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| America's New Roman Arena
by John M. Curtis Copyright May 30, 2000
Gladiator reminds today’s audience that the same passions burn in the hearts of modern man. Two thousand years removed from lions and chariots, film junkies don a thin veil of civility—beneath the surface are the same lethal instincts of terror and rage experienced by distant ancestors. Predators cruising in 'low-riders' lurk around ready to pounce on the passive and vulnerable. Like primitive tribes of the past, urban man’s propensity toward self-preservation has today’s gangs wielding switchblades and Saturday night specials instead of rocks and clubs. While today’s moviegoers sit quietly in the dark eating popcorn, yesterday’s Colosseum spectators were whipped into a frenzy watching violent spectacles. Only the costumes have changed. Today’s more passive spectator sports still rouse the same passions for excitement and violence. Two thousand years later, things really haven’t changed. While sociologists warn about the effect of TV or film violence, far too many people lose their lives, caught in the deadly crossfire of America’s urban war-zones. More people are outraged over racial slurs than bloodshed in the streets. Working the streets is no picnic for law enforcement faced with the unhappy task of wresting control of neighborhoods from tyrannical gangs now infesting America’s great metropolitan centers. With the Los Angeles Rampart scandal making headlines, the ongoing war to reclaim the streets rages on. Coming too close to home, Los Angeles police chief Bernard Parks watched his granddaughter become another mortality statistic in the battle with street gangs. Caught in the crossfire, 20 year-old Lori Gonzalez, lost her young life in the senseless carnage all too common in today’s gang atmosphere. Without making excuses, elite gang details—like the wayward LAPD CRASH unit—are subject to intolerable occupational hazards, and, yes, stresses, leaving them vulnerable to erratic behavior. Kill or be killed becomes the modus operandi for law enforcement trying to survive in a blood-thirsty environment. Watching their buddies maimed or murdered, it’s easy to see how police become jaded with an 'us against them' struggle for self-preservation. With lawlessness prevailing on the streets, deviating from accepted police policies and practices happens more easily than one thinks. Sinking to a mob mentality, the police become indistinguishable from the gangs they’re supposedly policing. Corruption and criminality stem from maladaptive responses to an intolerable environment. Why should we expect the police to be immune to these conditions? George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984 underscores the addictive and lustful nature of violence. Glued to the 'telescreen,' Big Brother whips captive viewers into hateful frenzies, displacing aggression onto innocent victims. Orwell learned his lessons well from the propaganda machines of the Bolsheviks and Nazis. While Gladiator tells a rather simplistic tale, the real story involves the Roman arena’s perverted obsession with violence, all too familiar to the modern movie audience. "The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it’s the sand of the Colosseum," observes Proximo [an owner and trainer of gladiators] underscoring the entertainment value of violence. Giving instructions to Maximus [the movie’s hero], Proximo tells him—above anything else—to entertain the audience. Gladiator gives obscene levels of violence, designed to get the message across to today’s desensitized moviegoers. Clubbing them with bloody decapitations is the only way to keep the audience’s attention. "What is Rome?," asks the dying but ever philosophical emperor Marcus Aurelius to his designated successor, Maximus. Asking the same question—what is America?— makes one wonder whether the lust for sex, violence and drugs defines today’s culture. With the war on drugs losing ground and with gangs infesting deteriorated urban communities, what’s today’s message? America’s apparent insatiable appetite for drugs and violence drives free enterprise to satisfy the vices. Blaming the lack of regulation for the internet smut industry disowns consumers’ wild need for sex. Spending inordinate sums on drug interdiction or lobbying congress to regulate Hollywood or the internet doesn’t begin to deal with the source of the demand. Drug lords in Columbia and Mexico have long argued that America’s unquenchable thirst for drugs is responsible for the proliferation of the drug exporting trade. Like ancient Rome, America must also face squarely its role in spawning the drug, violence and sex industries. Gladiator only holds up a mirror and reflects the public’s need for cathartic releases. Casting aspersions on Hollywood for creating violent or perverted images fails to understand the basic instincts of audiences demanding this type of entertainment. Whether today’s bioscientists reject Freud’s Pleasure Principle can’t erase the stubborn truth that human nature hasn’t changed since our ancestors crawled out of the caves. Blaming Hollywood for feeding the public what they want—and demand—totally ignores every person’s own appetite for sex, drugs and violence. When politicians—or preachers—grandstand about morality, society would be better served if they spent a little more time engaged in self-reflection. As Gladiator reminds us, we’re all more human than anything else. About the Author John M. Curtis is editor of OnlineColumnist.com and columnist for The Los Angeles Daily Journal. He’s director of a Los Angeles think tank specializing in human behavior, health care, political research and media consultation. He’s the author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma. |
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elevision brought violence back into the home where it belongs," said acerbic film director Alfred Hitchcock, whose disturbing films still haunt generations of moviegoers. Unfortunately it’s moved out into the streets. For Hitchcock, violence—especially his up-close-and-personal style—was part of a successful moviemaking formula, entertaining the masses with measured and socially acceptable doses of perversity. Primitive as it sounds, Freud’s 100 year-old views of sex and violence still form the driving nucleus of human nature. No where was this better illustrated than ancient Rome’s Colosseum, where civilization collides with its savage past in Dreamwork’s SKG [2000] recent blockbuster, Gladiator. Transforming violence into a sport, Gladiator presents a disturbing mirror of today’s insatiable lust for blood and murder. Fixated on decapitation and dismemberment, Gladiator leaves audiences gasping for air, hoping for a surcease to the carnage.|
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