The repulsive blame game starts

By Kylie Jane Wakefield
Collegian Editor
April 25, 2007

Once again, Americans are pointing the blame at someone else for our problems. If we’re overweight due to excessive consumption of fast food, we sue McDonald’s. If one person commits a violent act, we blame the media for his or her actions.

Last week, Virginia Tech suffered a terrible and tragic shooting, leaving the nation stunned, among an understandably huge range of emotions. Before we had time to properly mourn the loss, people had already concluded that the media may have been a leading factor in gunman Seung-Hui Cho’s fatal actions.

Dr. Phil McGraw stated on Larry King Live on April 16 that, “Common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, [or where] it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society.”

He then went on to explain that when a person with mental disorders participates in the playing of these video games, or consumes violent media, it is too much of a risk for already troublesome behavior. Yet another theory, proposed by Virginia Tech professor Paul Harris, is that Cho’s massacre was inspired by scenes from the action film Oldboy, according to an April 19 news brief on AVClub.com. In the film, a man is wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade and goes on a bloody revenge rampage, using all types of weapons, including a hammer, to exact pain on his enemies.

So, while some are blaming video games, others are blaming films. What about music? Cho apparently listened to Collective Soul’s “Shine” repetitively, according to his roommate and an April 23 article on CNN.com. Cho also “[inscribed] the lyrics on the wall” of his dormitory room, demonstrating just how deeply it had affected him.

In 1999, Marilyn Manson was under fire for supposedly influencing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to murder their Columbine classmates. I could name any number of examples, from the early beginnings of rock and roll up to ludicrously blaming the Beatles for the Manson murders, but it’s clear that the media will always, in some way, be held responsible for these tragic occurrences.

America needs to stop looking to all the wrong places for answers. The truth is that there is no answer to this problem. Cho was mentally disturbed, and even with all the warning signs, his actions could not have been prevented in the end. You could point the blame at the Virginia Tech officials for not canceling classes, but that does not bring back all the innocent people killed on April 16. I don’t care how many times Cho might have seen Oldboy, listened to “Shine” or beaten all the levels of some violent video game.

Saying that these media outlets had even a microscopic effect on him is blasphemous. I could also refer to the argument that a lot of the times, media violence occurs on the news more than anywhere else. Couldn’t watching hours and hours of real violence, not sensationalized, fictional violence, affect us on a higher level?

There will never be an end to pointing a finger at the media for all of society’s problems. Our issues will never be handled or accounted for on a personal level, but stretched to include all facets of society, especially the media. This blame is in all of our heads, not externally justifiable, and we need to step up and start taking responsibility for our own actions, while admitting that some problems have no answer.

wakefieldk1@lasalle.edu