million dollar ticket and they aren't even eligible to win anyways since they are only 17.

The language and the things the kids sad in the plays was really disturbing... but it seems to me to show more that this is the kind of behavior the author thinks should be punished and that these people will eventually "get whats coming to them" than that he wanted to act like these kids.

I think he eventually took it upon himself to dole out his own sick form of justice and take his feelings out on the kids at his college.

Th stories seemed to give insight into how he felt about being driven crazy by the behavior of others.

Nothing about what he did was right and he definitely strikes me as some kid of mad weirdo... (He sent a press package to NBC!!!) but the portrayal of his history and play writing by the news media has panned out to be fairly inaccurate.

They kept putting up headlines about how he stalked two girls... but when it came down to it and the two girls talked about it... they described him more as annoying rather than outright frightening and no charges were ever pressed by them.

I'm not saying this guy was normal by any means or that he didn't do a terrible thing...OR that he wasn't a disturbed man!!

I'm just pretty pissed off that the media is getting their rocks off so hard on this and taking things so far out of context... its as if they are taking extreme poetic license with the news... They said his plays indicated that he wanted to kill his teachers... and after reading them... I came away with the impression that he was mocking these kids who said such things...

The first story where the stepdad snapped and killed the son seemed to illustrate his attitude towards people in general.

I gotta say again tho that I'm not trying to stick up for this guy... I'm just pretty pissed about the media telling everyone to think. they give you just enough information so that you'll believe what they say is 100% true... and so they can paint an interesting picture for a news story...

...as if the real world weren't interesting or important enough already!!

I'm tired of getting half truths and distortions from the NEWS!! I happen to believe that actually knowing whats going on the world is highly important!! ...But how can we EVER hope to know with news reporting like this??

Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, but its the principle of the thing!!

Sorry for venting here!

This the first link I've found to this content... most of the news articles I read at the time conveniently didn't have them linked anywhere.

Anonymous said...

I partially agree with you, SentientDevice. The media is definitely making a sensation out of it. But I highly doubt Cho was satirizing the kids in his stories. He wasn't creating anything of literary value whatsoever - to me, the stories come off as pure meanness. They serve no commentary on anything. It's more like a big 'f-you' to society, in my opinion. You can feel the rage beneath the surface of his words.

Anonymous said...

Abused kids often think that they deserved it, or that they're somehow horrible people. And they may try denying that anything bad really happened. So I would say that his play was entirely in keeping with the signs of abuse. He got hurt pretty badly at some point in time.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMsWzlFF5_E

Lynnette In Minnesota said...

testing

Lynnette In Minnesota said...

Sorry Kid, I was having problems logging in for some reason and I had to create a new account on Blogger.

Anonymous said...

@sentient

Every single human being has the capacity for rage and madness built into them... what makes each person different is how they deal with it, calm it, or channel it into something worthwhile.

This very reason is why the process of "venting" is so important... particularly for those of us who have more rage than others.

Venting in and of itself can serve a purpose for social change though, if the right people are listening/reading.

For instance... this blog.

-Chrysm

Anastasia said...

But the differance between Kid and Chou is that Kid actually gets his point across, where Chou is trying so hard to be edgy and profound that he fails utterly and creates a piece of literary junk. This guy really needs to keep his day job.

beachmom said...

Related: this shows so much class and compassion, and coming from Virginia, it is greatly appreciated:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6580930,00.html

BAGHDAD (AP) - Students in Baghdad, where universities have been hard hit by violence, said Monday they were saddened by last week's massacre at Virginia Tech and hung up a banner to express their solidarity with ``our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge.''

``We want to let the whole world know that we do not support terrorism anywhere,'' said Yassir Nazar, head of the student union at Baghdad Technology University, who organized the hanging of the banner near the campus gate.

It reads, ``We, the students of Technology University, denounce the attack at Virginia Tech. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims who faced a situation as bad as Iraq's universities do. The sanctity of campuses must be protected around the world.''

``We have lost many friends and professors,'' said Nazar. ``But in spite of our wounds, we want to show our solidarity with the students of Virginia Tech who are our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge.''

Anonymous said...

انت اكبر منيوك وفرخ يابلاع العير



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