WTFriday: The Value of the Absurd
was not what I was planning to write about. After catching up on Grimm, however, my husband starting flipping channels and came to rest on Machete. Which I have totally watched on purpose at least once. Possibly twice. Maybe more.
Partly because Danny Trejo. Also, because Robert Rodriguez.
But mostly, mostly, because this:
(Patent leather eye patches, bazookas, and throwing knives, oh my)
It is. In a word. Absurd. Completely, absolutely, and utterly absurd.
Also, it is bloody. There are parts that are downright gross. Not artistic gross. Not meaningfully gross. Not even necessarily gross. Just gross.
Absurdly gross.
And I love it.
I have an odd relationship with violence. I grew up on sic-fi and fantasy books and movies, both of which, as “genres” have a fair bit of either sword-play or lasers. Usually some demons of some sort. Well, those guys or hostile aliens who suck brains. Mars does, after all, need women.
At no point during Event Horizon did I look away; I jumped a few times, but eyes did not leave screen. There were moments of Excalibur that icked me out. I still own it. On VHS and DVD. Ya’ll know what VHS is, right? Big rectangle, occasionally had to be wound by hand. That thing. Machete? No. Freakin’. Problem. I do remember yelling, “AW!” a few times, but mostly I giggled.
Not because I think violence for the sake of violence is funny.
I laughed because it’s fucking impossible. There is no way, no freakin’ way, that anything remotely like Machete could ever. Happen.
Now, here’s the twist: if the violence is realistic, if it did, or could, happen, I have a much harder time with it. I’ve never been able to get through Walking Tall. Trainspotting, while excellent, was really, really hard for me to watch. Saving Private Ryan was another tough one.
Hannibal falls into a sort of gray area. Because it could happen, but if it did, it would probably be a lesser extent.
Why can I stomach one and not the other? It goes beyond the not possible/possible division.
Laughing at the absurd helps me to be less afraid of the real version. It means I’m less afraid of being hit by a stray bullet while I’m walking down the street or of someone with a gun breaking into my house. Or. Or. Or.
The world is a scary place and there are a lot of lunatics in it. Which is why I don’t watch the news and why the first thing I do when I get my Sunday New York Times is throw the news section into the “do art on me” pile. I try to stay informed via words but I can’t handle the pictures. I am, by biochemistry, an anxious person. I have had periods during which leaving the house becomes a near impossibility because I am so utterly petrified that something horrible is going to happen, that some violence will be done to me or, worse by far, to my children. Better living through chemistry means one small, round, purple pill per day helps control the worst of it but the thoughts still bounce in my head like… those rubber bouncy balls. I don’t ever forget, though there are times I can ignore.
One of the times I can ignore, or even laugh in the face of? After I watch something like Machete. And once I get laughing, some of the anxiety drains. The sting is less significant. I’m not any less hyper-vigilant, but I am less frightened of the world. Yes, it is terrifying. But someone who lives in it conceived of the absurdity I’m watching, which means the world is also an absurd place and there are absurd, hilarious people in it. People who like finding out how many blood pacs they can explode at once, how many knives will fit in Danny Trejo’s coat, and exactly how one goes about fashioning patent leather eye patches and boots that match. And who thought it was a good idea in the first place.
I want to hang out with those people.
They probably drink more coffee than I do.
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