Why no gore?

Hey Bingo, I can show you pictures of an torn cufflinked hand or a part of a leg if that turns you on. Only because this is not the Pit is why I am showing the restraint that you obviously lack.

He was inside the building, and sort of “rode” the debris down. It is amazing, but at the same time, I suspected a couple people would live that way.

I don’t know if I agree with furt, but I completely understand the viewpoint. In the long run, those images might do more for this country than anything has in a long time. It’s an interesting viewpoint.

The media have some semblance of an ethical code of conduct still. This code may no longer be sufficient to prevent the tedious and often sleazy saturation of “political scandal” stories (from Condit to Lewinsky), but I am glad they still show restraint when it comes to death.

I believe one of the main reasons most networks tried to avoid emphasis on visuals of dying people is to avoid public desensitization. Repeated exposure to disturbing images will inevitably cause desensitization. That’s one of the primary reasons why, for example, pictures of mutant creatures from the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident rarely make it to the popular media, even after all these year.

These are things so disturbing that it is truly not a good idea to spread them around the media. The theory is you see this kind of stuff once or twice, and you are deeply disturbed. But if every time something like this happens you get to see graphic details, pretty soon you will become desensitized to these horrors, and their import to you may diminish. If the public ceases to be horrified and shocked by such events because the media is saturated with “gore”, public apathy may result. Respect for life, numbed by desensitization, may be threatened further.

In addition to that, it is a simple matter of respect to the dead. If your sister died jumping off the WTC, would you not be upset if the media broadcast to the world her last moments of horror, when she chose death by impact over death by fire?

Desensitized?-- Versus complacency? I cried my eyes out a total of four times today. Good. Great. And I didn’t know a soul there.

It is easy for the mind to retreat from pain. I do not want to give my mind that chance.

I think this horror will be ingrained in the collective American memory whether or not gore is shown, and I’d rather it not be.

To my mind, showing people falling to their deaths and showing body parts is disrespectful to the deceased and to the families. I see death as a personal, private matter that only oneself and one’s loved ones should be involved in. I would not want millions of strangers to be involved in my death. That’s just me, though.

I won’t EVER forget. Maybe that’s because I’m from the NYC area. I know people who have lost loved ones/are looking for loved ones. It personalizes the disaster for me, but I don’t think that people from other states are that far behind.

Why? New York City was, in a lot of people’s minds, THE quintessential American city, if not the quintessential city, period. Immortalized by Old Blue Eyes, etc. It also has one of the most recognizable skylines, I believe. That skyline is forever changed. Two pictures seared into MY memory the enormity of our loss…

One was a juxtaposition of two skyline photographs; pre-Tuesday and post-Tuesday. The post-Tuesday photo looks wrong even when viewed by itself, but it’s staggering when viewed along with a photo taken before 9/11/01.

The other was of a road sign, the ones they put up on the side of the road for messages about delays and construction - the ones where the letters are made up of little circles of light. The sign said;

               NEW YORK CITY CLOSED

That says much more than any dead bodies ever could, methinks.

Attention all Geniuses:

I am not a gorehound. I just assumed the intelligence of this board was decent enough that Furt’s statements didn’t have to be spelled out.

For those you who might consider looking a page ahead, Dwight Eisenhower marched his troops through the concentration camps before entering new combat, in order to provide his men with new “motivation.”

But I say don’t worry. American media is giving you the Cliff’s Notes version of this tragedy. It’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?

Whoa! You exclude yourself right off the bat!

Who ever said they had to be spelled out? Did you miss the part where it was said, “I don’t know if I agree with furt, but I completely understand the viewpoint.”?

Are we soldiers marching off to war?

How dare you accuse us of not grasping this tragedy. How dare you. And just so you can score a few personal points in a debate. How dare you act so callously just so you can feel secure in your smugness.

Your next post had damn well better be an apology, pal.

I don’t post very often but I think there are a few things the OP may need to consider about his request for “gore”. (This post may get slightly strong, but I think I’m still within the forum rules)

  1. The rescuers can’t identify the bodies as they are found. Would the OP wish to be the relative who first learns that a loved one is dead by seeing their body on television?

  2. If only one person has to identify the corpse, at least the rest of the relatives can choose to remember the person as they were. That choice is removed if the bodies are displayed in the condition they are found in - unless you suggest that survivors avoid all news coverage, which is unreasonable.

  3. The victims have no choice or say in the matter, so better to give them respect and what privacy they can than to display them like objects.

  4. If the cameras got close enough to get the “gore” as you put it, it is quite possible they would be in the way of the rescuers.

Just my two penny-worth. Apologies for any offense I may have given.

BingoBurringo, you’re a [censored].

In the interests of fighting ignorance, let me tell you why coverage of this event seems so ‘sanitized’.

EVERYTHING IS COVERED IN ANKLE-DEEP ASH! BODIES AND BODY PARTS ARE BURIED UNDER THE RUBBLE!

So the whole scene in New York is rather sanitized-- at least from a televised point of view. But the editors cutting tape still aren’t going to use the shot of a recovery worker uncovering an arm and tossing it in a body bag. It’s gratuitous, sick, and absolutely unnecessary to tell the story.

As a TV news producer I get to see a lot of raw footage that doesn’t make it to air. There’s a reason it doesn’t make it to air.

I’ve seen charred bodies from a plane crash in Zimbabwe, being stacked by recovery crews. It looks like a long line of hot dogs that fell in the BBQ.

I’ve seen corpses riddled with bullets and covered with blood. Not very nice.

Once an editor on my show made a mistake, and we ran a shot of a blanket-covered body where the leg had become exposed. We got flooded with phone calls decrying our lack of sensitivity.

You want to see a real fresh body, buy a police scanner and go rushing to the scene of some carnage.

But I’m not going to air it on television. Us media vultures have a sense of decency.

Maybe you don’t. But many will.

As tomndebb said over on Fathom:

But back to furt:

I don’t see how anyone not in a coma the past few days could have failed to grasp the seriousness and determination of the American people at this moment in history. Maybe you need the rage, but most of the country is well past that need. This is a country that’s already committed to getting the job done, and the President is ready to lead the way. (See, this crisis even has me saying something positive about Bush. How much more proof do you need?)

Emotions will fade, sure. But the immediate emotions have already clearly begun to resolve into the steel of will, resolve, and determination.

All that will be accomplished by pumping up the fury, is that the assholes who are throwing bricks through the windows of Arab-Americans’ houses, and shooting guns off at mosques, will be encouraged to do more of the same.

In addition to being evil in and of itself, THAT sort of thing has the potential to undermine our unity and distract us from our purpose.

And getting back to the OP:

As SPOOFE succinctly put it:

Or Barbarian:

::applause::

If you want to see the news gore get a 10’ satellite dish, & aim it at the raw newsfeeds. They don’t censor gore nor do they censor the US shooting people in other countries.

But do have some mercy for the victims families who would not want to see it.

If you would, Bingo, please provide your reasons why the media should be covering our TVs and papers with blood. Why do they “owe” anything to us?

Thanks.

For vastly different reasons, I’m going to agree that more of the “gore” should be on display.

And for the record, I have no taste for gore. I don’t care for horror movies. I despise fright films. Chills went up my spine when I saw someone falling from the WTC.

But Americans, myself included, need to be made more aware of the realities of disaster. Unfortunately, the reality is that thousands of people died in the WTC bombing. Most were crushed to death. I have to believe that those that perished in the towers’ collapse suffered a much better fate than those who perished in the smoke and fire, or even those that were on the planes and knew how their lives were about to end.

Remember the sterile ways that the Vietnam war was reported? Walter Cronkite would highlight his broadcast with the news that “U.S. forces had killed 436 enemy troops while suffering only 17 casualties”. It wasn’t until reality came home and people started seeing dead bodies and blinded, dismembered, and crippled young men that the sentiment turned against the war. Thousands of U.S. children were turned into orphans before the war ended.

But it ended because America was given a firm dose of reality.

To learn of a loved one’s death by seeing a broadcast of rescuers digging out the body would truly be a traumatic experience. But what of the researchers themselves? Every firefighter in New York knows someone that is buried under those tons of rubble. Some of them have family buried under the debris. How do you propose isolating these heros from today discovering the crushed tatooed torso of a man that is instantly identified as your best friend and tomorrow discovering a hand bearing your father’s wedding ring?

I certainly don’t want to see the gore associated with this disaster. But America needs to see and not forget.

So you truly think that the majority of Americans have not seen and do not understand?

Bingo! Are you American? Were you anywhere near New York? Did you have any reletives or friends in or around lower Manhatten?

I pitty people like you. You epitomize an arrogant, self-centeredness that makes me and many Americans sick.

I am assuming you have no one that was affected by any of this carnage. Because if you did you would not have said what you did.

To me people like you can be labeled as sick F**k’s and people like you who have no dignity or sense of community with your fellow human beings. I fear for the children of the future that they may actually experience a person such as your self. Had you said this in a bar or other public place with in ear-shot of me or anyone in my family…I would have promptly shown you where you can store those sick thoughts. I am not an aggressive perosn under any circumstances, but when someone says things like why can’t we see more gore, it just makes me repulsed and saddened that there are people out there who want to see ripped up Americans.

Shame on you Bingo. For writing this thread that I mistakenly read, and sorrowfully responded to.

Yeah, Spoofe, I’m sorry you were born without metaphor-detecting capabilities. I’m sorry you think everyone that wants to view reality is a masurbating gore freak. I’m sorry you can’t grasp the fact that I think that TV is making this look more like a DIE HARD movie than actual human events. I’m sorry you have to stand on a vain little soapbox in order to accuse me of standing on a vain little soapbox. How dare you?

I’d heard leaving for work yesterday a reporter reference “the luckiest guy in the world” who’d apparently been on the 82 floor and rode the tower down, surviving with only a broken leg that might need to be amputated.

That’s the image I want to be left with, not body parts or people coming to grips with their unaerodynamic, last seconds of life. I’ve seen enough horror and am now having to watch their families cope. That’s enough for me. The rage will have plenty of fuel without being topped off.

CBS made a controversial decision to show the fall of one individual, as heard on NPR this morning. Mentioned also was that the foreign stations are showing much, much more.

Bingo, I’d be able to take you much more seriously if you would explain your position. Please begin by answering my questions above. Thanks!

My detecting capabilties are working at 100%, pal. You just can’t grasp the situation.

There is more to reality than seeing disembodied limbs lying about the ground. What more do you think will be gleaned by providing ready access to such images?

Are you kidding? Do you not just realize that you’ve just contradicted yourself? This is real life. These are actual events. Nothing the news media can do will ever change that. The Die Hard movies were extremely bloody and gore-filled. So which is it? Is the media showing too much gore, or not enough?

I dare because, simply, I am right and you are wrong. You are acting like a whiny little child, demanding something that is not owed to you. Your expectations in this instance are inaccurate and deluded. You expect to see blood and guts and dismembered heads… you say that anything else is “not reality”. Except this IS reality. What you want is a deluded, sick little fantasy.

Once again, I invite you to go visit Rotten.com, and shut up.

You know what, Spoofe? I’m tired of fighting with you. I’m just going to give up now and declare you the Moral Watchdog of the Universe. I think you’re first order of business is to ban the movie NIGHT AND FOG. Better yet, find the original negative and have it burned. Then systematically hunt down every copy. Put the copies in camps to try to turn them into brighter, more cheery little documentaries. Then, when you have less to do, you can clean up your depressing, sexually-obsessed website fantasy world. That stuff offends me. Get it off my computer screen. No, get it off the web altogether. HR Giger will be glad you did.