First Day of Headlines

Basically, my first reaction was: well, this is bullshit (sorry Kylie). 30 days for a hate crime is nothing, and this was a hate crime no matter how you slice it. Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, whether they intended it to get that far or not, caused Tyler Clementi to kill himself.

But then I thought about it, and I looked up more information, and I examined it from every angle I could. I pride myself on my ability to not jump to conclusions, and it immediately became apparent to me that this was prime conclusion-jumping. So I looked around, and unsurprisingly, everyone seems to have an opinion on the trial. Some are heated opinions, some are not. In fact, that's not true; most are not. My conclusion? Nope, still bullshit, thought I'd give it a rating of "understandable bullshit".

First, the facts, for any of you readers who haven't heard about this (somehow) or, at the very least, don't know the specifics (or, if you know the specifics, jump past the picture of Ravi for the rest of my post):

On September 19th, 2010, Ravi--Clementi's roommate--set up (accidentally or not) a web-cam pointed towards Clementi's bed after Clementi asked to have the room for the night. Ravi, with Wei (a friend from down the hall), turned on the web-camera for a short period of time and viewed Clementi kissing an unnamed man. The camera was then turned off, and the video was never released to the public. Later that night, Wei (without Ravi present) turned the camera back on with 5 other friends to view Clementi once more.

On September 21st, 2010, Ravi planned to spy once more, this time inviting his twitter followers to watch with him and giving directions on how to watch remotely. A number of text messages and twitter updates were posted by Ravi, detailing the planned event. Clementi discovered the plot, and disconnected the computer. The next day, Clementi asked for a room change and asked for disciplinary action against his roommate. After being confronted by a resident assistant, Ravi began to text apologies to his roommate. That night, Clementi posted on facebook, from his cellphone, "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry" and committed suicide.

Since then, Ravi has been indicted on 15 counts, including invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, tampering with evidence, and witness tampering (the latter two counts springing from Ravi's deletion of around 100 text messages to Wei and his attempts to convince Wei to change her story of the events to fit his). Wei pled guilty, testified against Ravi, and received a 3 year intervention program including community service and counseling in exchange for all charges being dropped (this action was supported by Clementi's family, who believed she held far less blame than Ravi in the case). In March, Ravi was found guilty on all counts. Two days ago, he was sentenced to 30 days in prison, 3 years probation, $10 thousand in fines, and 300 hours of community service.

Dharun Ravi during his sentencing.

You might notice that I haven't made a joke here yet. Even when I'm talking about stuff that I consider serious, I tend to pepper the posts with pop culture references and self-deprecating humorous quips ("he tells himself, secretly wishing that one day he could truly be funny"). But there isn't going to be any of that here, because try as I might, I cannot think of a joke here that would be funny. I'm looking at the picture of this guy on my screen (I now have a picture of on my computer, and just that little bit of him in my life makes me want to destroy all technology that I own) and it's kind of hard to find anything funny right now.

I went out of my way to be as neutral as possible in that outline of events, because the evidence against him is pretty bad. Some of the text messages that were deleted were recovered, and they don't sound good. The timing of his messages to Clementi--namely, that they were sent immediately after he realized how deep of a hole he had dug himself--speak less of remorse than of oh crap I have to cover my ass. But that's not even really my point, at least I don't think it is. Am I angry at him? Maybe. Am I angry at the judge and the legal system? Also maybe, but that's not fully it.

If you look at the culture around us, being gay is sensationalized. In fact, it's not just being gay, it's the entire idea of gayness, the fact that gay people exist, that drives people into a frenzy. Simply put, people don't know how to deal with us. I'm not really talking about people on an individual level (I'm sure you're an exception, you smart person you), but people as in the same people that are talked about whenever someone says "you know what they say" or "people these days" or "some people just can't hold their arsenic."

They're probably all lesbians.

The media is a great example of this. Quick, think of a blockbuster (and by that I mean a major production, costing at minimum $45 million) that starred a gay character. Thinking reeeeeally hard, aren't you? Can't come up with one? That's because they don't exist. There's an argument that a character from V for Vendetta (2006) would count, and I mostly agree, but he plays a fairly minor role in the film. And don't try to say Dumbledore, he doesn't count; there is absolutely no way you could know if he was or wasn't gay by watching the film. Basically, almost none of them exist.

Rubber nipples be damned, this doesn't count.

I can give you a grand total of two: Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), both of which were fairly recent. Scott Pilgrim features a few minor characters that are gay, and I'm being generous by allowing that to add up to one main character (also, Stephen Stills is awesome), which leaves Dragon Tattoo as the only major blockbuster in the past ever featuring an LGBT main character. That's not exactly an encouraging number, guys, and I'd argue that as a film it still proves my point. It's success is, sure, partly because it's a good movie, but not all good movies do well. It was successful in large part because behind all of its style, everything that happened on screen was shocking to the viewers. Sure Lisbeth Salander might be a bisexual, but she's a bisexual in a film that's drowning in BDSM, sex, and the abuse of every woman ever. Her sexuality is less a character trait and more a feature of the genre that she finds herself in; people don't know how to deal with gayness, in the same way that they don't know how to deal with Lisbeth Salander anally violating a man with a dildo.

Look at the current events today, and you'll find more proof of this. Marvel comics recently announced that they would feature the first gay wedding in comics, to which people of course freaked out. In a twisty bit of wordplay that is meant to attract readers and is also in no way helpful to anyone, multiple news sources are reporting President Obama as "coming out" in his support of gay marriage and touting him as "the first gay president". When was the last time you saw a positive article about a gay politician? I remember when: it was during a Daily Show comedic report on an extremely rare example of bipartisan cooperation. Since then? Nothing. That's because every time a gay politician is in the news, it's for a scandal or an eye-popping headline.

This might all seem like a departure from my point, so now I'll bring it back. This is the world that a gay teenager--hell, a gay anybody is living in. Sure, we get Glee, Modern Family, Lady Gaga, and Adam Lambert (I'm grasping with that last one and I know it) telling us that it's OK to be ourselves, but those few instances easily get drowned out by the storm of people who, if they aren't outwardly telling us that they'd like to put us into concentration camps or telling us that God is killing soldiers and it's all our fault (don't click on that last link, it's legitimately one of the worst things ever), then they only want us in their lives as long as we keep things interesting for them, some news to make their everyday tedium a bit less droll.

I count myself among the number of the LGBT youth, and I'm still guilty of everything that I've said. A number of times I've had conversations with my friends about which of our friends do we think is still in the closet, or who will come out in the near future and shock everyone. I have those conversations, then I look back on them and I realize just how offensive they are; being gay, even on that small level of joking among friends, is a headline, not a part of life. We're kept separate by the simple fact that we're interesting.

The cynic in me would point to the widespread coverage in the media of LGBT teen suicides over the past few years as yet another example. Hearing about a bullied kid who takes his or her own life is personally distressing to me, but as far as the news media is concerned, it's another tragedy that'll bring in another several thousand to their audience. If you don't believe me, check out this video by YouTuber and vlogger Philip DeFranco, where towards the end he dissects a few new bits of information coming out of the Treyvon Martin case from Florida, and how new headlines are dramatized to get attention. It happens all the time.

So let's go back to Tyler Clementi.

With all of this in mind, imagine the distress that would come from suddenly being thrust into the spotlight of that kind of a world. Sure, the video wasn't broadcast to the entire world, but even on a smaller scale the impact would be extremely distressing. The spread of an event like this around the dorm (especially with Ravi literally advertising it to his friends) would make a gossip wildfire. It's understandable that eventually it would feel like too much. Of course I don't know the specifics of the situation; there might be other factors in his life that made him feel insecure. But this, timing-wise, is unarguably the tipping point that caused the death of a kid.

Obviously I'm coming from a position where I understand the world and the consequences of operating in such a world a bit better than Ravi did. I understand the feelings that Clementi must have been having. But that's not the point. The point is that Ravi exploited his roommate for a few laughs, and this was what came next. Actions have consequences. Just because we didn't know the baseball was going to smash the window doesn't mean we don't have to pay for it.

And you know what? That's a terrible analogy, because Ravi did know that he was breaking a window. He knew well enough to know that he was going to get a hell of a lot of attention from his actions, and he didn't care about any casualties that would have resulted. The weight for this case falls onto his shoulders.

And he gets a month in prison for it. I'm having trouble proving the "actions have consequences" line.

I mentioned before that I was angry, but not really at Ravi. Am I furious that he did what he did and getting a slap on the wrist in return? Sure. But this is obviously a kid who didn't understand the way people think, or the way the world worked. If I allow myself to assume that Ravi was just a kid that made a mistake (which is taking a conscious effort), then this is still a doozy of a mistake, a literally life-ending one.

It needs to be understood what this kind of action can do to a person. What happened at Rutgers is just an example of the pressure that gay youth are under in this country, facing a world that looks at us as a fad to pass the time rather than as a group of actual human beings. When a sentence comes down on a case like this, it sends a message. And the message this judge sent to the world is that what Ravi did isn't that bad.

That idea makes me sick.

PS. - This entire post has been mostly doom and gloom, and since I don't want to leave off on that, here's a video from Pixar proving that the "people" I was mentioning before aren't the only ones out there. Just because they're the loudest doesn't mean they're the most important.

First Day of Nightmares

I clearly and distinctly remember my first horror movie, even though the context that led to it happening has turned into somewhat nebulous and blurry. I know that I was young, and I know that I was way too young to be watching a scary movie. I know that it was at a friend's house for some sort of a party, either for Halloween or for a birthday. Beyond that, I have nothing; for all I know, the house was actually an underwater bunker and immediately before the movie we had hunted for killer dolphins with harpoon guns.

The dolphins fought back. It was a dark day.

At some point during the party, someone (probably not an adult figure, because otherwise I have to question their parenting skills) turned on the television. The screen immediately cast a sinister glow over the otherwise darkened room, filling it with malice. My eyes caught sight of a knife glinting in the moonlight, and my tiny little heart--ok, I'm dramatizing, but you get the point. Scary things were flashing, knives were stabbing, blood was blood-ing, and my tiny little soul screamed out in pure terror. I remember walking slowly away, as nonchalantly as a somewhere-between-eight-and-ten year old could manage (I was surrounded by my friends, I didn't want to seem like a wuss). I made my way up the stairs, and as soon as I was out of sight I booked it into the closet, where I buried myself in a few towels, and cried for about an hour (during which time, for some reason, no one came to find me) before I was able to come out, knees wobblin' and shakin' like I had the devil in me.

Pictured: Where those terrible chaperones must have assumed I disappeared to for an hour.

For weeks afterwards I had nightmares. They had nothing to do with that particular horror movie, of course, or even with a knife. In fact, they were entirely about Pokemon (I don't know either, it doesn't make any sense). In my nightmare, Jessie and James from Team Rocket would show up and threaten to kill me if I didn't go with them. I would sit there and wet the bed, but they refused to take no for an answer. When I tried to run, they killed me, at which point I woke up with my breath caught in my throat and a distinct inability to close my eyes ever again.

Kind of like this, but with cartoons instead of brainwashing.

But how the times have changed! I may not seek out horror movies, but I can certainly stand to watch them. I never cry for more than five minutes now, I only wet myself a teensy bit, and my screams only have the most minute hint of pain and anguish beneath the copious amounts of fear. I'm just as jumpy as most people are, and the tension of the films does make my heart beat slightly faster, but it isn't all that different from watching an action sequence in a mindless blockbuster; I'm more curious about what's going to happen next than I am dreading it.

Now, I've posted about horror movies before (damn was that a long time ago), and it strikes me now that it was the traditional horror movie that I didn't even find remotely scary, or even thrilling. The Exorcist, for all of its critical acclaim and cultural significance, barely fazed me. Before I concluded that I was desensitized to violence and scary stuff, but I don't think that's looking at the full picture.

Tonight I went to yet another movie night (we seem to have a lot of these), where we watched Hide and Seek, an old Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning scary/thriller/horror/something movie, and let's just say I don't exactly have to worry about any nightmares tonight. About fifteen minutes in, I predicted the main plot twist from a few cliched lines of dialogue and the unfolding of the first supposed-to-be-scary scene (don't mind that noise, it's just me patting myself on the back), and though I jumped with all of my friends whenever a cat jumped out of a closet (really, Hollywood?) I never felt one moment of actual fear. The movie itself was OK. The plot was fairly bad, but all of the performances were approaching perfect and never over the top and I never felt the urge to laugh in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. I just did not find it scary. I found it to be just the same as all of the tropes and previous plot-twisty horror flicks before it.

Contrast that to my friends, and you come up with a problem. Everyone else in the room was terrified, and rather vocally so. Repeatedly did I hear that this was a really good movie, that it was really scary, etc etc. And I just wasn't with them. Don't miss my point, though. This post is not about how nothing scares me and how I have nerves of steel.

This is, unfortunately, not me.

Paranormal Activity still freaked me out immensely, and The Blair Witch Project was approaching unwatchable for me. Meanwhile, multiple of my friends have told me that Paranormal Activity was terrible, including one of the friends at tonight's movie night who was immensely freaked by the jump scares of Hide and Seek. So what gives? Why do the wrong things scare me? How is it that the state of complete nothingness that fills up the screen of Activity and Blair Witch make me want to gouge my eyes out while the things that legitimately everyone else has proven that they are afraid of (I'm assuming people must be scared of these things, otherwise someone would have to stop making them) don't even make me blink.

Rewind back to February 12th. I know the day because it was the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead, and AMC was running an all-day horror extravaganza. Me and a few friends of mine were sitting in the main lounge on the 6th floor of our dorm, and someone or other switched to the channel in passing. Lo-and-behold, the terrifying scene from my childhood popped up on the screen. I was horrified for all of five seconds before I realized that what I was watching was ridiculous. The movie in question? Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Seriously. Tiny me didn't even have the decency to have his life temporarily ruined by a decent film. We watched it for a bit, but really it just depressed me so I left the room to think for a bit. That movie had literally changed my life. For a good seven years afterwards I didn't watch another scary movie. Hell, I couldn't even play the video version of Clue because it's mildly suspenseful murder plot haunted me as a kid. But now I sit down and watch it, and that is what comes on screen?

Seriously, this happens. Whose idea was this?

I've been having trouble putting all of this into perspective, because I kind of like the idea that I'm in some small little way better than other people. I can survive watching a horror movie without freaking out, which obviously puts me into an upper echelon of people (in my opinion, us higher beings should be the only ones allowed to breed). It might be a tiny victory, but I don't typically get very many of those. But at the same time I know I'm oversimplifying. Me being able to see through Hide and Seek has nothing to do with my steely nerves, or my superior intellect (just because horror movies have nothing to do with my intellect doesn't mean it doesn't exist). It has to do with what I'm actually afraid of.

I won't pretend to know what that is. It would be great if I could wrap this all up with a slick line about how my "fear of the unknown" has crossed over into my interpretation of pop culture (and feel free to read this as me saying that, 'cause that actually makes me seem kind of deep in a moody poet sort of way), but I doubt that's actually the case. Go out on the street and ask someone what the scariest movie they have ever seen is, and you'll get a ton of different answers. The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary's Baby, Jennifer's Body, Ghostbusters, Alien, Dumbo, the list goes on. I'll be you'd even get a few Hide and Seek answers, too, judging from my friends' reactions.

Racism scares me, okay?

My point is--well, I guess I have two points, really. First is that people are different. We all have different tastes, different fears, all that jazz. But more importantly (because no one really cares about people in general), I am different. I'm not that little kid anymore that cries when Michael Myers stabs into the laundry chute. I've grown past that into something...else. Someone who, when he watches a movie like that, he notices the god-awful plot and the above-par acting. Maybe that's not really better. Maybe my point still stands from my last post on horror movies, and I'm desensitized to some moderately important things. But at least it's a change. At least I'm growing.

Screw it, that's a terrible ending theme. Obviously my fear of the unknown has crossed over into my interpretation of pop culture, negatively impacting my viewing of all films in the horror genre. There.

I'm gonna go have a nightmare now.