Revenge Embedded in Culture and Media, Banned by Law

Revenge is popular at the movies. Liam Neeson has practically banked his career on revenge flicks after starting out as a “serious” actor in Schindler’s List, Michael Collins and other Oscar-worthy films. More actors have jumped on the revenge bandwagon such as Sean Penn and others:

Revenge Movies Offer Mythic Middle-Aged Protectors

Revenge is one of the oldest human emotions and drives stories even from ancient times. It is a primal urge to right a wrong and see a villain get his/her comeuppance. In olden days, taking the “law” into one’s hands was the only way to get justice as there was no law nearby or available. But with the advent of the industrial age and the rise of crowded urban areas, governments asserted their power and frowned on revenge as it was extra-legal and out of the control of elites and the powerful. The function of modern law is not necessarily to achieve justice or enforce ethics and morality, but rather to keep a lid on things on society. Keeping the peace and harmony of society is the paramount value, as how else can business and capitalism function? But by removing revenge as a tool of getting justice, many people feel powerless and project onto the film screen to live vicariously through the vengeance-taker.

Revenge can be seen as a moral imperative; that is we must get justice on a wrong-doer otherwise that person will commit wrongs upon others. The psychopath must be taken down a notch to know they cannot get away with their damaging actions with impunity. There are many things that are perfectly legal, but are not ethical, and therefore there is no legal recourse against someone who knows how to skirt those lines (and it’s not hard either). Twitter and other social media can ban revenge porn postings:

Twitter Takes Steps To Combat Stolen Nudes And Revenge Porn

But it’s not going to stop it. Wronged people will find a way to get revenge, and if it’s not through posting nudes of someone on Twitter then they will find other sites or other methods. With no legal outlet for getting justice, don’t be surprised when people become outlaws to get the satisfaction of a balanced and just order. In the meantime, they will continue to flock to revenge movies to satisfy their primal desire vicariously and then manifest motivation to get revenge in their real life.

Much Ado About Cumberpatch

British actor Benedict Cumberpatch had to utter a batch of mea culpas after saying Hollywood had a problem not casting enough “colored actors” in its movies:

Cumberpatch Apologizes for ‘Colored Actors’ Remark

If aliens from another planet deciphered our language they would wonder why it would make any difference where the adjectival modifier is placed: “people of color” or “colored people.” It’s a ridiculous semantic difference but the weight of connotation from historical usage hangs heavily over the latter but not the former. But, as someone from Britain, we cannot expect Cumberpatch to know every nuance and underlying connotative meaning behind a phrase that would seem innocuous to him. The incident says more about the people who are self-righteously lambasting Cumberpatch than it says anything about him (and the poor guy felt obliged to apologize profusely afterwards). Ironically the Americans calling him out for supposed insensitivity and racism actually revealed themselves to be culturally and globally ignorant. Do they really expect and believe that the connotative meaning of every English language phrase is the same around the world? They are the ethnocentric ones, not Cumberpatch. Their ignorance of language and its nuances is embarrassing (for them). These ignorants need to get a clue and buy a book like this:

English to English: The A to Z of British-American Translations

Cheers…

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150130.htm