It is not easy to disgust me with a display of bad taste. Like what Adam Lambert did on Sunday at the American Music Awards didn't disgust me, instead I was sort of embarrassed for him and his incredibly bad judgment.Now the poster you see here, that does disgust me due to the extreme display of bad taste. I don't know who or what DOOM is. I do know DOOM convinced the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company in Dallas to display their race poster that says...
DOOM PRESENTS 3rd ANNUAL KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RACE, NOVEMBER 28, 1PM at GLENCOE PARK.
I assume it is bikes being raced.
What does "AFTER ALL, IT WAS YOU AND ME" mean? Again, I don't know.
I'm not alone in finding this poster to be a very bad thing. It has generated a lot of comments on the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company website. From reading the comments I think I gleaned this is a bike race, with one of the comments coming from the guy behind the DOOM poster, Alain, who writes a very long reply to Galen, explaining his rationale for the poster. You can go to the link to read what Alain had to say for himself. Below are some other comments...
The poster and, indeed, the whole idea is in very poor taste. I take it the folks behind the Assassination ride didn’t live through that terrible time.
While I understand this flyer may be deemed offensive to many, our intention is to promote cycling and cycling events in our community. Period.
Oh, I understand now. It’s like if I lived in NYC and owned a bungee jumping equipment store. OK, I want to promote bungee jumping, so I organize a 9/11 Twin Towers Memorial Bungee Jump, and on my flyer, I have pictures of the poor souls jumping to their death from the Twin Towers. Wow, what a great idea! It would really drum up support for my store and bungee jumping, wouldn’t it?
In my mind, this poster is a symbol of so much that is wrong with our society. It is a reflection of how so many people, especially those of Gens X and Y, have become numb to images of graphic violence. From video games to movies, these young people have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of scenes of exploding brains, steaming entrails, and other gratuitous gore. It also expresses that desire to shock people’s sensibilities, just for the sake of being shocking.
The last statement talks about Gen X and Gen Y being desensitized because of over exposure to graphic pics of core...and so on. The true tragedy isn't becoming desensitized, the true tragedy is that those kiddos don't know who the man in the picture is and what he symbolizes.
ReplyDeleteLast week we were studying allusion, not to be confused with illusion. It's when an author alludes to a historical event, place or literature within his/her own writing. The next example was, "The March on Washington"...no one in the room had a clue to what that referred to. The boys I teach range from age 14 - 19 and come from all over Texas. I commented back, "that's like a dagger to my heart." Yep, you guessed it...no one knew that allusion to Romeo & Juliet either.
CT2-----
ReplyDeleteI knew this really bright guy, younger than me. December 7, 1991. I made some reference to it being Pearl Harbor Day. He had no idea what I was talking about. I was appalled.
Why don't they hear about the March on Washington during Martin Luther King Day?
Maybe there's not time anymore given all the state objectives and TEKS that have to be taught.
ReplyDeletebad taste or not.... "after all it was you and me" references mick jagger's and keith richards' "sympathy for the devil lyrics": "i shouted out 'who killed the kennedys?' when after all, it was you and me".
ReplyDeleteAnonymous---
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining "after all it was you and me" to me.
CT2----
ReplyDeleteI thought it was TAKS not TEKS. I'm assuming we're talking about that assessment test that Texas teachers teach so the kids will get good scores, rather than just teach them.
The TAKS is how the TEKS are assessed each and every year. I was pretty sure that in the 80s we had decided that standard achievement tests were biased and a waste of time, but thank goodness for "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND"... it put education back about 30 years! There's no need for our children here in the GREAT state of Texas to be competitive, shucks...we got OIL and GAS! You don't even need a GED to get one those jobs...
ReplyDeleteCT2---
ReplyDeleteI've not really understood that TAKS/TEKS stuff ever since I moved to Texas. Is this something Ross Perot caused? Why doesn't Texas study how states educate where they don't have a high drop out rate and where the kids do well on things like SATs?
Hi, Durango,
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing this to light for your readers. I thought it brought up so many issues: about desensitization to violence, ignorance of history, lack of respect, the popular attitude that "anything goes." Unfortunately it says a lot about our society.