So... I know this seems like a somewhat random topic, but the idea is for you to sort through a variety of compelling arguments and develop your own point of view. For tonight's homework please evaluate Oliver Stone's argument in his response to Grisham's attack. Post it below.
p.s. I just watched the first six minutes of "Natural Born Killers" (it's on youtube). It's absolutely brutal. If you have a high tolerance level for violence you can take a look. But you've been warned. :)
Oliver Stone conveys a very melodramatic attitude towards the way in which John Grisham took partial sides with the lawyers in the cases that blame "Natural Born Killers" being made into a film as the reason for many young adults actions of raging murder. Arguing that "whether they had seen, Natural Born Killers, or The Green Berets, or a Tom and Jerry cartoon the night before...Ben and Sarah would have behaved in the same way." Stone argues a very valid point, because "our society scours [artists, photographers, and filmmakers] for scapegoats." Blaming authors and artists like John Grisham, J.D. Salinger, Oliver Stone, and many well-known artists for the actions of young adults that had, "grown and gone horribly wrong". Adults like Sarah and Ben didn't grow up and become "horribly wrong" because of the books and films they read or watched... People like Sarah and Ben became corrupt because of the "parents, schools, [and] peers [who] shape children from their earliest days." As Stone says, "one might persuasively argue...that cold-blooded murders should be strangled in their infancy," but that is like trying to stop a car crash before the crash has even occurred yet. Just like trying to stop a car crash without knowing details such as: where the crash will take place, and which cars, trying to prevent future murders is just as difficult. Stone hits a home run and brings his argument validly to home-base by attacking John Grisham saying, "his priorities are severely distorted." Saying thus because John Grisham is suggesting to "strangle art in its infancy" forgetting that strangling art, wouldn't just include Stone's art, but Grisham's as well. Stone adequately attacks and defends his perception on how that if lawyers get what their way and "strangle art" then "we will surely find ourselves in a human hell."
ReplyDeleteOliver Stone capitalized on the ideological and factual short comings of the easily refutable attack served by the repetitive and uninspiring pop author, John Grisham. Grisham served up a juicy meatball and Oliver Stone ripped it over the 2nd baseman’s head for a 3-run shot, batting in logic and reality from second and third base. Stone sensibly began by exposing logical fallacies that Grisham’s argument was based upon. He relentlessly pointed out examples from popular culture that are truly harmless, but nevertheless indicted by Grisham’s claim. The parallel structure made Grisham’s argument seem juvenile and poorly thought out. Stone even suggested that the reader “slap a summons on John Grisham” if his or her lawyer has followed the behavior laid out in The Firm. Although it could be argued that this was an ad hominen argument, the claim effectively shows the ridiculous and unfeasible nature of Grisham’s claim and is thereby not a personal attack, but an effective literary device. Stone continues to point out “at least several” factual and literary shortcomings of Grisham’s attack to fully strip him of his dignity and his piece of its credibility.
ReplyDeleteThis film is just a poor rip off of the "Death Wish" movies. It is almost an exact copy of plot with a few minor adjustments. In Death Wish, Charles Bronson's apartment is broken into. His wife is killed and his daughter is beaten, raped, and then spray-painted. He proceeds to get a small .32 S&W, go to the ghetto, find petty criminals, and then kill them. The media heralds Bronson as a hero and a vigilante who does as he pleases. At the end of each of the four masterful films, one gets a sense of reverie and admiration for Bronson even though he portrays a serial killer. This movie stole the whole premise. From the twenty or so minutes I watched on YouTube I found the portrayal of violence to be nothing short of comical. It was something on the order of “Maximum Overdrive”, another failed thriller movie. In reality, if that girl decided to hit the wrong man for trying to dance with her, he would probably just pull a gun out of his jacket and kill her. One sympathizes with Mr. Grisham for his loss of a friend to the acts of a deranged killer, but the natural rights of American citizens ought not to be limited because two mentally ill people shot a couple of store clerks. Sarah Edmondson was a substance abuser and had already been sent to the psych ward. She got mixed up with a creep who had a broken past. This is not Oliver Stone's fault. It is not Mr. Stone's fault that Ms. Edmondson pilfered her daddy's 38spl and shot a woman in the neck. It is not Mr. Stone’s fault Mr. Darras’ father killed himself and his mother was a derelict. Mr. Stone correctly states that the shifting of blame to films and other forms of media is just another witch-hunt. For some strange reason, people cannot accept that there are bad individuals in this world. Bad people do bad things and there is not a god-damn thing one can do about it other than stick them in jail and weed them out of the gene pool. Mr. Stone also cites Mr. Grisham’s neglect to mention the role of alcohol in the majority of violent crimes. Legislation and restriction of freedoms is loads of fun I’m sure, but one cannot prevent violent crimes by punishing the entire population for the acts of a vast majority mentally derailed beings. From censorship of movies, it progresses to alcohol, then to firearms, then to music, then to literature, then to the internet. It can just keep going until all that is left are the tortured, imprisoned, remnants of a mind. Mr. Stone is correct in stating that had the couple in question watched Tom and Jerry the night before, the outcome would have been the same and thus even in the “lawyer’s paradise” we live in, no concrete connection can be made. If Oliver Stone should be sued for anything, it should be for making another sappy, cheep, meaningless, Xerox of an already popular film. At least Death Wish was somewhat feasible. One cannot kill a hundred people and ride off into the sunset a modern day cowboy. In the end, however incompetent the police force may be, John Law will always find a way to catch up, and one with so many notches on his belt will always wind up with a few chunks of lead in the wrong places. -Stephen Armstrong
ReplyDeleteCorrection, vast minority mentally derailed beings, not majority.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone who has posted so far; the two teenagers would have killed those people regardless of their viewing of the movie. Grisham's argument is self-defeating in that it includes the background details of the two murders, that they were both mentally unstable, substance-abusing delinquents. This information alone makes it impossible to blame the film for these murders. The two were not without violent tendencies before the movie, as shown by Sarah's decision to bring a gun to protect herself from Ben. Stone effectively rips Grisham's argument-or lack thereof- apart by using this information and the First Amendment . Although he attacks Grishman's literary work, he still forms a persuasive case against censorship. Violence in media does have an effect on people, which is why kids should be protected from it. But once they are past their formative years, like Ben and Sarah were, it is impossible to blame movies and television for their actions. It wasn't the two-hour movie that they watched the day before the murders, it was their lifetimes of negligent parenting.
ReplyDeleteJohn Grisham's claim that Oliver Stone's movie Natural Born Killers is the cause of these murders and robberies is completely off base. Ben and Sarah, who committed the murders, were obviously not sane. Sarah had been in a psych ward, and Ben had a fractured past. Sarah was a substance abuser. Niether of them were in a stable mental condition. Sarah was obviously scared of Ben, which is why she claims she brought the pistol on the trip. This shows that he was very unstable, if she is worried he will attack her. If Grisham believes that a sane person would commit murders because of a movie they saw, he is terribly mistaken. No person in their right mind would ever watch a movie and think "I want to commit murders just like the ones in the movie." The claim that the murder is a result of Natural Born Killers stems from Grishams understandable bitterness over the death of his friend. He wishes to see as many people suffer for this murder as possible, and because of this tries to blame Oliver Stone in his poorly thought out argument. His claim that violence in media can lead to violence also condemns his novels. Much of his writing contains violence, so his claim backfires on him. If Grisham wants Stone to be punished for his movie, than he will become suceptible to punishment for the violence contained in his novels. Grisham longs for a censorship of the media, but does not see the effects that a censorship would have on his works.
ReplyDeleteOliver Stone has a valid argument that Natural Born Killers was not responsible for the murders by the “mentally derailed beings” Sarah and Ben. His point is valid and his argument is pretty good, but it could be stronger. His multiple and obvious ad hominen attacks on Grisham makes the piece seem like a defense argument that has no real merit. Stone does have merit and good points, like the hours of violent television teenagers watch and the right of free speech granted by the First Amendment. He should not need to rely on personal attacks on Grisham’s character, judgment, and movies. This distracts from his main point and makes Stone seem like a jerk defending himself, pardon the ad hominen. Stone’s argument has more legitimacy but Grisham’s argument is laid out in a better, more personalized, and organized fashion. (Grisham does include some personal attacks on Stone, but there are less and they do not distract from the argument as much.) Stone’s writing uses just as sophisticated literary techniques as Grisham’s writing does, which add to the piece. (His parallel structure in the second paragraph is particularly beneficial) But the attacks diminish his argument and make it more of a rebuttal by someone who is defending his damaged honor. Although Stone’s passage isn’t the strongest argument, it has done its job of convincing the readers (as shown by the blogs above) that Grisham’s reasoning is invalid, making the passage successful. Whether or not this is because his topic is better received or the passage is more effectively executed, that is up in the air.
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ReplyDeleteOliver Stone's rebuttal to John Grisham's blame-heavy essay effectively discourages any further argument from the latter. With purpose and sound points, Stone shoots down his critic and successfully wins this bout. His argument, though effective, does have some gaping holes. Stone, as an "artist", uses some questionable allusions, especially "Tom and Jerry", and the negative effects of alcohol. These two points, though somewhat relevant, have no real relation to the topic at hand and lead to an off-topic, and largely irrelevant argument. Stone's obvious exaggeration of the effects of censorship, for example "strangling murderers in their infancy" and a "human hell", also degraded his argument. As a reader,it is relatively simple to see through these gross exaggerations and bring to light the idiocy of Stone's claims.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Stone accurately points out Grisham's own hypocrisy by bringing to light his own novel, The Firm. Grisham is very willing to condemn Stone's right to free speech and levy blame onto the filmmaker, but his argument falls flat when an hypocritical example appears in his own work.
As a kid who, over the years, has very much enjoyed reading the entertaining, albeit rather predictable works of author John Grisham, I was incredibly disappointed by the shallow, pedestrian, and ultimately flawed arguments that he uses in an attempt to hold director Oliver Stone accountable for the murders of two innocent civilians. At this point, I would explain how Oliver Stone masterfully combats and destroys the arguments of Grisham, but rather than do it myself, I simply urge anyone reading this to examine Kevin Eve's opening sentences. Despite being completely and totally wrong, in my opinion at least, Grisham is still a skilled writer and lawyer, and as such, he is able to state his argumen quite convincingly. That is, until Oliver Stone is able to issue a rebuttal. Stone is able to draw attention to other factors of the crime that Grisham pushed aside in his haste to blame Stone: the harsh and violent lives and upbringings of the accused killers, and the harsh and violent tendencies they developed as a result. In reality, these are the true root causes of the mental shortcomings that caused Ben Darras and Sarah Edmondson to commit two violent murders. Was "Natural Born Killers" a good movie? No. Was it incredibly and somewhat unnecesarily violent? Absolutely. But does that mean that it is somehow responsible for the murders? Of course not, don't be ridiculous. As Stone so eloquently points out, this kind of faulty logic and assignment of blame can lead to some even more ridiculous arguments down the road. Finally, I want to respond to the most and egregious thing that Grisham said: that the movie should never have been allowed to be made. It is shocking to me that a person like Grisham, an artist in his own right, would ever consider artistic censorship to be an acceptable course of action. The first amendment exists to protect the write of artistic creation, and John Grisham would have to be insane to support an idea that infringes on this, the most basic of rights.
ReplyDeleteMEMO TO SOCIETY – STOP LOOKING FOR SCAPEGOATS, START LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS, AND THIS PROBLEM MIGHT ACTUALLY BE SOLVED
ReplyDeleteAlthough “life and art exert a strong tug on each other,” people need to be held responsible for their own actions. Violence has existed since the beginning of human history. Few cave paintings have been found glorifying violence to our fellow men, we know it happened from the proof left in the remains of the victims. For instance, the renowned Ice Man, (one of the earliest preserved humans ever discovered), in which scientists found weapon fragments embedded in his skeleton. Faced with this knowledge, it is beyond stupid for people to continue with this asinine witch hunt, when almost everyone is aware of the truth. The true cause of violence in the United States (and in the rest of the world) is the consequence of a series of poor choices made by individuals who, though some refuse to acknowledge it, are simply bad people. Regardless of the horrid, abusive family environment that you grew up in, socioeconomic status, the hours spent melting your brain, or the people you are surrounded by; in the end, it is your own damn fault that you chose to act violently. The reason there has been no direct legal connection established (as of yet) between movies/books/cartoons/etc. such as Natural Born Killers and crimes like those committed against Patsy Byers and Bill Savage, is because no direct connection exists. Natural Born Killers may have glorified brutal, senseless violence, but it was Sarah Edmonson and Benjamin Darras who pulled the trigger – not Oliver Stone.
Josh Grisham’s argument, though it is well-organized and reads more like a story than a persuasive essay, seems to pale at the end when suggesting the involvement of people to censor Hollywood. He makes the valid point, that Hollywood, like almost all industries in our capitalistic society, understands the power of money most rather than the moral consequences in a society that has become desensitized to violence. The censorship that he suggest seems unethical in itself with its limiting of constitutionally guaranteed rights. His dramatization, though it draws the reader in, belittles the issue in a sense. Meanwhile, Oliver Stone’s use of ad hominen is slightly distracting, but in a passage entitled Memo to John Grisham, is (accurately) deemed quite appropriate and a sufficient rebuttal to the claims made by his opponent.
Side note: dare you to watch this without smiling a little.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOUhGcsHqDM&feature=related
One cannot simply blame one's own actions upon a movie or a book. An inatimate object will never whisper in your ear to go murder or rob someone, but your crazy boyfriend or girlfriend just might. As Oliver stated, the two had been drug and alchohol addicts since an early agre and have both been in some sort of psyciatric care previous to these incidents. It is not so overly crazy to believe that two supposed crazy people, armed with a .38, would not be willing to go on a random murder spree. They chose their path on their own, any demons they may have claimed to see were obviously fictitious, a ploy used by lawyers to attempt to save them from suffering the consequences of their actions. Stone is right to believe that Grisham is leading a witch hunt, there is no link to the killings with "Natural Born Killers" other than an easy excuse. The movie had just come out, and the lawyers did their usual magic to make a controversial topic the blame for everything. If anything is to be stopped, it is this misuse of the American Legal system to protect freedoms from this lunacy.
ReplyDeleteAlthough some people might equate the murder and attempted murder of two innocent civilians on the movie " Natural Born Killers", can we really blame a movie for somebody's actions? Can we actually prove that the movie made these two psychopaths do what they did? No. We can simply see that both of these people watched a movie, then went on a killing spree afterwards. Maybe they are linked, maybe they are not. The real importance lies that other people also watched the film, but they didn't go out and kill one person while almost killing another. It was only these two people. So no, we cannot blame a movie for the murder and attempted murder of two innocent people. We can simply blame the people. I agree with Ivan in this way, that there is no way that a movie could MAKE somebody do a crime which they chose (on their own) to do.
ReplyDeleteSo, not to sound repetitive, but Oliver Stone definetly has the upper hand in this argument. As so eloquently written out by Matt and Kevin, John Grisham has some major flaws in his argument condemning Oliver Stone and his horrifically violent movie 'Natural Born Killers'. Stone should not be put on the spot for his movie that, in all honestly, is unnecessarily violent and really has no artistic value as a piece of cinema, but that one movie is not the root cause of two horrific murders. The two killers may have cited the movie as their reason for killing, but one film does not make you a psychopath. If that were the case, every one of the millions of people who saw the SAW movies would be torturing random people in their basements. In fact, this is not the case. Those two killers would have committed murder, whether they saw that movie or not. Grisham blames Stone, but really he should be blaming the repetitive violent nature of the myriad of movies that were out at that time. From Pulp Fiction to Halloween, violent movies were all around them. One movie does not turn a normal person into a killer. Therefore, Stone successfully takes Grisham's argument and throws it out as false and flawed.
ReplyDeleteNatural born killers is completely ridiculous. John Grisham clearly has a dry sense of humor and doesn't take sarcasm well because this movie is nothing but nonsense with a nonstop massacre. For the main part, I agree with Stone. It's not right to point fingers at the director of a movie for expressing their ideas and its certainly shouldn't be based on how others are gonna view it. It would of been more beneficial if Sarah's lawyers thought of a different idea and push it to someone else. Unfortunately it was Oliver Stone and he didnt take it very well. It's hard to evaluate because Sarah and ben both had drug related pasts so their words might not be 100 percent accurate but Grisham takes this seriously and truly brings out the lawyer in him. Although not all of his points are valid, the way he argues makes people believe his facts are true and the way he portrays himself, its obvious he is not messing around. Although, it was very interesting to read because Grisham is a great writer.
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