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Hello, I'm Rihaan Patel. Welcome to New Age Cinema.
Brazil teen, Marcelo Pesseghini, shoots parents, grandmother and his great aunt, and then after
a full day at school, took his own life. This 13 year old kid wanted to become a HITMAN.
The question is, why he wanted to kill his parents to become a Hitman?
Last week, we had a meeting with filmmakers and animators to discuss such an issues. Story,
Society and ritual. In oral tradition, one old man tells stories
to children so they can understand the moral of the stories, the message. So children can
apply those morals into their life for better future.
Those children grows up with such a moral and values. And they share such a belief with
their children and this continues. And like this, society grows with same values and belief.
So to live such a story value, they practice ceremony or rituals.
As Barbara Myerhoff, anthropologist & filmmaker put it, "not only is seeing believing, doing
is believing." Stories shapes society. And society live that
stories through rituals. We want to be inspired, all the time. So, we always want to hear,
read or watch good stories in which we can identify our self.
For example, After watching The Dark Knight Rises, you may want to buy merchandise, you
may want to buy Batman toy to put it on your desk. It shows that you are so inspired by
Batman. And when you put it on your desk, and thinking about Batman's story becomes
the rituals. Now that batman toy become passage to batman himself.
What happened to 13 year old kid, Marcelo Pesseghini? His mother and father are policeman.
So he may be surrounded by such a crime stories and guns. He loved this movie called HITMAN.
Marcelo had told a friend he wanted to kill his parents and become a HITMAN. For Marcelo,
Killing Parents is passage to become Hitman. Now killing his parents became ritual for
him. This is a social phenomenon. Marcelo Pesseghini
killed his parents to became a Hitman. Who is responsible this crime? A wrong interpretation
of such a dramatic story can lead to such a violent end.
So what are our responsibilities as a citizen? If our children are inspired by such a violent
games and movies, then we have to make sure that they are not misinterpreting the message
of the story. Playing with toy gun is merely a ritual for kid to live the heroic value
of the character, But sometime things get worse and they seeing violence as the only
option for a solution. So what we can do? We can help our children
to understand the meaning of the story with better example.
We people are very sensitive. We can be molded in the way storyteller want. But this power
should not be misused. Story is like fire, it can be used to warm a city or to burn it
down.