WVSU Yellow Jacket — Murder and Rape make America great
By Sean Rose
Somewhere between geek-faced adolescence and the realization of my impending adulthood I came across the strangest thing. There is a great deal wrong with this world of ours. Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out or anything, its just there are some very disturbing events taking place in our society. Some of them can just make you turn your head and ask "What the hell?" Honest.
Our latest venture into the realm of disturbed America is a story of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. Her untimely death shattered her aspiration to become an actress in Hollywood. Faced with the hardships of living in Los Angeles, she turned to a small time skin flick producer for work. This fine upstanding gentleman then arranged for her rape and subsequent execution on film. She was murdered with a variety of knives, and she even had to lay the plastic painter’s tarp that would catch her blood and prevent any stains that may later be used as evidence. She was buried in the backyard and missing for some six years before the truth came to light.
Pretty sick isn’t it? That’s what my $20 bought off the Internet. I should have known. I guess I did know, but I didn’t really understand. Who knows? I do know this story is "8MM" — a major label, ultra-high dollar Hollywood production staring Nicholas Cage. I knew the premise of the movie and I thought that the rape and murder of this child would be very discrete and very minor in the plot of tracking down her killers. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The producers of this film (names are unimportant) saw fit to include a very graphic depiction of this underage girl’s death. The girl is wearing skimpy panties, looks like she is strung out on heroin and fully restrained with rope. Not that I am trying to spoil the film or anything, but you get to see each and every slash of the knife and how the realistic blood splatters on the plastic sheeting. It’s sick. Not that blood and gore bothers me, B-movies are great. The unsettling aspect of "8MM" is the photo realistic portrayal of this girl’s brutal death.
I was having a pretty good evening up until this point, and this put one hardcore halt to my weekend fun. The movie sucked. I hated it. It saddens me to think that someone somewhere actually thought this would be a good film to make. I don’t care if they hunted the guys down and killed them or not. That doesn’t make a "snuff" film OK. Even if it is fake and even if it is from Hollywood. If I made this film in West Virginia without the zillion-dollar budget they had, I would be under the jailhouse with some newfound friends that want to call me "daddy." I speak the truth again, my friends.
The worst part of the whole scenario is that no one else cares. I have spoken at length with a number of friends and students, and not one so far has thought it was a bad film. No one thinks the idea of the girl’s death was bad. Except me. Oh well, God bless America. I love it here and I am glad I can live someplace that people can make films that I hate. It just seems to me that no one should have wanted to make this film in the first place.
Since "8MM" is a movie, I can only reason that everyone thinks it’s OK because it isn’t real. I guess that means that Murder and Rape make America great in some twisted sort of logic. Fine by me I suppose ... it’s just another sign that I am completely alienated from WVSC’s youth, ‘cause "back in the day" I would have been thinking about getting high and making love, not out enjoying some film about a minor’s rape and murder. Call me crazy, but that’s the truth.
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