2008 Woodie Awards
Should your pain mean my gain?
By: Brian Kutzley
Issue date: 3/18/08 Section: Forum
So The BG News recently ran a story on a Greek organization facing disciplinary action for hazing - specifically paddling - their initiates.
I thought very little of the story until I read some of the comments that came to the defense of the organization. To paraphrase: "Hazing is no big deal. The subjects are willing participants who tolerate physical and emotional abuse to buy their way into the brotherhood."
My problem is not with the organization or the commentator, but more with the underlying premise of this whole situation. While there is nothing wrong with asking initiates to do dishes or run errands, abuse serves no comparable utility. Its only function is for some people to derive pleasure from the pain of others.
The underlying and unspoken tenant of hazing - and of pop culture at large - is sadism, and I often have trouble listening to colleagues brag about pranks they pull on even their closest friends.
I understand that sadism, in the form of slapstick humor and its emotional equivalents, is hardly new. I'm currently working through "Don Quixote," which was published in the early 17th century, and so far it seems like a medieval rendition of "The Three Stooges." And of course what "The Three Stooges" is to our parents' generation, "Home Alone" and similar movies are to ours.
Granted, we have become slightly more discrete in our enjoyment of suffering, and now the most physically excruciating scenes are relegated to bad horror movies.
But if our tastes have changed, they certainly have not abated. Consider the mind-bending torment of a character from Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King, or for the slightly moderated equivalent, most modern comedy.
I've lost track of the number of comedies that fail to rely on clever writing and actor chemistry, preferring to continually fall back on horribly awkward situations which, for reasons I cannot even pretend to understand, audiences love.
For me, the cause of this trend is a fairly obvious lack of empathy. I cannot sit through a modern comedy because I feel as though I'm the character who is placed in those absurdly awkward situations (especially given producers' tendencies to prolong the moment by making the impending torment obvious 10 minutes in advance).
I thought very little of the story until I read some of the comments that came to the defense of the organization. To paraphrase: "Hazing is no big deal. The subjects are willing participants who tolerate physical and emotional abuse to buy their way into the brotherhood."
My problem is not with the organization or the commentator, but more with the underlying premise of this whole situation. While there is nothing wrong with asking initiates to do dishes or run errands, abuse serves no comparable utility. Its only function is for some people to derive pleasure from the pain of others.
The underlying and unspoken tenant of hazing - and of pop culture at large - is sadism, and I often have trouble listening to colleagues brag about pranks they pull on even their closest friends.
I understand that sadism, in the form of slapstick humor and its emotional equivalents, is hardly new. I'm currently working through "Don Quixote," which was published in the early 17th century, and so far it seems like a medieval rendition of "The Three Stooges." And of course what "The Three Stooges" is to our parents' generation, "Home Alone" and similar movies are to ours.
Granted, we have become slightly more discrete in our enjoyment of suffering, and now the most physically excruciating scenes are relegated to bad horror movies.
But if our tastes have changed, they certainly have not abated. Consider the mind-bending torment of a character from Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King, or for the slightly moderated equivalent, most modern comedy.
I've lost track of the number of comedies that fail to rely on clever writing and actor chemistry, preferring to continually fall back on horribly awkward situations which, for reasons I cannot even pretend to understand, audiences love.
For me, the cause of this trend is a fairly obvious lack of empathy. I cannot sit through a modern comedy because I feel as though I'm the character who is placed in those absurdly awkward situations (especially given producers' tendencies to prolong the moment by making the impending torment obvious 10 minutes in advance).
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