|
aslouie -> Has the Columbine killers become the new "Che Guevara" chic? (5/2/2008 9:54:28 PM)
|
A couple of days ago, while I was doing my laundry, I was keeping on abreast with the news, involving a couple of thwarted, copycat school shootings. And as I became a bit more vested in the character profiles of the alleged perpetrators, I can't help but be reminded of the bullying factor--especially when one central adolescent suspect had a website devoted to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (like so many reported websites, dedicated to the titular youths as online shrines), almost as if they're some kind of "liberators," or revolutionaries in the same venue as Che Guevara.
But like the Argentinian crony (to Fidel Castro), both the school shooters and Guevara seems to have become an iconic symbol of "revolutionary-chic," or revolutionary poseur chic, with morally dubious ramifications. And as reports of bullying became ever more open--none of which is all that encouraging (i.e. cyber-bullying on Myspace, Facebook, text messaging, etc...), it's almost creepy at charitable best, to see how too appealing the Columbine killers have become to the bullied (to sort of substitute the politicized word, oppressed), like they're some kind of T-shirt fashionable heroes, without the beret and defiant stare into the horizon. And like Guevara, I don't have to say a whole lot how much Dylan & Klebold shared much of the brutal tendencies as Che.
*I just hope and pray that there won't be a glossy, rock star-polished biopics on Harris & Klebold, a la Motorcycle Diaries![:'(][:@]
In fact, with Virginia Tech recently commemorating the first anniversary of its tragic entry into the fraternity of modern school violence, I'm relatively sure that everyone must know about Cho Seung Hui's admiration for the Columbine shooters as "martyrs," almost in context to the 9-11 age where Mohamed Atta & CO., are seen in the same over-glorified light as say, what Code Pink and the like, have said about Al Qaeda/Mehdi Army in Iraq: "freedom fighters."
And as I try to come to grips with the morally complex views of Cho Seung Hui--having been in a somewhat similar place as he is back then, I'm having a leery suspicion that it won't be too long until someone starts mass-marketing the image of Cho (Seung-hui) as, "Cho Guevara," in Asian American communities, down to the ad nauseum, beret, Soviet star (in the background), and defiant stare into the horizon... and why wouldn't it be possible? I mean, having seen some of the broadcasted pics of Cho, brandishing weapons with a frightening scowl, I could easily (yet uncomfortably) picture the VT killer placed in that same pose as the "revolutionary" formerly known as Ernesto Guevara, since Cho's facial expressions bear an uncanny resemblance to Chairman Mao-era, Chinese propaganda art!*
*I'm so not looking forward to Cho's Little Red Book...[:@]
|
|
|
|