UPDATE #2: It turns out that a Virginia Tech professor was the first person to connect Cho the Oldboy movie. Another blogger wonders if the Korean media had anything to do with inspiring the murder as well. I think this may become a growing sentiment. Just for the record I find Korean movies to be no more violent than the garbage coming from Hollywood. However it will be interesting to see how the Korean media reacts to this latest development when yesterday they were blaming American culture, white supremacists, bullies, and everything else to deflect attention away from the killer. More good blogging here as well about the Korean reaction to this tragedy along with a good posting here to remember the victims.Â
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UPDATE #1: There has been more links discovered to the Oldboy movie and Cho. These links have made the front page of Drudge and I was just watching BBC and they linked comments from Cho’s manifesto as being words used in the Vengeance Trilogy. Hopefully there will be web links soon. It looks like this may turn the debate to if movies cause people to kill now.Â
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The New York Times is reporting that the South Korean movie Old Boy may have inspired the Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-hui to commit the shooting rampage. I have to admit the images are eerily similar and possibly inspired by the movie. Was the killing rampage sparked by the movie? No way, this guy was nuts and would have killed people whether he saw the movie or not.Â
I was just watching the news and not only do I feel bad for the victims families but I also feel really bad for Cho’s family as well. The guilt they must feel for this must be tremendous. They just reported on Fox News that his family went into hiding and that Cho’s 81 year old grandpa in Korea wished he would have rather died earlier so he didn’t have to live to see this. He also said that his parents treated their son like a king. His poor sister who is a Princeton graduate and working for the State Department is being stalked by the media as well. I really hope the media lays off Cho’s family. I would hate to see one of them commit suicide over this, as is commonly done in Korea.
Fox News was also reporting that Cho’s family did have money issues because they were working to put their kids through school with their daughter graduating from Princeton in 2004 and the son attending Virginia Tech which isn’t a cheap university either. These money problems may explain the jealous rage against rich kids in Cho’s manifesto.Â
Also just from watching the news I don’t think showing his pictures and videos over and over again is really necessary. Report it one time and be done with it. The way Cho’s pictures and videos are being shown over and over again is beginning to create the appearance of a glorification of him that will only inspire more mad men to commit the same crime and go out in a blaze of glory. Cho admitted himself in his manifesto that he was inspired by the Columbine killers. Plus do the family members involved in this really need to see this guy’s face over and over again as well? Anyone else have any thoughts on this or am I just over reacting?
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10:48 pm on April 19th, 2007 1
No doubt.
The media (NY Times, NBC, and then the hordes of bloggers) focuses this creep whose name should be forever forgotten from our earth. The media try to “understand” how this person could decide this. The media try to preach that the police and the whole Virginia Tech community are to blame for not reacting fast enough.
Blame lays in one place: the evil heart of that person.
12:00 am on April 20th, 2007 2
It is obvious that he was inspired by “oil boy” and took that photo.
But it doesn’t mean the movie was the cause of the VT massacre.
There are plenty of violent movies in this world. This is his problem, not the problem of movies.
Honestly speaking, I like the movie “old boy” very much. But, so far, I don’t have a plan to kill anybody.
As for the continuous report of Medias about the killer, they do so because people like to know about it.
We, bloggers and blog readers who are interested in this rampage must be equally guilty.
1:01 am on April 20th, 2007 3
Well, not everyone is focusing on Cho or his family. Honestly, I hope that no one in his family goes off the deep end. I would think they’d want to stay around to support each other, but that’s a matter of culture, I guess.
However, regarding over-exposure, you’re right.
I’ve intentionally had my head in the sand because I had an important test yesterday. Today was the first day I could sit down and read or watch news on the details of what had happened. By this evening I’d had enough, posted a blog about the victims and reformatted it so that it’s the first and only thing you see.
I’m not tooting my own horn, but I’m saying that people are seeing the problem and reacting to it in the best way they can.
1:21 am on April 20th, 2007 4
Yesterday, I read one or two articles on the case max. 1 from when they weren’t sure who the shooter was and one after it was learned the guy was a Korean (and only 1 guy did it).
Then, I chose to avoid the TV news and newspapers on the internet.
I have kept up with it a little through the K-blogs, because that is what people are writing about, but I skim most of them fairly quickly.
Why?
Because all of these incidents just create hysteria in which nothing much happens beyond —— the media getting rich
Jon Benet Ramesy (sp?) was just 1 child killed near Christmas, but when the media saw the nation would bite at the bait, they exploited the poor girl’s death and a lot of other people remotely connected to it (like that nut job in Thailand) for years and years.
95% of the talk that goes on after one of these events is a complete waste of time and geared to hype up the hysteria to make money.
1:52 am on April 20th, 2007 5
1:59 am on April 20th, 2007 6
There are rumors in the DC area among those in the schools and Korean community that his parents are in fact in hospital after both made suicide attempts. I have no other info that can confirm this, though. But if true it would be another tragic aspect that this sad situation has brought about.
4:12 am on April 20th, 2007 7
It’s good to know were not the only one picking up on this
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/04/oh-dear-lord-why-do-i-have-feeling-were.html
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/04/well-that-didnt-take-long.html
As I pointed out I think a lot of people are missing the real comparasion
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/04/there-are-still-heroes-in-world.html
Ian
6:04 am on April 20th, 2007 8
Yes, sadly the media do tend to run a story like this into the ground for ratings sake. Like all the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith, a simple-minded girl from Texas whose only talent seemed to be using her “assets” to get ahead, getting fat, marrying a go-zillionaire, and then dying. I hope that my life will create a better story than that.
Getting back to this VA Tech story though, I found it interesting that the U.S.-hating Korean media put their collective feet squarely into their mouths by coming out with all those political cartoons right off the bat before they knew the identity of the killer. I will bet that the population of crows in Seoul just went down a bit from the feast that the media must be having now.
One last thing, what’s up with this boy’s voice? Was he trying to sound menacing with that low monotone voice he was using? Most Korean men I’ve met don’t have that kind of voice. Using that tone of voice actually made him sound stupid rather than menacing to me.
Anyway, let’s hope the story dies as quickly as he did. That’s all for me…
Tim in Angeles sendzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
6:38 am on April 20th, 2007 9
Sine qua non wrote:
“Blame lays in one place: the evil heart of that person.”
Evil heart? A heart is a vital organ that circulates life-giving blood throughout the body. Based on the documented evidence of police reports and an attempt at involuntary hospitalization plus the NBC videos, it appears that Cho was mentally ill. Mental illness is an illness. That is why US courts may declare an accused unfit to stand trial or a jury may acquit by reason of insanity. Cho wasn’t evil; he was mentally ill.
6:59 am on April 20th, 2007 10
Cho was definitely mentally ill, but that shouldn’t be used to excuse his actions and make him out to be a victim as well. There are many mentally ill people in America that don’t go around and shoot up colleges and kill dozens of people. Cho is not a victim, he is a sick murderer.
9:09 am on April 20th, 2007 11
2:44 pm on April 20th, 2007 12
Yeah, I was wrong to say what I did about a person being evil. It was a mistake for me to judge another.
But in talking about illness: if a person with AIDS knowingly goes around sleeping with as many people as possible with the self-professed intent to further transmit the fatal disease, that person’s behavior is criminal.
This person had sociopathic behavior. Sociopathy is not illness, it is, in its essence, hate. Hate, in turn, is no more than willful thoughts to destoy (in this case, thoughts to destroy other people).
An example of mental illness is when the brain is missing sections or is otherwise malformed.
If there is such a thing as a “chemical imbalance” in the brain (the supposed cause of so many mental illnesses), I would love to one day see a person with a “chemically balanced” brain.
Emotions (love, hate, etc.) produce chemicals in the brain; an example being the joy we feel when we’re in love (releases of endorphins). Emotions make us chemically imbalanced.
If that person didn’t control his emotions to the extent that he decided that he must kill, that is an example of human behavior that we should try to prevent from ever happening again, rather than “understanding the mind” of the murder as the media wants to do (and force down our throats).
12:02 am on April 21st, 2007 13
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