Some films instead treat the subject with a vague, even paranoid fascination. Films like Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) suggesting the near-universal adolescent experience of social isolation helps explain some of the motivating forces behind such violent acts. In ElephantVan Sant uses his signature themes of rebellious youth and loveless realism as the film’s teenagers ride bikes at night, navigate school and bully gangs, and play violent video games. The film avoids pointing fingers, but nevertheless portrays its school shooters as reprobates, so much so that they even try to have sex with each other the night before the massacre to avoid dying girls.
Van Sant acted in non-actors, shot in a real school, and eschewed script to casually capture the raw teenage experience. This method was also used on Matt Johnson The Dirtiesused hidden cameras in a real high school to film students reacting to stunt-like settings. Johnson, who is also one of the creators of the cult series Nirvana The Band The Show, he uses his signature gruesome, guerilla-style approach to portray a violent psychopath born to a violent film brother who can’t separate reality from his favorite crime movies, resulting in a dramatic act of violence. The film tricks the viewers into feeling like they are in these sides of the young boys, engaging the audience with a sense of complicity as it watches these creative, up-and-coming filmmakers slowly transform into monsters.
Photo by Denis Villeneuve Polytechnique similarly sitting on its villain. A fun, stylized depiction of a real-life college shooting in Montréal, the film opens with a reading of the school shooters’ manifesto. The young man spouts an anti-feminist screed to his mother as he adjusts his guns. Villeneuve’s ability to sequence riveting action is sadly understated Polytechniquethe camera tracks a hardened shooter as he roams the school’s hallways, preying on female victims. Shot in cinematic black and white with the cold snow of Montréal peeking through the school windows, the film has a cool, airless tone.
All these films spend a lot of screen time on the painful experiences of the victims and bystanders, but still dwell in the psychological darkness of the shooters themselves, which means that the culture these troubled young men are immersed in is at least partly to blame for their actions. Whether it’s high school social pressure, violent movies, or rapidly changing gender norms, these films suggest that school shooters are fueled by a societal sense of victimhood.
This is one of the more famous school shooting stories that have cropped up in the years since Columbine. Of 90s, deep into the era of 24/7 cable news, the Columbine shooters quickly became objects of media interest. The media clamored for information about them and dissected their possible motives, naming everything from goth culture and Marilyn Manson’s music to the Trenchcoat Mafia as the culprits. The idea that the two were abused, lonely teenagers taking revenge on school jokes emerged as a prominent theory – classmates described the boys being taunted with homophobic slurs and sprayed with ketchup packets in the halls in the years leading up to the massacre.
It’s always an important narrative. I .“The Columbine effect” is a well written itemwhere some respect for the shooters and the perception that these outcasts were acting in retaliation against brutal bullying continued to fuel more school shootings. Researchers have strongly disputed this issue. Depression, suicidal thoughts, and social tendencies emerge as the most likely reasons, and by many accounts, the Columbine shooters. he had friends, participate in school activities, too they themselves used to abuse bullying rather than backing down.
However, that did not stop the Columbine copies. Many school shooters have directly cited the Columbine boys as an inspiration: the 2007 The Virginia Tech shooter called them .“martyrs”, the 2017 The Eaton Township Weis Markets shooter called them .“warriors”, and many others directly refer to the shooting while wearing their uniforms or manifestos. Then there is something disturbing. Columbiner fandoma timeless but enduring subculture that worships beauty, ideas, and the surrounding media 1999 shooting on fan platforms like Tumblr.
That young people throughout the ages have felt alone, resentful, and angry is not surprising; perhaps this helps to explain why the few but devoted fans see these figures as signs of the alienation of youth. In many ways, this anonymity is exactly what the Columbine shooters wanted to do in their beautifully designed and left-behind home movies and magazines highlighting their unhinged antics. .“They had this beautiful dream that they would be remembered,” said psychologist Kris Mohandie. he told Mother Jones. .“The twist of the whole thing is that, somehow, they got what they wanted.”
This constant portrayal of the Columbine shooters as exploitative antiheroes is deeply oppressive and illogical. It’s absurd, it’s almost funny. Several recent movies have attempted to address this issue in a humorous way. In Dramaan engaged couple is put to the test when the bride (played by former Disney Kid Zendaya) confesses that she planned and almost shot several people when she was younger. In the background photos, she dresses like a cartoon .“edgy” make-up and continues to face controversy while filming his school shooting manifesto video. .“It was a beauty,” she insisted to her husband, showing the comic’s disbelief that this kind of internet even exists.
Meanwhile, at Oscar Boyson’s Our hero, Balthazar, a young man becomes an internet anti-gun crusader to win the affections of his activist crush (a plan devised, naturally, during a school shooting). When an internet troll threatens to commit a mass shooting, Balthazar goes to Texas to try to stop him, and an unlikely friendship develops between the two. The film’s wannabe school shooter Solomon is played as a loud, cartoon-loving man by Asa Butterfield, who puts the role in a sad way.
Both of these films capture the kind of humor that comes from living in a country that can’t organize to stop the mass killing of children. This method is not without its critics – see retreat to Drama, some of it has been revealed by survivors of mass shootings themselves — but one that tries to give you a comical break from our depressing reality while perhaps taking some of the energy out of these respectful, conservative corners of the internet.
