It’s been said that what a person considers funny tells something
about his or her character. Well, judging from the content of some of
the comedies that have a loyal following, there must be an awful lot
of creeps around. But this is nothing new. Sadism has always been
popular entertainment with people of all classes.
I remember when I was in junior high school how two girls from
“better” families (one was a dentist’s daughter and the other the
daughter of a prominent businessman) laughed at an injured dog dying in
the gutter near our school. Another time, during a class film about the
French Revolution, these girls thought the guillotine execution scene
was hilarious! The appreciation of cruelty is not confined to males.
It’s disgusting to see birds being thrown against the wall or on the
floor as part of a “comedy.” And when the bird in the story line is
meant to be alive, it makes no difference if the bird used on film is
already dead and stuffed. No wonder sadism is alive and well and being
passed on to the next generation!
The inconsistency of the public is mind-boggling: People ooh and aah
(How sweet! How adorable!) over the news of one injured race horse’s
recovery, or of baby pandas confined in a zoo, while laughing at staged
atrocities, gobbling down the products of horrendous animal abuse, and
wearing the ubiquitous leather. They buy jackets trimmed with fur from
cats and dogs sadistically skinned alive by laughing, joking workers.
And people wonder why there is so much violence in the world?
