Sunday, September 5, 2010

Suddenly, Violence and Cruelty are Fun

I guess it is a way of protecting ourselves from psychological shock and pain.

When I was a little kid, I remember being very scared of dolls in the dark. I would imagine their eyes moved stared at me and blinked. I imagined their mouth moving whispering strange words and singing. I imagined their head moving. All that produced by my mind and mostly by my fear of being alone in the dark. I used to freeze, cry, run, hide and finally not sleep at all.

But I got tired of it. and decided to face them. Si I waited for the night and surrounded myself with dolls, ready to fight, but nothing happened, they didn´t even blink. Then I supposed it was inside me and not in them.

Some years after that, I started dreaming about the dolls. Every night a doll would attack me in my dreams, followed me and tried to chase me. They would have knives and monster faces. This was worse because in my dreams I wouldn't feel ready to fight, anything could happen and they would be super powerful.So I decided to make them real and fight them in my arena. That fear had to be beaten, either in my mind in reality or in both.

I got about 20 used baby dolls, found, stole and bought them  and with make up, fire and resin disfigured their faces and hands and made monsters of them. They would live in my room, sleep with me and be part of my world until the fear was gone. That was my decision. I saw them everyday, every night and every morning when I woke up. I kept them beside me at home.  After a month, there was nothing they could do to me any more, I wouldn´t even notice them, they became irrelevant to me.

Then the movie showed up. the Chucky series was on screens for years. That was my hardest test. Images and situations that were not controlled by me. The game of public fear. I saw them again and again. Until I understood its purpose, its mechanisms and the way people would massively and automatically respond of this kind of images an stories.

Fear is a powerful tool to rule. It is a weapon inside our adversary, inside or slave. If you let your fears be started up or controlled by outsiders, you are done. they will be inside your mind until you sleep with you fear and face it. Say insurance, banks, health services, grandma, government, mom, girlfriend, boss, wife, husband, anyone or anything that detonates those fears inside you.

Violence and Cruelty in the media, work as  tools to keep us silent, afraid and obedient. Fear and insecurity block our intelligence and creativity. They make us docile.  We find It  exciting as it is addictive. A limit between dying an surviving.

A recent wave of tv shows and series insist on showing direct violence, blood, tragedy and  cruelty (from xfiles to niptuck, true blood or even dexter). Fear is constantly communicated to widespread stories in  television, cinema and books. Feeding audiences with fear and uncertainty make softer audiences that do not think clearly, do not make smart decision, and do not show any criticism or opinion to other kinds of messages.

Fear and uncertainty are the best allies for insurance companies, low return investments, bad credit conditions, medical policies, retirement plans, and even the beauty and food industry, etc. All these companies develop messages based in people´s fears , fill us with uncertainty and then come to rescue us with services that do not exist.

Corporate and state terrorism work in a similar way. Fear of the economic crisis for example, makes us consume, work and pay taxes in a different way, Fear of losing our job, homes and comfort makes us obey whatever law or action the government may take in favor or banks and corpora tons to raising taxes or diminishing citizens rights. When we are afraid we do not think clearly.

So if you are afraid of something, just face it , analyze it, think why you fear that, what symbols are behind it and what does it move inside you. Then control it, see it, hear it, live with it and make it afraid of you. Don´t just let yourself go and enjoy it.

Fear is just a form of control today.

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